A One Health Message about Bats Increases Intentions to Follow Public Health Guidance on Bat Rabies.

ABSTRACT: Since 1960, bat rabies variants have become the greatest source of human rabies deaths in the United States. Improving rabies awareness and preventing human exposure to rabid bats remains a national public health priority today. Concurrently, conservation of bats and the ecosystem benefits they provide is of increasing importance due to declining populations of many bat species. This study used a visitor-intercept experiment (N = 521) in two U.S. national parks where human and bat interactions occur on an occasional basis to examine the relative persuasiveness of four messages differing in the provision of benefit and uncertainty information on intentions to adopt a rabies exposure prevention behavior. We found that acknowledging benefits of bats in a risk message led to greater intentions

SUBMITTER: Lu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4880301 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature