Globally, environmental pollution continues to be a significant public health problem, and according to the World Health Organisation, pollution-induced deaths account for 23% of deaths yearly, which could be prevented if people lived in healthier environments. Despite implementing multilateral agreements and international treaties such as the Bamako, Basel, Rotterdam, Minamata, and Stockholm conventions, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and national laws, toxic pollutants remain a serious environmental and public health problem in low-income countries. In the specific context of Kwekwe City, an industrial and mining area in Zimbabwe, where environmental and pollution-induced health problems associated with industries have been widely reported, this study was conducted in close collaboration with the local community. The study aimed to assess community members\' perceptions regarding health risks associated with potentially toxic elements and cyanide pollution in Kwekwe City. An explorative cross-sectional study was conducted with key stakeholders and industrial settlements\' residents. Face-to-face interviews with key informants and focus group discussions with residents and workers were used to gather data. A thematic approach was utilised in data analysis. Study participants, who played a crucial role in the research process, perceived that industrial pollution principally linked to cyanide, mercury and chromium posed significant environmental and health risks. This participatory approach in risk perception assessment is critical in providing insight into the scope of the problem and formulating intervention strategies. However, given that qualitative study results lack generalisability and replicability, quantitative studies need to be undertaken to determine environmental levels of toxic chemical pollutants as a complementary and validative measure.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about community knowledge and stigma towards leprosy in endemic settings. The aim of this study was to evaluate community knowledge, attitudes and stigma towards leprosy in Nigeria.
METHODS: This was a mixed-methods study consisting of a quantitative cross-sectional survey of community members and qualitative focus group discussions with community members and people affected by leprosy as well as key informant interviews with healthcare workers and community leaders.
RESULTS: Of the 811 survey participants, 401 (49.4%) had a poor knowledge of leprosy that was driven by cultural beliefs, fear of its contagiousness and poor knowledge of its means of transmission. The participants reported high stigma levels with a mean score of 18.96±7.73 on the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue Community Stigma Scale and 9.39±7.03 on the Social Distance Scale. Stigma levels were influenced by age, residence, education and knowledge of leprosy. Qualitative data suggested that community members were scared of leprosy infectiousness, and local illness concepts and misconceptions informed attitudes and behaviour towards leprosy in the community.
CONCLUSIONS: Community members have a poor knowledge of, and high stigma levels towards leprosy. Culture-specific health education and behavioural change interventions are needed to address the identified gaps.

BACKGROUND: This study explored risk perception characteristics and influencing factors among informal caregivers of functionally dependent elderly individuals at home, aiming to improve caregivers\' caregiving risk perception and coping abilities and ultimately enhance the quality of life for these individuals.
METHODS: We used purposive sampling to select 22 informal caregivers from a community in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China, between March and September 2023 and conducted face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interviews. The data were analyzed using Colaizzi\'s seven-step analysis method.
RESULTS: We extracted two themes, caregiving risk perception characteristics and caregiving risk perception associated factors, and eight sub-themes, perceived risk possibility, perceived risk anticipation, perceived severity of consequences, past caregiving experiences, health literacy, psychological status, caregiving burden, and family social support.
CONCLUSIONS: There were differences in how informal caregivers perceived the risks associated with caring for functionally dependent elderly individuals at home, which various factors could influence. It was essential to provide training that covered the knowledge and skills needed for caregiving, improve caregivers\' awareness of safety risks, and establish a correct perception of caregiving risks. The government must construct and refine a comprehensive framework for caregiver respite services. Simultaneously, healthcare professionals should proactively undertake health education endeavors to augment the recognition of care safety risks among informal caregivers, thereby cultivating an accurate awareness of care risk perception.

