Climate change and public health in South America: a scoping review of governance and public engagement research

This scoping review examines peer-reviewed literature of governance and public engagement at the intersection of public health and climate change in South America. The review shows significant gaps in academic publications, particularly because health was mostly a secondary theme examined in the studies. The few studies about governmental interventions (e.g., policies and programs) suggest that these have not been effective. Regarding public engagement, no studies examined social media engagement with health and climate change, and only one examined news coverage. Finally, most articles focused primarily on individual countries, with few comparative or regional analyses of South America. Strategic action addressing climate change and its effects on public health needs to be based on empirical evidence.

The Lancet Countdown South America: increasing health opportunities by identifying the gaps in health and climate change research

South America is experiencing the effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and changes in temperature and precipitation patterns. These effects interact with existing social vulnerabilities, exacerbating their impact on the health and wellbeing of populations. This viewpoint highlights four main messages from the series, which presented key gaps from five different perspectives of health and climate. First, there is an overall need for local analyses of priority topics to inform public policy, which include national and sub-national evidence to adequately strengthen responses and preparedness for climate change hazards and address relevant social vulnerabilities in South American countries. Second, research in health and climate is done in silos and the intersection is not clear in terms of responsibility and leadership; therefore, transdisciplinary research and action are key. Third, climate research, policies, and action need to be reflected in effective funding schemes, which until now are very limited. For adaptation and mitigation policies to be effective, they need a robust and long-term funding scheme. Finally, climate action is a big opportunity for healthier and more prosperous societies in South America, taking the advantage of strategic climate policies to face the challenges of climate change and tackle existing social inequities.

I'm Lovin' It: How Fast Food Advertising Influences Meat-Eating Preferences

Overconsumption of red and processed meat is associated with a multitude of negative health outcomes. Previous research shows exposure to advertising messaging can influence dietary behaviors but research on the influence of meat advertising on diet, specifically, is scant. Theoretically informed by the Reasoned Action Approach, the present experiment randomly assigned participants to view a version of a print McDonald's advertisement that included meat imagery (a Big Mac), non-meat imagery (French fries), or no food (just the McDonalds' logo and slogan), which acted as a control. An online survey in the United States included 514 U.S. adults (M_age = 51 years). Participants exposed to meat imagery compared to the non-meat imagery reported a higher desire to eat meat. The meat imagery and control conditions were also significantly associated with increased cognitive accessibility of meat concepts, compared to when respondents were shown the no-meat condition. Desire to eat meat, but not the cognitive accessibility of meat concepts, was significantly associated with attitude, normative pressure, and perceived behavioral control for avoiding eating meat one day per week; these constructs predicted intention and willingness to avoid meat. Results indicate that exposure to meat imagery in advertising does have the potential to influence meat consumption behavior and also has implications for the use of meat imagery in persuasive messaging for public health campaigns.

Family and Cultural Perceptions About Meat Consumption among Hispanic/Latino and White Adults in the United States

The study examines the extent to which Hispanic/Latino Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans report that meat is an important aspect of their cultural beliefs and practices. An online national survey was completed using quota sampling to recruit approximately equal groups of U.S. Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic White Americans (n = 512). A path model predicting willingness to reduce meat consumption was estimated. Hispanic/Latino Americans viewed meat as a more integral aspect of their cultural food practices, and reported that meat dishes comprise a higher percentage of their culture's traditional foods. Cultural beliefs were associated with meat consumption and willingness to reduce meat consumption.

The Mediating Role of Family and Cultural Food Beliefs on the Relationship between Family Communication Patterns and Diet and Health Issues across Racial/Ethnic Groups

Consumption of red meat has been linked to a variety of health issues, yet Americans are resistant to reducing their meat consumption. Family communication environments shape beliefs about food and meat consumption, and therefore are locations for potential interventions to change the way people think about food. Families are embedded in cultures, and both family and cultural norms shape beliefs about what people should eat. This study (N = 773) is interested in understanding how family communication is associated with food beliefs, meat consumption, and health issues across three racial/ethnic groups: Black/African American (n = 256), Hispanic (n = 260), non-Hispanic White (n = 257). Structural equation modeling results showed that conversation orientation was consistently associated with stronger endorsement of family cultural food beliefs across race/ethnicity groups. Family food beliefs were associated with either more health issues or more meat consumption depending on race/ethnicity and mediated the association between conversation orientation and health issues/meat consumption. Conversation orientation moderated the association between conformity orientation and food beliefs for Hispanic and non-Hispanic White participants. Implications for family communication patterns theory and health scholars are discussed along with recommendations for culturally tailored family-focused health interventions.

