RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Political storms: Emergent partisan skepticism of hurricane risks
JF Science Advances
JO Sci Adv
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP eabb7906
DO 10.1126/sciadv.abb7906
VO 6
IS 37
A1 Long, Elisa F.
A1 Chen, M. Keith
A1 Rohla, Ryne
YR 2020
UL http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/37/eabb7906.abstract
AB Mistrust of scientific evidence and government-issued guidelines is increasingly correlated with political affiliation. Survey evidence has documented skepticism in a diverse set of issues including climate change, vaccine hesitancy, and, most recently, COVID-19 risks. Less well understood is whether these beliefs alter high-stakes behavior. Combining GPS data for 2.7 million smartphone users in Florida and Texas with 2016 U.S. presidential election precinct-level results, we examine how conservative-media dismissals of hurricane advisories in 2017 influenced evacuation decisions. Likely Trump-voting Florida residents were 10 to 11 percentage points less likely to evacuate Hurricane Irma than Clinton voters (34% versus 45%), a gap not present in prior hurricanes. Results are robust to fine-grain geographic controls, which compare likely Clinton and Trump voters living within 150 m of each other. The rapid surge in media-led suspicion of hurricane forecasts—and the resulting divide in self-protective measures—illustrates a large behavioral consequence of science denialism.