Exploring Health Locus of Control and Risk Perception: Connecting Efficacy to Protective Action Through Winter Weather Forecast Messages

ABSTRACT Health impacts are a major consequence of extreme winter weather, yet they are not usually part of forecast messages. Healthcasting, which describes the addition of health impact information into weather messages, has the potential to influence how people interpret and respond to forecasted winter weather events. We investigated the influence of individuals' psychological predictors (efficacy and health locus of control) on risk perception and protective behavioral intention through a 2 (winter weather type: extreme cold versus ice storm) × 2 (impact information: health or no health) between‐subjects experimental design. We found that while there were no statistically significant effects between the health and no‐health impact information conditions on risk perception or protective action likelihood, there were statistically significant relationships between psychological predictors. Health locus of control (HLOC) was a modest but significant negative predictor of risk perception, and both self‐efficacy and response efficacy strongly predicted protective action likelihood. Subgroup analyses by gender and self‐reported health status also confirmed relationships between risk perception and protective action likelihood. While substituting a health impact statement for a non‐health impact statement did not change global risk perception or protective intention in this study, the finding that psychological predictors of risk perception did have this impact has the potential to be a valuable aspect to consider for testing the effectiveness of future health communication in winter forecast messaging.