Social-psychological factors influencing risk perceptions of chronic wasting disease on social media

Abstract

ABSTRACTChronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion-based disease that poses an imminent threat to New York State (NYS), but many NYS hunters do not perceive it as a salient issue or follow recommended practices to prevent its spread to NYS. This study sought to identify the social-psychological factors underlying the efficacy of social media interventions to increase risk perceptions of CWD in NYS. We conducted an online survey experiment with 2760 NYS hunters and found that perceived similarity of an information source on social media and hunters’ biospheric values and descriptive norms increased risk perceptions of the threat of CWD to deer and deer hunting in NYS. We also found that biospheric values and knowledge increased risk perceptions of behaviors contributing to the spread of CWD to NYS. We encourage regulators to collaborate with opinion leaders in the hunting community to disseminate CWD prevention messages on social media to maximize message efficacy.