Persistence of change: fume hood campaign lessons

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

Changing Behavior Through Design: A Lab Fume Hood Closure Experiment

“…Straight comparison of results with similar studies is difficult, as this experiment used count data (emphasizing each act of closure) and accounted for occupancy. Results are consistent with a sash patrol campaign (Feder et al, 2012), which achieved an unoccupied closure rate of 61.3%, a large improvement over the 3.1% closure rate prior to the experiment. However, several months after the campaign, the closure rate reverted to preintervention levels.…”

“…Few laboratory studies have measured effects over time. Feder et al (2012) implemented a multi-faceted campaign for fume hood closure and measured results immediately and several months later. The intervention consisted of various activities and tools to raise awareness, including a launch party, posters, a website, and stickers.…”

“…Third, many studies have relied on manual spot checks for hood closure data, which introduce measurement issues. For example, one study reported that there were instances when lab workers warned each other that a patrol was on the way, which gave them time to close the hood (Feder et al, 2012). Fourth, while automated building data has been used in studies, the data did not account for occupancy.…”

Motion and Sash Height (MASH) alarms for efficient fume hood use

“…The passive methods used in these studies did not directly encourage user behavioral change at the time of the behavior to be changed, however; in contrast, feedback closer in time to the behavior or action to be changed has been reported to be more effective 9 , 12 . Further, a study from the University of Toronto found that passive methods had little long-term impacts on behaviors 13 .…”