Beachgoers' responses to beach health advisories.

Georgia advisories beaches pollution warnings

Journal

Journal of water and health
ISSN: 1477-8920
Titre abrégé: J Water Health
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101185420

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
Mar 2024
Historique:
received: 02 10 2023
accepted: 30 01 2024
medline: 1 4 2024
pubmed: 1 4 2024
entrez: 1 4 2024
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

Drawing on responses from 238 beachgoers who have visited a Georgia (U.S. state) beach in the past three years, this study asks respondents about their knowledge of beach water quality monitoring, awareness of beach health advisories, perception of water quality, and expected responses upon learning of a beach's water pollution advisory. Binomial logistic regression finds that the only demographic predictor of respondents who would completely stop visiting a beach with an advisory is whether the respondent is a visitor or resident (year-round or part-time). Nearly 40% of visitors would not come to a beach with an advisory compared to 13.4% of residents. Most respondents report they would continue to visit a beach but would stay out of the water and stop harvesting seafood from the beach's waters. More than a third (36.1%), however, are unaware Georgia regularly monitors beach water for water quality, and 41.2% have never read a beach sign warning of contaminated water or seafood. Alarmingly, just over half view aesthetic factors such as no litter, no odor, and clear water as criteria for defining whether beach water is safe.

Identifiants

pubmed: 38557571
pii: wh_2024_306
doi: 10.2166/wh.2024.306
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

565-571

Subventions

Organisme : National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
ID : # NA15NOS4190160

Informations de copyright

© 2024 The Authors This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare there is no conflict.

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Auteurs

Jeffery Jones (J)

Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8015, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA; Institute for Water and Health, Georgia Southern University, 925 Mohawk Street, Savannah, GA, 31419, USA E-mail: jajones@georgiasouthern.edu.

Asli Aslan (A)

Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8015, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA; Institute for Water and Health, Georgia Southern University, 925 Mohawk Street, Savannah, GA, 31419, USA.

Dziyana Nazaruk (D)

Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8015, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA.

Sibel Zeki (S)

Institute of Marine Sciences and Management, Istanbul University, Müsküle Sok. No. 1 Vefa, Istanbul 34470, Turkey.

Classifications MeSH