Congratulations to CRP grad student Sergio Lozoya for First Place at Emerging Researcher's National Conference in Washington DC!
March 5, 2019
Congratulations to CRP grad student Sergio Lozoya for winning first place last week for his presentation at the national Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington, DC! His research aims to understand the effectiveness of Albuquerque’s There Is No Poop Fairy campaign.
https://emerging-researchers.org/projects/80-4/
Sergio Lozoya won first place in the Graduate Student Presentation category at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in Stem https://emerging-researchers.org/ for his thesis research presentation.
The Effectiveness of Albuquerque’s “There Is No Poop Fairy” Campaign
This research seeks to understand the effectiveness of the There is no Poop Fairy campaign through a public survey of dog owners. The There Is No Poop Fairy campaign was initiated in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2014, with the goal of getting dog owners to pick up and properly dispose of their dogs’ waste. The Rio Grande is contaminated with E. coli bacteria that originates in part from dog waste, which is carried to the river through storm water. Levels of E. coli in the Rio Grande have decreased dramatically within the past few years, coincident with the campaign. The main purpose of the study is to better understand whether or not the There Is No Poop Fairy Campaign may have contributed to the decrease in E. coli by surveying dog owners who live in the focus area of the campaign about their exposure to the campaign information and any subsequent changes in behavior. The research also investigates other issues such as dog owners’ feelings of responsibility in picking up their dogs’ waste (i.e., is it up to them or somebody else?) and the acceptability in leaving dog poop behind in public spaces (e.g., parks and open space settings). This is a nonprobability survey and will be conducted using convenience sampling methods. To date, there have been approximately 50 survey participants, with the goal of reaching 500-1000 participants by December 1st, 2018. Preliminary results indicate that the majority of the sample population is familiar with the There Is No Poop Fairycampaign and feels positive about its educational value in raising environmental awareness. The findings will be of interest to other scholars in this area of research as well as city and county officials and scientists who are interested in the effectiveness of voluntary community campaigns related to environmental and public health.
References: Carter, S. B. (2016). Establishing a framework to understand the regulation and control of dogs in urban environments: a case study of Melbourne, Australia. SpringerPlus, 5(1), 1190. Vanessa I. Rohlf, Pauleen C. Bennett, Samia Toukhsati & Grahame Coleman (2010) Why Do Even Committed Dog Owners Fail to Comply with Some Responsible Ownership Practices?
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This research was funded by an NSF/CREST grant.
Faculty Advisor/Mentor: Caroline Scruggs, cscruggs@unm.edu
