Urban Planning and Design, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren'ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, 215123, China; Geography and Planning University of Liverpool Roxby Building, Liverpool, L69 7Zt, United Kingdom.
Urban Planning and Design, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren'ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, 215123, China.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Dec;371:123087. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123087. Epub 2024 Oct 30.
Our study presents fresh insight into the impacts of air-related information accessibility and policy awareness on citizen's life satisfaction, through the lens of perceived air pollution sources. It is widely accepted that disclosing information about air pollution adversely affects an individual's life satisfaction. However, the impact of information accessibility and public policy awareness on life satisfaction remains poorly understood in real-life contexts and their interrelationship warrants exploration. Earlier studies suggested that public scrutiny via information disclosure is a means to lower air pollution levels, potentially enhancing life satisfaction through improved air quality perception and reduced health risks. However, much of that research was based on the flawed presumption that all individuals can access and understand this officially disclosed information. They overlooked the actual availability of information and public reflections on relevant policies that were influenced by their perception of air pollution. This research gap highlights the need for in-depth evidence of the impacts of information accessibility and policy awareness on life satisfaction. Employing a covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling, our study analyses the views of 1867 Beijing residents in 2022. We assessed information accessibility, policy awareness, perceived air pollution sources, life satisfaction, and socio-demographic characteristics covering two time periods: a) before the COVID-19 pandemic and b) during its normalisation phase. Our findings reveal that both information accessibility and policy awareness significantly and positively affect life satisfaction in both periods. Moreover, the indirect parameter analysis underscores the presence of significant heterogeneity when considering the mediating role of impacts of perceived air pollutants. The results of this study offer a novel contribution regarding the relationship between air pollution information accessibility, policy awareness, and life satisfaction.
我们的研究通过感知空气污染来源的视角，深入探讨了与空气相关的信息可及性和政策意识对公民生活满意度的影响。人们普遍认为，披露空气污染信息会对个人的生活满意度产生不利影响。然而，在现实生活中，信息可及性和公众政策意识对生活满意度的影响及其相互关系仍知之甚少，这需要进一步探讨。早期的研究表明，通过信息披露进行公众监督是降低空气污染水平的一种手段，通过改善空气质量感知和降低健康风险，可能会提高生活满意度。然而，这些研究大多基于一个有缺陷的假设，即所有个体都可以获得和理解这些官方披露的信息。它们忽略了信息的实际可及性和公众对相关政策的看法，这些看法受到他们对空气污染的感知的影响。这一研究空白突出了深入研究信息可及性和政策意识对生活满意度影响的必要性。本研究采用基于协方差的结构方程模型，分析了 2022 年北京 1867 名居民的观点。我们评估了信息可及性、政策意识、感知空气污染来源、生活满意度以及涵盖两个时间段的社会人口特征：a）新冠疫情前，b）疫情正常化阶段。研究结果表明，在两个时间段内，信息可及性和政策意识都显著且积极地影响着生活满意度。此外，间接参数分析强调了在考虑感知空气污染物影响的中介作用时存在显著的异质性。本研究的结果为空气污染信息可及性、政策意识和生活满意度之间的关系提供了新的贡献。
