Social interactions are widely recognized as a potential influence on risk-related behaviors. We present a mediation model in which social interactions (classified as formal/informal and generic/fire-specific) are associated with beliefs about wildfire risk and mitigation options, which in turn shape wildfire mitigation behaviors. We test this model using survey data from fire-prone areas of Colorado. In several cases, our results are consistent with the mediation hypotheses for mitigation actions specifically targeting vegetative fuel reduction. Perceived wildfire probability partially mediates the relationship between several interaction types and vegetative mitigation behaviors, while perceptions of aesthetic barriers and lack of information play a mediating role in the case of fire-specific formal interactions. Our results suggest that social interactions may allow mitigation and prevention behaviors to “catch fire” within a community, and that wildfire education programs could leverage these interactions to enhance programmatic benefits.

The long, fallacious history of attributing racial disparities in public health outcomes to biological inferiority or poor decision making persists in contemporary conversations about the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the disproportionate impacts of this pandemic on communities of color, it is essential for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to focus on how structural racism drives these disparate outcomes. In May and June 2020, we conducted a 6-state online survey to examine racial/ethnic differences in exposure to COVID-19, risk mitigation behaviors, risk perceptions, and COVID-19 impacts. Results show that Black and Hispanic individuals were more likely than White respondents to experience factors associated with structural racism (eg, living in larger households, going to work in person, using public transportation) that, by their very nature, increase the likelihood of exposure to COVID-19. Controlling for other demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, non-White respondents were equally or more likely than White respondents to take protective actions against COVID-19, including keeping distance from others and wearing masks. Black and Hispanic respondents also perceived higher risks of dying of the disease and of running out of money due to the pandemic, and 40% of Black respondents reported knowing someone who had died of COVID-19 at a time when the US death toll had just surpassed 100,000 people. To manage the current pandemic and prepare to combat future health crises in an effective, equitable, and antiracist manner, it is imperative to understand the structural factors perpetuating racial inequalities in the COVID-19 experience.

Like many other countries, Ghana relies on biomass (mainly wood and charcoal) for most of its cooking needs. A national action plan aims to expand liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) access to 50% of the country’s population by 2020. While the country’s southern urban areas have made progress toward this goal, LPG use for cooking remains low in the north. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to characterize the current state of the LPG market in this area and examine opportunities and barriers to scale up LPG adoption. We interviewed 16 LPG suppliers (stove, cylinder, and fuel vendors) as well as 592 households in the Kassena-Nankana Districts (KND) of Ghana. We find large rural–urban differences in LPG uptake: less than 10% of rural households own LPG stoves compared with over half of urban households. Awareness of LPG is high across the region, but accessibility of fuel supply is highly limited, with just one refilling station located in the KND. Affordability is perceived as the main barrier to LPG adoption, and acceptability is also limited by widespread concerns about the safety of cooking with LPG. Transitioning to a cylinder recirculation model, and providing more targeted subsidies and credit options, should be explored to expand access to cleaner cooking in this region.

Purpose of Review: “I can’t breathe” were the last words spoken by Eric Garner (July 17, 2014), Javier Ambler (March 28, 2019), Elijah McClain (August 30, 2019), Manuel Ellis (March 3, 2020), and George Floyd (May 25, 2020). These were all African American men who died at the hands of police in the United States. Recently, police brutality has gained critical and overdue attention as one clear manifestation of systemic racism. However, historical and current policies related to a wide range of environmental hazards have exposed Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to disproportionately high levels of physical, mental, social, emotional, and cultural toxicities, thus creating unbreathable and unlivable communities. Recent Findings: This paper traces the roots of systemic anti-Black racism in America from its origins in the 1400s, through systems of scientific racism that pathologized Blackness in order to justify slavery, and through evolving policies and structures that have shifted over time but consistently exposed many African American communities to unsafe and unhealthy environments. Summary: We conclude with calls for bold solutions to move through and past this oppressive history and toward true environmental justice the enables all communities to thrive together.

Public health programs that control mosquitoes and other disease vectors have the added benefit of reducing residents' exposure to pest insects. We surveyed homeowners in Madison, Wisconsin, and used an economic valuation method, stated-choice experiments, to measure willingness to pay (WTP) for control of West Nile virus (WNV)-transmitting and nuisance mosquitoes under current and increased levels of WNV risk. Under current WNV risk levels (approximately 1 in 250,000), the average Madison survey respondent was not willing to pay for programs that targeted West Nile-transmitting mosquitoes only (WTP=−$21, 95% [CI −$63, $20]), while WTP for a reduction in nuisance mosquitoes was substantial (WTP=$147, 95% [CI $109, $186]). As the risk of WNV was increased, WTP for control of disease-carrying mosquitoes also increased (WTP=$158; 95% CI [$111, $206] at the highest risk level), but WTP for nuisance control remained high (WTP=$108; 95% CI [$78, $138]). Among homeowners in our sample, the “nuisance factor” was more important than the “disease factor” in terms of respondents' demand for mosquito control.

Cooking over open fires using solid fuels is both common practice throughout much of the world and widely recognized to contribute to human health, environmental, and social problems. The public health burden of household air pollution includes an estimated four million premature deaths each year. To be effective and generate useful insight into potential solutions, cookstove intervention studies must select cooking technologies that are appropriate for local socioeconomic conditions and cooking culture, and include interdisciplinary measurement strategies along a continuum of outcomes. REACCTING (Research on Emissions, Air quality, Climate, and Cooking Technologies in Northern Ghana) is an ongoing interdisciplinary randomized cookstove intervention study in the Kassena-Nankana District of Northern Ghana. The study tests two types of biomass burning stoves that have the potential to meet local cooking needs and represent different “rungs” in the cookstove technology ladder: a locally-made low-tech rocket stove and the imported, highly efficient Philips gasifier stove. Intervention households were randomized into four different groups, three of which received different combinations of two improved stoves, while the fourth group serves as a control for the duration of the study. Diverse measurements assess different points along the causal chain linking the intervention to final outcomes of interest. We assess stove use and cooking behavior, cooking emissions, household air pollution and personal exposure, health burden, and local to regional air quality. Integrated analysis and modeling will tackle a range of interdisciplinary science questions, including examining ambient exposures among the regional population, assessing how those exposures might change with different technologies and behaviors, and estimating the comparative impact of local behavior and technological changes versus regional climate variability and change on local air quality and health outcomes. REACCTING is well-poised to generate useful data on the impact of a cookstove intervention on a wide range of outcomes. By comparing different technologies side by side and employing an interdisciplinary approach to study this issue from multiple perspectives, this study may help to inform future efforts to improve health and quality of life for populations currently relying on open fires for their cooking needs.