Major Goals and Objectives

This project was funded through the “Social and Economic Impacts of PFAS in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain Regions” opportunity. 

The main objective of our proposal is how to communicate risk to focus on factors that could increase compliance with PFAS recommendations (e.g., using water filtration systems) and avoid unintended consequences, such as dismissing a complex message due to lack of understanding or generating fear and threat perception without a means to alleviate the threat. We have three studies where we focus specifically on: 1.) What types of information people look for online about PFAS; 2.) what type of messaging is most effective for communicating about the health risk of PFAS in an experiment with a focus on the variables of efficacy to enact recommendations, level of fear and threat conveyed by the message, and complexity of the message, and, 3.) What PFAS-related messages are most engaging in a real-world paid message test conducted on social media to residents who rely on municipal water supplies, including tests targeting both English and Spanish-speakers.

Wisconsin Sea Grant will support outreach efforts for this project.