Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Public engagement opportunities for the indoor air community

2018; Wiley; Volume: 28; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/ina.12498

1600-0668

Nina Notman, Nicola Carslaw,

Impact of Technology on Adolescents

Today, in the developed world, the average person spends 90% of their life indoors and 70% of that time cocooned inside their own home. But while public understanding of the sources and risks of outdoor air pollution has been growing for decades, there is much less awareness of the potential sources of indoor air pollution and any risks posed by these. In part, this is due to scientific understanding of indoor air pollution historically lagging behind that for the outdoors. However, the absence of regulations for Indoor Air Quality also contributes to the lack of urgency in dealing with this issue. As knowledge of indoor air pollution sources, associated health risks and potential mitigating behaviors grows, so will the desire to protect the public accordingly. Working alongside policymakers will be instrumental in achieving this, but there is much more the indoor air community can be doing in parallel to boost public awareness of their research findings. In turn, of course, raising public interest in a field can push forward relevant policy. However, scientists cannot just tell people to do X, Y, and Z, and expect them to dutifully follow their instruction. Communicating science to the public is difficult, was a perhaps unsurprising finding of the 2015 National Academies report Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda.1 The reasons for this include difficulties conveying some topics in lay language, the many different reasons a scientist might have for wanting to share research findings, and the myriad of possible audience demographic makeups. Topics where the societal implications of the science are controversial or there are disagreements about the results within the scientific community, such as genetically modified organisms and climate change, are particularly troublesome. The overarching purpose of the National Academies’ report was to study the science behind science communication—to review evidence into the most effective ways for scientists to engage with the public. Its authors found little evidence to review, meaning that the report—while an interesting read—does not end with a “dummies guide” to effective science communication as one might have hoped. Instead, it calls for further research efforts into effective science communication practices. A previous editorial in this journal highlighted a number of focused efforts looking at how best to communicate the health effects of indoor exposure to particulate matter.2 The authors reached a similar conclusion to that of the National Academies report that there is still much to learn about how best to inform the public about indoor particulate matter risks. But this lack of evidence does not mean the indoor air community should be holding back from public engagement, quite the opposite. It should be out experimenting with a range of public engagement strategies, and collecting evidence, on how best to get its particular messages across. Many scientists feel reluctant to engage with the public, though many grant makers now encourage grant holders to participate in public engagement activities. A frequently heard argument against doing public engagement is the often false perception that the public are not interested in what scientists have to say. A number of loud and persistent “antiscience” voices, that are currently being given large platforms, are often offered up as evidence to support that argument. However, there is evidence that such voices do not represent the views held by the majority of society. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey, conducted in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, found that 79% of adults believed that science has made life easier for most people and the majority were also positive about science's impact on the environment.3 Another 2015 survey, by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry, found that 84% of the public agreed that chemists make a valuable contribution to society.4 If you accept that public engagement is worth your time and effort, then where to start? We suggest considering a public lecture. These have always been the bedrock of science communication, and a number of studies have confirmed their efficiency. In 2013, for example, a study was published looking at the effectiveness of the classic Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI)'s Christmas lecture series. Nearly every year since its initiation in 1825, school children aged 11-17 have been invited to the RI lecture theatre in central London to watch these live science shows. Since 1936, these have been recorded and broadcasted on BBC television, making it the world's oldest televised science series, with episodes typically reaching around a million viewers. In 2013, one of the presenters sought to quantify the impact his RI talk had had on school children that saw him presenting it live. Bruce Hood, a psychology professor at the University of Bristol in the UK, re-gave his 2011 “Meet your brain” show to 250 students. The pupils were tested on four neuroscience facts 1 week before, 1 week after, and 6 weeks after the lecture. The results revealed significant knowledge transfer—and retention—with mean correct responses jumping from 40% before the lecture, to 75% after 1 week, and more impressively near-holding at 73% 6 weeks later.5 Today, there are a number of stellar science communicators on our TVs. Some—including naturalist Sir David Attenborough, particle physicist Brian Cox, and astronaut Chris Hadfield—also tour the globe filling huge venues normally reserved for rock concerts and sporting events. Cox holds the Guinness World Record for the most tickets ever sold for a science tour.6 A tour of the UK and Ireland from September 2016 to April 2017 sold more than 150 000 tickets, with the largest venue—Wembley Arena—holding 8700 people. Another, less expected side-effect of Cox's popularity is the so-called Brian Cox effect. The UK university admissions service UCAS reported a 52% increase in admissions to UK university physics in 2012 compared to 2008—something Cox was credited with contributing to.7 Why not consider channeling your inner Brian