Place, human agency and community resilience – considerations for public health management of smoke from prescribed burning

ABSTRACT

Prescribed burning is now a widely accepted bushfire hazard management strategy. While evidence points to reduced levels of public health harm compared to severe bushfire, smoke created by planned burns remains a community concern with need for evidence-based public health management. Findings are presented from an Australian study of community experiences of prescribed burns, associated smoke, and public health communications. We find that “place” influences how information is received and used for the management of the effects of planned burns; and that this is significant for human agency and community resilience. We provide recommendations for public health management.

KEYWORDS:

• Wildfire smoke
• community resilience
• bushfire hazard mitigation
• climate change risk communication

Acknowledgements

This study was approved by both the University of Tasmania and Monash University Human Research Ethics Committees. We thank our funders, and study participants from Warburton, Maffra-Heyfield, and Traralgon. This research was conducted by Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) through the Australian Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.