The immediate causes of the air pollution exposure is focused on the attitude of the Almaty residents. Why are Almaty residents not engaging in preventive health behaviors to decrease their exposure which could lead to a decrease in health risks? The pre-venture extant system depicted above explains the domino effect occurring amongst Almaty residents and the government. To begin, Almaty residents are experiencing a lack of overall control of the ability to decrease exposure through daily, individual decisions. When creating this system, I utilized a Health Psychology Behavioral Model: the Health Belief Model. This model explores what factors contribute to an individual’s decision to practice healthy behaviors considering an individual’s perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, and self-efficacy. Many residents are not engaging in ways to decrease their risks to air pollution exposure due to the lack of urgency and lack of confidence which could possibly stem from a weak perceived susceptibility and severity among the residents. They feel as if they are unlikely to experience what statistics have proven in a countless amount of articles and journals that my team analyzed and added to our database consisting of over 100 synthesized literary pieces. The lack of confidence is connected to the self efficacy component of the model. They may feel as if they are lacking guidance on where to even begin with changing everyday behaviors all the way to their overall lifestyle to ensure they are implementing preventive behaviors. This could be overwhelming for an average person and seem quite impossible.
These attitudes could be implemented by the inadequate government action. People are aware of the issue but may not be prioritizing due to the people in power not paying much attention to it. This leads to an attitude of lacking power which is common when discussing environmental issues since most of the external costs are coming from corporations, power plants, etc.
Why is the government not acting?
Kazakhstan is a developing country with an aim to become as economically strong as possible. At the moment, much of their aim is focused on economic growth. The heavy industrialization working along with the power plants, coal burning furnaces, low quality grade gas, and even Almaty’s geographical location (Elevation wise) is just further intensifying the issue of poor air quality. It is hard for a compromise to be made. Kazakhstan is definitely not the only nation in this trap.
There are multiple levels of impact coming along with our venture ranging from individual to global. Our venture is having the most impact on an individual basis because of our app providing a sense of autonomy and self-efficacy which plays a crucial role in determining whether residents will follow preventive health behaviors according to the health belief model. The individual impact leads to governmental impact since this will provide people with the motivation and feeling of control to demand what should be a basic right: healthy air. Then, this could lead to the government realizing their need to address these concerns and issues. There is economic impact that could eventually come once Kazakhstan views environmental progression as a way to grow the green economy that tends to be overlooked. There could be an increase in their market for both environmentally and/or health conscious products like nostril strips and alternatives to one use products that reduce the inhaling of pollutants and more. Almaty will realize that this demand for change is not necessarily a threat. Instead, they should view it is a way to shift their economy to become more eco-friendly and now leading to global impact–> becoming a role model to the rest of the world.
