Roles of Socio-Physical Environments on Air Quality Control Policy with Respect to Knowledge, Attitude and Intention

Abstract Human behavior altered in different socioeconomic conditions is the main contributor to deteriorating air quality, therefore changing the behavior is the goal of air policies. In this study, we propose an integrated framework to figure out the roles of socio-physical environments in promoting air quality control policies through behavioral perspectives. The study selects Changhua County in Central Taiwan, composed of 26 cities and townships, as a case study to investigate the impacts of social and economic factors and the air quality on individual’s knowledge, attitude and behavioral intention. The socioeconomic and environmental factors are collected from Taiwanese official information, while the knowledge, attitude, and intention toward the policies are obtained through questionnaires. Subsequently, multivariate analysis techniques including principal component analysis and redundancy analysis are utilized to simultaneously identify the causal relationships between socio-physical environments and the knowledge, attitude, and intention in different townships. Our findings suggest that individual’s knowledge, attitude, and intention toward the air polices cannot be raised simply in commensurate with the growth of the economy and the deterioration of air quality. Indeed, people living in highly urbanized regions and being well-educated, particularly in Changhua City, are less willing to take actions for air quality improvement although they are susceptible to environmental risks. On the contrary, people close to nature have more environmental knowledge, positive attitudes and more intentions to improve the air quality. The finding results will be beneficial to authorities in each city/township to organize environmental education plans corresponding to their socioeconomic conditions and behavioral patterns.