Abstract or concrete? The effect of climate change images on people's estimation of egocentric psychological distance

Climate change has been widely perceived as a psychologically distant risk, largely viewed as separated from one's direct experience. Using construal-level theory, we examined how the level of abstraction and concreteness of climate change imagery affects viewers' perceived psychological distance of climate change, including spatial, temporal, social, and hypothetical (level of uncertainty) distances. Participants (n = 402) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions, one with abstract images and one with concrete images. Results show that the abstract and concrete images successfully activated people's abstract and concrete mind-sets, respectively, and people who viewed abstract images were more likely to perceive climate change as a spatially and temporally distant issue.

Climate Change Perceptions of NY State Farmers: The Role of Risk Perceptions and Adaptive Capacity

Climate change is expected to severely impact agricultural practices in many important food-producing regions, including the Northeast United States. Changing climate conditions, such as increases in the amount of rainfall, will require farmers to adapt. Yet, little is known with regard to farmers' perceptions and understandings about climate change, especially in the industrialized country context. This paper aims at overcoming this research limitation, as well as determining the existing contextual, cognitive, and psychological barriers that can prevent adoption of sustainable practices of farmers in New York State. The study is framed within the adaptive capacity and risk perception literature, and is based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with farmers in 21 farms in two counties in Central New York. The results reveal diverging views about the long-term consequences of climate change. Results also reveal that past experience remains as the most important source of information that influences beliefs and perceptions about climate change, confirming previous research.

Media sources, credibility, and perceptions of science: Learning about how people learn about science

Knowledge about science and technology has become increasingly important in this age of digital information overload. It is also becoming increasingly important to understand what contributes to scientific learning, including information sources and trust in those sources. In this study, we develop and test a multivariate model to explain scientific knowledge based on past theories on learning from the news from the fields of political communication, sociology, and media psychology. We focus on the impact of sources-by platform, such as television and online, and by expertise, such as scientists and the media-in understanding what predicts scientific knowledge. The results show that interest in science not only directly predicts knowledge but also has indirect effects on knowledge through its effects on Internet use, confidence in the press, and perception of scientists. In addition, distrust on the news sources is an important pathway to learning about science.

Climate change in Peruvian newspapers: The role of foreign voices in a context of vulnerability

Media coverage of climate change has been an area of continued research during the last years, mostly with a focus on developed countries. This study attempts to contribute to this body of work by analyzing the coverage in a developing country. The study presents a content analysis of newspaper coverage of climate change in Peru through the study of frames, geographical focus, and climate change strategies (mitigation/adaptation). Additionally, the role of foreign voices is assessed by comparing the coverage by Peruvian reporters with the coverage by wire services, and by determining the types of sources present in the articles. Results show a prevalence of an effects frame, followed by a politics frame. Also, the study found a significant amount of stories originating from wire services. In general, coverage prioritizes mitigation strategies and policies while providing limited attention to adaptation, which can be insufficient for a highly vulnerable country.

Framing and sources: a study of mass media coverage of climate change in Peru during the V ALCUE

Studies about mass media framing have found divergent levels of influence on public opinion; moreover, the evidence suggests that issue attributes can contribute to this difference. In the case of climate change, studies have focused exclusively on developed countries, suggesting that media influence perceptions about the issue. This study presents one of the first studies of media coverage in a developing country. It examines newspapers' reporting in Peru during the Fifth Latin America, Caribbean and European Union Summit in May 2008. The study focuses on the frames and the sources to provide an initial exploratory assessment of the coverage. The results show that the media relied mostly on government sources, giving limited access to dissenting voices such as environmentalists. Additionally, a prominence of "solutions" and "effects" frames was found, while "policy" and "science" frames were limited. The results could serve as a reference point for more comprehensive studies.

