The human element of wildlife health: Mental models, risk perceptions, and attitudes toward wildlife disease management

Wildlife disease management, like other types of wildlife management, influences, and is influenced by, biological, ecological, and social components of the management system. Human dimensions research provides insights for the development of management objectives and communication messages that incorporate societal values. To increase knowledge and understanding of human dimensions aspects of wildlife disease management, my research objectives were to: (1) reveal expert mental models of wildlife health and disease; (2) reveal lay person mental models of wildlife health and disease and wildlife disease management; (3) determine key variables that influence stakeholders' wildlife disease risk perceptions; and (4) assess factors that contribute to explaining public acceptance of wildlife disease management. Objectives 1 and 2 were accomplished using qualitative, exploratory methods (focus groups and the Delphi method) to promote better understanding of how experts and laypersons conceptualize wildlife health and disease and to develop mental models representing these conceptualizations. Objectives 3 and 4 were accomplished using a survey questionnaire mailed to a random, nationwide sample to characterize wildlife disease risk perceptions and attitudes toward wildlife disease management and to assess sociodemographic and social psychological factors that influence these variables. Expert (n = 18) and layperson (n = 34) mental models of wildlife health had several common conceptualizations, including sustainable populations, healthy animals, habitat quality, and ecosystem health. One key difference was that experts were more likely to view disease as being made worse by humans while laypersons were more likely to view it as a natural phenomenon. Focus group participants viewed wildlife health as important and most did not have serious personal health concerns related to zoonotic diseases. In the survey, mean risk perception for three zoonotic diseases (rabies, plague, West Nile virus) using the constructs of severity, susceptibility, and dread was moderate (2.5 on a 1 to 4 scale). Respondents perceived zoonotic disease risk to be greater for wildlife than for humans and held higher risk perceptions for rabies and West Nile virus than plague. The four most important predictors of disease risk perceptions were gender, education, prior exposure to the disease, and concern for health. With regard to attitudes toward wildlife disease management, there was strong disagreement with allowing disease to run its course and agreement was strongest for the options of public education and non-lethal management. Across all management options, agreement was greatest when the goal of wildlife disease management was to protect "one health" and least when the goal was to protect health of pets; these differences were statistically significant but not large. The best predictor of agreement was whether respondents believed wildlife disease management was likely to result in benefits they considered important. A modified Health Belief Model consisting of six variables (perceived risk severity and susceptibility, concern for health, exposure to zoonotic disease, social trust, and belief in management being likely to result in important benefits) was found to be a good fit to the data, thus supporting it as a useful model for understanding stakeholder evaluations of wildlife disease management. Together, these findings provide insights to help managers better communicate with stakeholders about wildlife health and disease and to managers to better incorporate stakeholder perspectives into management decisions.