Due to their inherent properties, biocidal products might pose a risk to human and animal health and the environment. In risk management, there exists uncertainty about private users\' comprehension of and willingness-to-adhere to use instructions that mitigate these risks (e.g., limit frequency of use or application area). This study aimed at providing insights into the users\' perspective by focusing on their attention, comprehension, and the attitudinal predictors of protection motivation. In the online study (N = 957 participants from Germany) were introduced to a hypothetical purchase scenario featuring an insect spray and a realistic set of use instructions. Next, the participants\' attention for the use instruction was measured in self-report and by tracking the time spent on the page with the use instruction, while Likert scale-type questions measured the comprehensibility, protection motivation, and predictors. Participants reported higher protection motivation if they spent more time with the use instruction, perceived it as comprehensible, rated the threat to humans, animals, and the environment as more severe, perceived themselves as responsible (i.e., internal locus of control) and capable (i.e., self-efficacy) of adhering to the use instructions, perceived adherence to the use instructions as effective (i.e., response efficacy) and did not perceive biocidal products as inherently safe (i.e., neutral locus of control). These results offer valuable information for an improved regulation of biocidal products and better management of potential risks associated with their use. They also provide concepts for interventions to ensure users of biocidal products follow the instructions for a safe use and better protection of the environment.

OBJECTIVE: The impacts of passive (i.e., browsing) versus active (i.e., engagement) use of social media on e-cigarette use among youth have been understudied in existing literature. This study examines how passive and active use of social media are differentially associated with e-cigarette use among youth and how risk perceptions mediate these associations.
METHODS: Pooled data from the 2021 and 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey (N=48,704, aged 11-19) were used. Weighted structural equation models were employed to estimate the associations between passive and active social media use and youth e-cigarette use.
RESULTS: Both passive and active social media use were associated with higher odds and more days of e-cigarette use among youth. E-cigarette risk perceptions mediated the associations between active use and both the likelihood of ever using e-cigarettes and the number of days of use. Risk perceptions mediated the association between active, but not passive, use and the number of days of e-cigarette use. Compared to passive use, active use was overall associated with higher odds and more days of youth e-cigarette use.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that public health efforts should distinguish between passive and active social media use when designing and executing interventions. Attention and efforts should also be directed towards understanding the distinct indirect effects of passive and active social media use through risk perceptions. These findings advance our theoretical understanding of the role of different types of social media use and offer significant practical insights for interventions.

To investigate clinical nurses\' perception of adverse event risk and to analyze its influencing factors. A proportional stratified random sampling method was applied to recruit nurses from a hospital in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, China. The Nursing Adverse Event Risk Perception Scale, Organizational Support Questionnaire, Nurse Manager Leadership Behavior Questionnaire, Nursing Safety Behavior Questionnaire, and Burnout scale was used to investigate 1084 nurses. Univariate analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the influencing factors. The scores of the Nurses\' Risk Perception of Adverse Nursing Event Scale, Organizational Support Questionnaire, Nurse Manager Leadership Behavior Questionnaire, Nursing Safety Behavior Questionnaire, and Burnout Scale were 14.98 ± 5.39, 52.57 ± 10.00, 88.98 ± 21.08, 56.42 ± 5.03, 30.90 ± 21.49, respectively. According to the correlation analysis, nurses\' perception of adverse nursing events was positively correlated with the sense of organizational support (r = .457, P < .01), head nurses\' leadership behavior (r = .348, P < .01), and nurse safety behavior (r = .457, P < .01), and negatively correlated with the level of burnout (r = -.384, P < .01). According to the Regression analysis, nurses\' departments (β = .226, P < .001), daily working hours (β = 1.122, P < .001), adverse events experience (β = -1.505, P < .001), organizational support (β = .105, P < .001), head nurses\' leadership behavior (β = .072, P < .001), and burnout (β = -.052, P < .001) held an influence on nurses\' risk perception of adverse nursing event. These factors explained 42.5% of the total variation. Nurses\' risk perception of adverse nursing events needs to be improved. Nursing managers need to strengthen organizational support for nurses, change the leadership behavior of nurse managers, reduce nurses\' burnout, improve nurses\' risk perception of adverse nursing events, prevent adverse events, and ensure patient safety.