Paradoxically enhanced bradykinin-induced venodilation in young, healthy, short-term smokers

Bradykinin is a nonapeptide, whose mechanism of vasodilation is mediated chiefly through the release of endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). Diminished vasodilatory response to EDRF has been demonstrated in many pathologic states such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes, and long-term, heavy smoking. We studied whether the diminished EDRF-mediated vasodilatory response seen in chronic diseases can be demonstrated in young, clinically healthy smokers. We used the dorsal hand-vein compliance technique, an in vivo technique used to measure response to local infusions of vasoactive substances. Full dose-response curves to bradykinin (dosing range, 0.5-500 ng/min) were generated in 11 young, healthy smokers and 11 young, healthy nonsmokers by using hand veins preconstricted with phenylephrine (dosing range, 20-6,800 ng/min). In addition, after a washout period, a single maximal dose of a non-endothelium-dependent vasodilator, isoproterenol (300 ng/min) was infused. Our results demonstrated that smokers had a greater maximal venodilation to bradykinin than did nonsmokers (106 +/- 40% vs. 69 +/- 49%; p < 0.05). The log of the dose that produced half-maximal response to bradykinin was smaller in smokers: -0.10 +/- 0.93 (0.79 ng/min) versus 0.75 +/- 0.84 (5.6 ng/min); p < 0.05. There was no difference in the maximal dilatory response to isoproterenol: 80 +/- 45% (smokers) versus 89 +/- 50% (nonsmokers), nor was there a difference in the log dose of phenylephrine necessary to produce 80% constriction of the hand vein (2.7 +/-0.7 vs. 2.7 +/- 0.9 ng/min) between the two groups. We conclude that young, otherwise healthy smokers have a paradoxic hyperactive response to the endothelium-dependent vasodilator, bradykinin, but maintain a similar response to the nonendothelium-dependent vasodilator, isoproterenol as compared with nonsmokers. Their reactivity to the alpha1-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine was found to be intact. It is possible that a hyperactive response to EDRF in young smokers contributes to endothelium damage seen in chronic disease. To our knowledge, this is the first report on increased reactivity to bradykinin in short-term smokers.

Bradykinin-induced venodilation is not different in blacks

AIMS

The aim of this study was to determine whether young, normotensive blacks who have been recently demonstrated to have a venodilator response to isoprenaline decreased compared with whites, also have an decreased vasodilatory response to bradykinin.

METHODS

Eleven black and 11 white subjects were studied. Full dose-response curves to bradykinin (dosing range 0.5-500 ng min-1) were generated in hand veins preconstricted with phenylephrine (dosing range 20-6800 ng min-1).

RESULTS

The groups had a similar maximal response to bradykinin (57.6 +/- 32.2% vs 67.8 +/- 49.3%, P = NS 95% confidence interval for the difference (CI): -47.3, 26.8). Also, the log of the dose that produced half maximal response to bradykinin was similar for the two groups (0.89 +/- 0.58 vs 0.78 +/- 0.61 ng min-1, P = NS, 95% CI: -0.42, 0.64). There was no difference between the two groups in the log dose of phenylephrine necessary to produce 80% constriction of the hand vein.

CONCLUSION

Diminished vasodilatory response to endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) does not seem to be associated with the increased prevalence of hypertension in blacks.

Impaired beta 2-adrenergic agonist-induced venodilation in Indians of Asian origin

OBJECTIVES

Vascular responsiveness to infusions of vasoactive substances varies between ethnic groups. Indians of Asian origin are a rapidly growing ethnic group in the United States but have not been extensively studied. We sought to determine whether there was any difference in venous responsiveness to a local infusion of vasoactive substances between Indians of Asian origin and white subjects.

METHODS

We used the dorsal hand vein compliance technique to construct full dose-response curves to the beta 2-agonist isoproterenol (2 to 270 ng/min) in hand veins preconstricted with phenylephrine in 11 young white subjects and in 11 young Asian Indian subjects. In addition, six subjects in each group were randomly selected to have full dose-response curves to nitroglycerin (0.006 to 1485 ng/min) generated.

RESULTS

The maximal response (E(max)) to isoproterenol was smaller in Asian Indians (33.9% +/- 41.1% in Asian Indians versus 107.0% +/- 60.1% in white subjects; p < 0.01). There was no difference in the log of the dose that produced half-maximal venodilation [log(ED50)] between the two groups (1.10 +/- 0.57 in Asian Indians versus 1.15 +/- 0.50 in white subjects). However, nitroglycerin infusion produced similar responses for both the E(max) and the log(ED50) between the two groups.

CONCLUSION

These results indicate that differences may exist in beta-adrenergic responsiveness among white subjects and Indians of Asian origin. Therapy for diseases that use beta-adrenergic responses, such as hypertension, must take into account these differential vascular responses because they may affect their efficacy in Asian Indians.