Valeria Chiozza

Prolonged environmental threats expose communities to recurring hazard cues and uncertainty, yet psychological consequences and resources involved in adaptation remain underexplored. This study examined psychological outcomes, personal and social resources, and their co-occurrence among inhabitants exposed to bradyseism in Campi Flegrei, southern Italy. Fifty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with inhabitants of the Campi Flegrei area. Eighteen were recruited without reference to a specific stakeholder role, whereas 34 were recruited based on their institutional, professional, or community roles. Narratives were examined through theory-driven thematic analysis. Six psychological outcomes were considered, including five distress-related negative psychological outcomes (i.e., anxiety, post-traumatic symptoms, depression, sleep disturbances, and suicidal ideation) and one adaptive psychological outcome (i.e., post-traumatic growth). Distress was classified using literature-derived categories, while the Social-psychological Antecedents to Resilience for Adaptation (SARA) classified resources by locus, specificity, and availability. Anxiety-related experiences were most frequent, followed by post-traumatic stress-related experiences, depression-related experiences, and sleep disturbances; post-traumatic growth was rare, and no segments related to suicidal ideation were identified. Risk perception, experience, acceptance, cognitive reappraisal, and place attachment were frequently identified as available resources in narratives involving distress, whereas information emerged predominantly as unavailable and available social support was identified only once in the corpus. These resources co-occurred with manifestations of distress without revealing a consistent protective pattern. The findings document the coexistence of resources and distress without establishing the direction of their relationships or a protective role. Future research should clarify resource–distress directionality and examine whether perceived agency explains why some resource constellations coexist with persistent distress, whereas others are associated with more adaptive responses under prolonged environmental threat.

The research examines how exposure to risk communication about natural hazards across different media is associated with risk perception of those hazards. Although risk perception is a key driver of protective and adaptive behaviours, evidence on the role played by exposure to risk communication through different media remains fragmented. To address this gap, a meta‐analysis and a systematic review were conducted. Fourteen articles were included in the systematic review, four in the meta‐analysis (nine studies). Risk perception was operationalized across cognitive and affective dimensions: perceived vulnerability, severity, likelihood and worry/concern. Exposure to risk communication across different media was categorized by media type: legacy media, social media and interpersonal communication. The systematic review indicates that exposure to risk communication via legacy and social media is associated with higher risk perception, whereas exposure via interpersonal communication is not. Meta‐analytic results show that exposure to risk communication via social media is associated with higher perceived vulnerability, whereas exposure via legacy media and interpersonal communication is not. No media was associated with perceived severity, although exposure via social media showed a positive trend. Overall, results provide some evidence of channel‐specific associations between risk communication and risk perception, particularly for social media and perceived vulnerability. However, given the small number of studies included, these findings should be interpreted cautiously and cannot yet be considered conclusive evidence of differential effects across media channels, while urging for more targeted research.