Abstract
Climate change is a global threat that poses significant risks to pregnant women and to their developing fetus and newborn. Educating pregnant women about the risks to their pregnancy may improve maternal and child health outcomes. Prior research suggests that presenting health information in narrative format can be more effective than a didactic format. Hence, the purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of two brief educational interventions in a diverse group of pregnant women (n = 151). Specifically, using a post-test only randomized experiment, we compared the effectiveness of brief information presented in a narrative format versus a didactic format; both information formats were also compared to a no information control group. Outcome measures included pregnant women’s actual and perceived knowledge, risk perception, affective assessment, self-efficacy, intention to take protective behaviors, and subsequent information seeking behavior. As hypothesized, for all outcome measures, the narrative format was more effective than the didactic format. These results suggest the benefits of a narrative approach (versus a didactic approach) to educating pregnant women about the maternal and child health threats posed by climate change. This study adds to a growing literature on the effectiveness of narrative-based approaches to health communication.
Highlights
Climate change is arguably the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century [1,2]
This study examined the effectiveness of traditional didactic information versus narrative information on pregnant women’s perceptions of climate change
While prior research has shown that didactic information about climate change can be effective [56], our study found that narratively based information was more effective than didactic information in increasing pregnant women’s knowledge, risk perceptions, self-efficacy, and intentions to adopt risk-reducing behavior, and far more effective at influencing their subsequent actual information seeking behavior—even though the factual content of the two forms of information were equivalent
Summary
Climate change is arguably the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century [1,2]. Climate change poses significant risks to the reproductive health of women across the lifespan as well as to developing fetuses and newborns [3,4]. Pregnant women, developing fetuses, and young children are considered to be one of the populations most at-risk of the adverse effects of climate change health risks, especially women in low-income and urban areas [5,6,7]. The U.S National Climate and Health Assessment identifies eight key impacts of climate change on health, including health harms associated with heat waves, poor outdoor air quality Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 6969; doi:10.3390/ijerph17196969 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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