Background: Alcohol and prescription opioid use are highly prevalent among chronic pain populations. One-fifth of individuals prescribed opioids report same-day use of alcohol and opioids. Alcohol use and alcohol/opioid co-use can have deleterious pain management and health outcomes. The extent to which individuals with chronic pain are aware of these deleterious outcomes is considerably understudied.Objectives: To explore individuals\' understanding of seven health- and pain-related risks of alcohol/alcohol-opioid use. An exploratory aim was to examine whether greater risk awareness was associated with alcohol/opioid use patterns.Methods: Participants included 261 adults age ≥21(36.4% women) endorsing current alcohol use, chronic musculoskeletal pain, and opioid prescription who completed an online survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk.Results: Distribution of the total number of items for which a participant endorsed awareness was as follows: zero (10.7%), one (5.0%), two (13.0%), three (13.8%), four (13.8%), five (11.5%), six (10.0%), and seven items (22.2%). Awareness of the health consequences of alcohol/alcohol-opioid use was positively associated with opioid misuse behaviors (β = .525, ΔR2 = .251, p < .001), and higher-risk alcohol consumption (β = .152, ΔR2 = .021, p = .011).Conclusion: Many adults with chronic pain are unaware of the health consequences of alcohol/alcohol-opioid use. Findings of positive covariation between risk awareness and higher-risk alcohol/opioid use suggest that future interventions among this population should go beyond simple risk education and utilize motivational enhancement to help change decisional balance.

Vision-language models are of interest in various domains, including automated driving, where computer vision techniques can accurately detect road users, but where the vehicle sometimes fails to understand context. This study examined the effectiveness of GPT-4V in predicting the level of \'risk\' in traffic images as assessed by humans. We used 210 static images taken from a moving vehicle, each previously rated by approximately 650 people. Based on psychometric construct theory and using insights from the self-consistency prompting method, we formulated three hypotheses: (i) repeating the prompt under effectively identical conditions increases validity, (ii) varying the prompt text and extracting a total score increases validity compared to using a single prompt, and (iii) in a multiple regression analysis, the incorporation of object detection features, alongside the GPT-4V-based risk rating, significantly contributes to improving the model\'s validity. Validity was quantified by the correlation coefficient with human risk scores, across the 210 images. The results confirmed the three hypotheses. The eventual validity coefficient was r = 0.83, indicating that population-level human risk can be predicted using AI with a high degree of accuracy. The findings suggest that GPT-4V must be prompted in a way equivalent to how humans fill out a multi-item questionnaire.

The objectives of this study were to assess the adequacy of physical parameters/factors (temperature, relative humidity, noise, and illuminance levels) of the work environment in PHC facilities, to evaluate the association between the adequacy of these measured physical parameters and the physical characteristics of the PHC facilities and their surroundings and to assess the association between health professionals\' perceptions about exposure to physical risks in the PHC work environment and the adequacy of physical parameters measured in the same facilities. The study monitored 23 PHC facilities in southern Brazil and interviewed 210 health professionals. Data analysis involved Pearson\'s chi-square, Fisher\'s exact test, Spearman\'s correlation, and multivariate linear regression analysis was used to control for confounding factors. The significance level was set at 5% (p ≤ 0.05). The combination of temperature and relative humidity presented thermal comfort levels outside the adopted criteria for adequacy in consultation (outdoor relative humidity, p = 0.013) and procedure rooms (front door open, p = 0.034). Inadequate sound comfort (noise) levels in the morning shift were found in the vaccination (front door open, p = 0.021) and consultation rooms (movement of people, p = 0.016). In PHC facilities where reception rooms had insufficient lighting, internal curtains were opened less frequently (p = 0.047). The analysis of health professionals\' perceptions of physical factors demonstrated that physicians more frequently perceive the physical risk of temperature and humidity (p = 0.044). The higher the number of nurses (p = 0.004) and oral health technicians in the PHC facilities (p = 0.031), the greater the general percentage of adequacy of monitored physical parameters. It was also confirmed that the higher the perception of moderate or severe physical risk among health professionals, the lower the general percentage of the adequacy of the physical parameters of the work environment of the PHC facilities evaluated (rs = -0.450, p = 0.031). This study\'s evidence contributes to a better understanding of physical conditions and future occupational interventions to ensure the comfort, safety, and well-being of PHC workers.

Chinese farmers, especially small ones, always sell their food at low prices during harvest season rather than storing it for a better price. Based on a theoretical framework of expected utility, this paper examines the mechanism by which risk perception affects farmers\' timing choices of food sales and the role played by risk preference, utilizing data from the 2019 China Family Database and the China Household Finance Survey of farmers in six provinces of the main wheat-producing regions. This study shows that farmers with a high risk perception are more likely to choose current sales compared with intertemporal sales. The channel and mechanism analysis finds that increased risk perception leads to risky returns from intertemporal sales lower than certain returns from current sales in utility comparisons. It is further found that risk preference has a substitution effect on risk perception in farmers\' intertemporal food sales.