Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, PO Box 420, Trenton, NJ 08625, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Oct 10;738:139689. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139689. Epub 2020 May 25.
Research into precautionary action suggests outreach with personally-relevant risk information may help overcome optimistic biases, which have been shown to impede voluntary testing for arsenic by at-risk private well households. Since 2002, New Jersey's Private Well Testing Act (PWTA) has required testing for arsenic during real estate transactions. The PWTA database of over 35,000 geocoded well arsenic tests offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of targeted outreach to neighbors living in proximity to a known high arsenic well with variable risk messaging to motivate testing. In this study, residents of properties (n = 1743) located within 500 ft and between 500 and 1000 ft of a known high arsenic well (>5 μg/L, New Jersey's drinking water arsenic standard) were mailed a notice of the high arsenic result in their neighborhood and offered a free water test. Overall 274 households (16%) requested a test kit and 230 (13%) ultimately submitted a water sample; with significantly higher participation rates among those told their neighborhood well had an arsenic concentration "over 5 times higher" than the standard, compared to those told the concentration was "above." Overall, 25% of wells tested (n = 230), and 47% (n = 66) of non-treated wells located within 500 ft of a well with >25 μg/L arsenic, exceeded the standard for arsenic. Both the arsenic concentration and distance to the neighboring well were significant predictors of exceedance. Given the high proportion of previously untested wells (70%) and their owners' lack of awareness of arsenic in their area (80%), this targeting approach succeeded not only in identifying a much higher proportion of at risk wells than blanket testing by town or county, but also in motivating testing among households unreached by prior awareness-raising activities. In conclusion, geographically and personally-relevant risk targeted messaging and outreach are both efficient and effective.
预防行动研究表明，提供与个人相关的风险信息的外展活动可能有助于克服乐观偏见，乐观偏见已被证明会阻碍高风险私人水井家庭自愿进行砷检测。自 2002 年以来，新泽西州的《私人水井测试法案》（PWTA）要求在房地产交易中进行砷检测。超过 35,000 个地理编码水井砷测试的 PWTA 数据库为评估针对已知高砷水井附近邻居的有针对性外展的效果提供了独特的机会，这些邻居的风险信息各不相同，目的是鼓励他们进行检测。在这项研究中，位于已知高砷水井（>5μg/L，新泽西州饮用水砷标准） 500 英尺内和 500 至 1000 英尺内的物业（n=1743）的居民收到了邻居高砷结果的通知，并提供了免费的水质测试。总体而言，有 274 户家庭（16%）要求提供测试包，有 230 户（13%）最终提交了水样；与被告知邻居水井的砷浓度“高于标准 5 倍以上”的人相比，那些被告知浓度“高于标准”的人的参与率显著更高。总体而言，接受测试的水井比例为 25%（n=230），且 500 英尺内有浓度超过 25μg/L 砷的水井的未经处理的水井比例为 47%（n=66），超过了砷的标准。水井的砷浓度和与邻居水井的距离均是超标与否的显著预测因素。鉴于高比例的以前未经测试的水井（70%）及其所有者对其所在地区砷的认识不足（80%），这种有针对性的方法不仅成功地确定了比按城镇或县进行全面测试更高比例的高风险水井，而且还促使以前未开展提高认识活动的家庭进行了测试。总之，地理和个人相关的风险有针对性的信息传递和外展活动既高效又有效。
