Air pollution has emerged as one of the most serious environmental threats to human health. As governments often struggle to sufficiently and sustainably improve air quality, affected populations across the globe need to adapt by adopting adequate self-protective actions. Policy makers can support their populations in protecting themselves but require sufficient information on shortcomings regarding the involvement of their population in air pollution adaptation practices as well as knowledge of factors which can strengthen the active engagement of citizens. The overall objective of the proposed project is to review and synthesize studies on people’s perception of air pollution and respective behavioral response. Specifically, the aims of the proposed research are to synthesize studies on (i) people’s willingness-to-pay for the avoidance of air pollution-related illness and the improvement of air quality, (ii) risk perceptions of air pollution and respective self-protective behaviors, and (iii) people’s information seeking and sharing behavior regarding air pollution. The project will draw on a rich database that documents characteristics and findings of 242 reviewed research articles. The reviewed research articles were published between 1 January 2000 and 30 June 2021 and identified based on a systematic search in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach.
