Abstract
Public health communication strategies to protect against the health impacts of air pollution due to landscape fire are becoming increasingly urgent in Australia. How well the public, particularly susceptible populations, are receiving, understanding and acting upon health protection messages related to smoke events is poorly understood. This integrative review sought literature relevant to health protection messaging for smoke events, including appropriate message content and suitable message delivery, with a focus on vulnerable and sensitive populations. Using an exhaustive search strategy of databases and grey literature, 26 relevant articles were identified and thematically analysed to produce a synthesis of findings on key themes. Findings indicated that a variety of traditional and modern communication channels are needed to ensure health messages are received by those most at-risk and should consider locally relevant information. A key theme to emerge in this review was the need for health messaging to susceptible populations to commence in advance of bushfire seasons to facilitate health protective actions being taken. During the acute-phase of smoke events, messages that were short with non-technical advice, were recalled and complied with more often. The need to improve the consistency of message content was a recurrent theme in the literature and suggested a need for greater interagency collaboration and communication. Preliminary evidence from smartphone app studies show promising results for targeted communication, however, more robust research is needed on the efficacy of these communication channels. Further research is also needed on the health impacts of smoke events, related compounding issues and strategies to reduce health risks, to better inform health protection messaging to susceptible populations.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Mr Greg Bell (Assistant Director, Public Health) and Mr Paul Corben (Director, Public Health) of North Coast Public Health Unit (NCPHU), New South Wales Health, Australia for their generous and timely support and advice on this research project that SK performed while being on placement within NCPHU under the supervision of KMR. We would also like to thank Ms Ernesta Sofija (Lecturer, Public Health and Health Promotion, Griffith University, Australia) for advising SK on her review, as being the Coordinator of the Public Health Practice course.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Ethical approval: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2020-0134).
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