UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF AND RESPONSES TO HEAT WAVES: A BEHAVIOURAL DECISION RESEARCH APPROACH

We propose a UK-wide study of public responses to the recent heat wave over time. We will test the effect of different ways of asking people to remember the recent heat wave on their heat-related risk perceptions, climate-change concerns, and willingness to implement heat-protection over time. If there is an effect, then public preparedness for heat waves could be improved by invoking memories of heat waves, thus helping people to avoid serious heat-related problems. Our findings are important for organisations such as the National Health Service (NHS) and Public Health England (PHE), which design communications to improve public heat protection.
This work is urgent and policy relevant, because (1) heat waves are rare in the UK but are projected to become more common under a changing climate; (2) heat waves cause excess deaths, illness and discomfort; (3) little is known about people's willingness to implement heat-protection, but a few studies have shown that even at-risk adults do not see themselves as vulnerable to heat; (4) it remains unclear how to best motivate people to protect themselves, with policies such as the NHS/PHE heat wave plan not yet formally evaluated; and (5) attempts to promote public heat protection could be more effective if memories of experienced heat are rekindled.
Our interdisciplinary team combines the needed expertise in behavioural decision research and environmental science, in which this proposal is grounded. Behavioural decision research shows that people think of their risks as lower than they actually are, unless they remember events that posed them at risk. Environmental science shows that extreme weather is memorable, but UK residents may feel 'nostalgic' as experienced heat is further in the past. Thus, communications that invoke memories of heat may work initially but become ineffective over time, unless memories of unpleasant heat are explicitly invoked. We are the first to test whether explicit instructions to remember experiences with unpleasant heat can help to avoid reductions in people's perceptions of heat-related risks, climate-change concerns, and willingness to implement heat protection over time.
Our survey will recruit 1500 participants nationally, oversampling individuals who are older and more vulnerable to heat. They will be surveyed immediately (within 1 month of award), 6 months later (spring), and 9 months later (summer). Each participant will get the same survey and instructions each time, but there will be four groups. The 'free-recall' control group will be asked to think about 2013 summer temperatures they experienced without receiving any further instructions, and can thus freely answer the survey questions based on memories that are naturally occurring. The 'highest maximum temperature' recall group will be asked to remember 'the highest maximum' temperature they experienced in the summer of 2013, and the 'most unpleasant temperature' recall group will be asked to remember 'the most unpleasant' temperature they experienced in the summer of 2013, before answering the rest of the survey. These three groups are expected to think more of pleasant hot or unpleasant cold summer weather as positive affect about heat increases over time - possibly reducing their risk perceptions and willingness to implement risk reduction. Only the fourth group, which is asked for 'the most unpleasant highest maximum' temperature they experienced in the summer of 2013, is expected to avoid reductions in risk perceptions, climate-change concerns, and willingness to implement risk reduction. If so, then those instructions should be included in heat-protection communications.
Follow-up work will test insights relevant to public responses to other extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and snow. Our findings will impact theory and practice about how to design effective risk communication, and help to promote public preparedness and resilience in the face of extreme weather.

Because our study aims to understand how to best promote public preparedness for heat, the ultimate beneficiaries include any individuals who are at risk for heat-related death, heat-related illness, and discomfort. These risks could be reduced if people received effective communications about how to protect themselves from heat. Effective communications are needed because UK residents perceive hot summers as rare (Fuller & Bulkeley, 2012; Harley, 2003), do not expect that climate change will lead to more heat waves in the UK (Lorenzoni et al., 2006), and do not seem to perceive themselves at risk even if they are vulnerable to heat (Abrahamson et al., 2009; Fuller & Bulkeley, 2012; Wolf et al., 2010). If our strategies for motivating people to implement heat protection are indeed effective, they can be easily applied to existing communications about heat risk, for widespread dissemination to UK residents. We will publicly release training materials about how to design effective communications, based on the PI's and international co-I's expertise in writing such how-to guides (Bruine de Bruin & Bostrom, in press; Fischhoff et al., 2011). International Co-I Fischhoff (2011) designed such a how-to guide for the US Food and Drug Administration.
Other beneficiaries include organisations that design communications with the goal of encouraging people to protect against heat. The effectiveness of such communications has not yet been formally evaluated. The 2013 Heat Wave Plan of the National Health Service (NHS) and Public Health England (PHE) recommends heat-protection strategies, but little is known about people's willingness to implement these strategies, or how to improve it (Kovats & Hajat, 2008). NHS and PHE will be asked for input before we conduct our survey so that it better meets their needs for understanding public responses to heat waves. Co-I Dr. Kovats will provide insights and connections from her current fellowship, which involves work with stakeholders to understand how to promote public preparedness for climate change. We will also give these organisations our findings and the training materials for designing communications (as discussed above), so that they can use them and share them with their network. Our findings and how-to training materials will be posted on a project website linked to the website of our Centre for Decision Research at the University of Leeds. We will invite other users to contact us if they want us to provide direct feedback on how to improve their communications.
Additional beneficiaries are policy makers (e.g., Department of Health) who aim to protect people from heat-related risks such as death, illness and discomfort. Policies may take different forms, including for example heat warnings and action plans, or regulations and subsidies to promote cooler buildings. Communications are typically an important part of any such policies. If we can identify effective strategies for promoting people's willingness to protect themselves against heat, then policy makers will be able to apply those strategies to their communications. Although our work will be focused on the UK, we will share our findings in outreach workshops to international policy makers as organised by the International Risk Governance Council and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.
Finally, indirect beneficiaries are practitioners, policy makers and academics who aim to help people to reduce the risks that they face in their lives. Although our work will focus on public responses to heat waves in the UK, any identified strategies for promoting risk protection may be applicable to other risks. We have studied various health, environmental and financial risks. We plan to take the proposed work forward by testing the usefulness of any effective communication strategies in helping people to protect against these other risks. We will make effective strategies publicly available, with training materials.