BACKGROUND
In 1997, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (DPW) commissioned the Rogers & Associates team to design and implement a county-wide program to educate the public and change behaviors that contribute to storm water pollution. This effort, the Storm Water Public Education Program, sought to:
- Identify residents who pose the greatest threat to the county’s storm water quality and who represent the greatest opportunity to respond to the public education campaign.
- Provide a baseline measure of residents’ storm water-related attitudes, practices and habits before the campaign was launched.
- Evaluate residents’ awareness and the effectiveness of current media messages about pollution of the ocean, rivers and lakes.
- Examine residents’ willingness to change behavior and get involved in prevention.
- Identify the motivators and implement tactics that would effectively change polluting behaviors.
As a foundation for the program’s strategic plan, the research component began with an extensive literature review, a series of focus groups and a segmentation study of Los Angeles County residents.
- Preliminary research also included a telephone survey in 1997 that quantified baseline levels of storm water-related practices and habits of county residents.
- The baseline telephone survey was followed by periodic tracking surveys, which all addressed storm water-related practices and habits of Los Angeles County residents.
- Finally, the research agenda included a final evaluation study.
This Final Evaluation Report describes the current state of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors related to storm water pollution prevention among Los Angeles County residents and compares them to attitudes, beliefs and behaviors identified in earlier survey waves and pre-campaign levels.