Surveillance of public risk perceptions on outdoor air pollution: evidence from online search behaviours in China

Abstract

Severe outdoor air pollution in China has long constituted a threat to public health and environmental governance efficiency. Surveillance of online search behaviours that reflect real-time public risk perception and behavioural responses on environmental issues is essential in improving environmental governance. However, owing to the absence of an appropriate analytical framework, quantitative evidence of analysing online data is scarce in the extant research. To address this research gap, we analysed Baidu search indexes (BSI) keywords relevant to the public risk perception and behavioural responses on outdoor air pollution by a surveillance framework consisting of two parallel steps (prediction and monitoring). The proposed framework may improve environmental risk governance efficiency and benefit environmental risk governance policy decision-making through considering real-time public risk perceptions and behavioural response information. Using online search behaviour data, this study adds to the methodology for improving the efficacy of environmental social risk governance.