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Vulnerability to Pollution: Household and Community Response in Davao City
Dissertation Abstract:
The study explored the discernible patterns, scope, and dynamics of vulnerability and response of an urban community to pollution. The thesis of this research was that response to pollution is a function of factors operating at different levels. Therefore, analysis of the response mechanisms of an urban community to pollution hazards must be approached in a holistic fashion that takes a multidisciplinary perspective. Other than the risk factors, the conceptuaI model in this research incIuded household socioeconomic-psychological factors and community resource-organizational determinants hypothesized to facilitate or restrain response mechanisms. Those mechanisms were dichotomized into household coping strategies and community mobilization approaches. Also, the research identified factors that determine level ofvulne rability to pollution in an urban community.
A total of 488 households, local officials, and health care providers were randomly selected from six sample barangays (villages) selected by purposive sampling to capture likely variations in responses.
Factor analysis was applied on the different blocks of variables for data reductio n. Based on the interre lations exhibited in the data, the following dimensions could be used as new (synthetic) variables that may be representative measures of the following factors: 1) risk factors (i.e., conditions of the natural environment, presence of factories/industries; 2) household-related factors (i.e., exposure to health extension, personal characteristics, and attitude toward health policies and programs); 3) community resource-organizational factors (i .e., informational-educational resources of health care providers); 4) household response mechanisms (i.e., hygienic practices); and 5) community response mechanisms (i.e., communication and extension strategies). Findings showed that conditions o f the natural environment in the study were deteriorating due to high air pollution and mercury contamination of the coastal areas. Classification of three major rivers served as a warning that pollution level must be monitored. Davao City was being deforested by about 1,001 hectares per year. Secondary and tertiary growth covers are insufficient to maintain the necessary ecological balance.
Vulnerability to risk factors was open to influences from householdrelated factors. Exposure to health extension made a fairly strong positive influence on the households' capacity to lower the level of vulnerability to deteriorating environmental conditions. However, personal characteristics strongly enabled them to reduce their vulnerability to pollution from industries in the community. Positive attitudes toward health policies made the households feel less vulnerable and take less steps against the risk factors. On the other hand, the greater the presence of sources of health-related information, the better the community mobilized efforts to reduce their vulnerabililty.
Household actions to solve the problem of vulnerability to pollution hazards were underdeveloped and inappropriate, and household-related factors, risk factors, and community resource-organizational factors were significant positive determinants of the households' coping strategies against pollution.
Likewise, the community's mobilization approaches against vulnerability were weak and marginal. Significant determinants of community response mechanisms included: in formational resources of health care providers, which yielded the strongest effect on the community's mobilization efforts against pollution; and household related factors such as exposure to health extension, where the higher the household's level of exposure, the better the community can mobilize efforts against vulnerability to pollution. Vulnerability to risks from pollutive industries yielded a strong effect on the community's mobilization approaches against pollution: the higher the vulnerability, the more measures the community took to mobilize efforts against pollution. Household and community response mechanisms were strongly, significantly, and positively related, where an increase in the capability of households to reduce/eliminate vulnerability to pollution hazards tended to strengthen the community's mobilization approaches to minimize hazards of pollution.