Citizen views about public meetings

Abstract

The current study seeks to demonstrate that a citizen views about public meeting structure and related groups matter in predicting satisfaction with public engagement and willingness to attend future meetings. Public health agencies frequently use public meetings to communicate risk information, but relatively little social science research has examined how potential meeting participants view them. Using survey data (N = 866) collected in seven US communities where health agencies were investigating possible local cancer clusters and holding public meetings to communicate with local residents, the current study replicates and extends an earlier inquiry related to citizens satisfaction with public meetings used for risk communication. Whereas previous research found that expectations, health agency credibility, and risk perceptions predicted satisfaction with public meetings, the current results did not show a significant relationship between agency credibility, risk perceptions, and satisfaction. Further, the results suggest it may make sense to consider ‘views about public meetings’ as a single measure that includes citizens’ structural expectations for meetings. Finally, the current study finds that views about public officials and views about meetings relate to individuals’ willingness to attend future meetings. Additional variable development and modeling research is suggested.