Cox and give some public lectures? There are many possibilities for indoor air scientists happy to do so. Most scientific societies, universities, and science museums run extensive public lecture programs. Some grassroots initiatives also offer public lecture opportunities. The UK's Cafe Scientifique, for example, runs approximately seventy “local cafes” that invite a different scientist to talk to a diverse audience every month or so. Many countries have a national science week with lectures. British Science Week, for example, attracts around a million participants each year. The American Chemical Society's National Chemistry Week reaches tens of thousands of people in Washington DC each fall. These science weeks also offer the opportunity to share research findings with the public through displays and hands-on exhibits. As do museums: Most large cities have dedicated science museums, and many more have museums with science in their remit. The visitor numbers at some of these are vast—the 20 US Smithsonian museums, for example, attracted 30 million visitors between them in 2017, while the London Science Museum draws in 3 million people per year. Is there a museum near you that you could volunteer to work with? Recent years have also seen some large, highly coordinated—and very successful—public engagement campaigns from which the indoor air community could seek inspiration. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s outreach work in the run-up to the total solar eclipse in North America on August 21, 2017, is one example. NASA, and its partners, ran an unprecedented number of different public engagement programs, using museums, science centers, planetariums, national parks, Girl and Boy Scouts, school and after-school programs, public libraries, and the media to inform the public what a total solar eclipse is, how best to watch it, and how to keep safe while doing so. It has been estimated that 88% of US adults watched the event either directly or electronically. That is nearly twice the viewership of recent Super Bowl football games and almost 30% more adults then voted in the 2016 presidential election.8 A second recent, noteworthy public engagement effort was the UK's Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) 2016 campaign to name its new polar research vessel.9 The public were invited to suggest names and then vote for their favorite. One proposal, Boaty McBoatface, became a social media sensation and hit headlines across the world. By the end of the campaign, members of the public had suggested 32 000 names and hundreds of thousands of votes had been cast. But more importantly, the world was suddenly discussing a polar research ship and the fact that it was going to investigate whether warmer waters are responsible for the melting the glaciers and ice shelves in Antarctica. Public and media interest in this ship remains high. In June 2018, the indoor air scientific community ran its first significant public engagement campaign. The month-long HOMEChem test house campaign had a number of science communication efforts running alongside it. HOMEChem was the largest study yet to observe how chemicals behave in indoor air, involving researchers and equipment from 20 international research groups. The National Press Foundation, which seeks to educate journalists, and the YouTube influencer for the construction trade Corbett Lunsford, both visited and produced videos about the campaign. An IAQRadio show broadcast live from the house. Many of the participating scientists also directly shared the project's progress on Twitter using the hashtag #HOMEChem. Do you have any ideas for another indoor air public awareness campaign to complement your research? Social media also played a large role in the success of the Boaty McBoatyface story, and for individuals feeling a little reluctant about dipping their toes into public engagement, it is a very good place to start. The most successful science professors on Twitter pepper their scientific tweets with details that make them feel human to their followers. Some members of the indoor air community are already developing voices on social media; University of Portland's Richard Corsi, for example, had 2456 Twitter followers as of July 2018, and University of Colorado Boulder's Marina Vance (co-PI of HOMEChem) had 2171 Twitter followers. In June 2018, a study was published addressing the concern that Twitter might be an echo-chamber, where members are just preaching to the choir.10 The authors found clear evidence that social media can be used by scientists as a first step to disseminate research findings and messages well beyond the ivory tower. They looked at the Twitter accounts of 100 ecology and evolutionary biology faculty members, finding that their followers were predominantly other scientists. However, once the academics crossed a threshold of about 1000 followers, the follower types became more diverse to include research and educational organizations, media, members of the public with no stated association with science, and a few decision-makers. Decision-makers increased in numbers when tweeting academics reached beyond 2200 followers. Another big bonus of Twitter is the small amount of time required to participate. Tweeting about your research such as when you publish new papers, highlights from meetings you attend and retweeting messages from others, will take just a few minutes per week. The more you tweet, the more followers you will get and the more you can choose to engage (or not). If you do decide to join Twitter, consider using hashtags such as #indoorair to make it easier for people to find you and your tweets. Finally, please do not consider public engagement a tick box exercise just to be done to appease a funding body. You might find the experience of science communication with the public hugely rewarding. This was certainly the case for one of us at a recent Café Scientifique lecture where the number of participants, level of engagement, and wide number of questions of varying complexity exceeded those received in many of her university lectures! For many members of the public, this is the closest they will come to meeting a real-life scientist and you have an excellent opportunity to spread the word about your research. The authors acknowledge the support of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation under Grant Number G-2018-10083 to write this editorial.