BACKGROUND COLOUR

Widespread fires leave few unscathed

Insights
.
ANU Poll
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06 Jul 2021
Environment & Climate + Bushfires + Mental Health
Based on the work of
Nicholas BiddleBen EdwardsDiane HerzToni Makkai

There were few Australians left untouched by the 2019-2020 bushfires. Even as the fires still rages, the January 2020 ANU Poll found most Australians were impacted either directly or indirectly. Almost 3 million Australian adults felt direct exposure and another 15 million Australian adults reported indirect exposure.

79 %

The January 2020 ANU Poll found the vast majority of Australians were impacted by the 2019-2020 bushfires in one way or another.

2.9 M

The number of adults who reported they were exposed directly to the bushfires, 2.9 million adults or more than 14% of the adult population.

57 %

More than half of the adult population were estimated to have felt physically affected by the smoke from the fires.

54 %

The bushfires also had an impact on mental health with 54% of adults reporting they felt anxious or worried by the fires.

Exposure to Bushfire and Related Events
Thinking first about the bushfires that have occurred/are currently occurring over this spring and summer in Australia. Which of the following, if any, have you experienced?
Sources & Methodology
Variable description Grouped by bushfire exposure category
Variable time span 2020 (January)
Published by ANU Poll
Publisher Link https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/exposure-and-impact-attitudes-2019-20-australian-bushfires-0
Data Source doi:10.26193/S1S9I9
© Copyright 2021, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University.
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Background

ANU Poll is a quarterly survey of Australian public opinion. The topic of each survey is an issue of national importance. ANUpoll differs from other opinion polls by placing public opinion in a broad policy context, and by benchmarking Australia against international opinion. lt is also able to follow trends in opinions over many decades.

ANUpoll is collected by the Social Research Centre's panel, Life in AustraliaTM. The Social Research Centre collected data online and through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) in order to ensure representation from the offline Australian population.

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Researchers

Professor Nicholas Biddle is Associate Director of the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and Director of the newly created Policy Experiments Lab (http://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/pelab). He has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons.) from the University of Sydney and a Master of Education from Monash University. He also has a PhD in Public Policy from the ANU where he wrote his thesis on the benefits of and participation in education of Indigenous Australians. He previously held a Senior Research Officer and Assistant Director position in the Methodology Division of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and is currently a Fellow of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute.

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Associate Professor Ben Edwards is a Senior Fellow at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods. An expert in longitudinal and life course studies and quantitative social scientist, Ben focuses on public policy research in the area of child and adolescent development, informal carers, intergenerational impacts of trauma (e.g. veterans, refugees) and natural disasters (e.g. drought, bushfires, cumulative disasters). He is a member of scientific advisory groups for the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth, Generation Victoria and a longitudinal cohort study in the Philippines. Ben has advised the OECD, United Nations and Australian Federal and State Government departments in designing longitudinal studies and evaluations, child welfare, non-cognitive skills, and crime prevention.

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Diane Herz is the CEO of the Social Research Centre and is a seasoned practitioner and leader in survey and policy research. She has more than 3 decades of experience in government and consulting roles in the USA, most recently with Mathematica Policy Research and prior to that with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) where during her 21-year tenure she was first an economic analyst and then later the director of the American Time Use Survey and the Current Population Survey.

Diane has earned several academic and professional qualifications and has held leadership positions in the survey industry, including as president of the Washington Statistical Society and as chair of the American Statistical Association’s Committee on LGBT concerns.

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Toni Makkai has had a varied career with twists and turns and ups and downs including holding tenure twice giving it up to take interesting contract positions paying less. She was a PDF in the inaugural ARC scheme working on the largest study on aged care regulation to date. She was the first woman appointed as CEO of the Australian Institute of Criminology establishing the DUMA project incorporating survey and forensic data. As first female Dean in the new ANU college structure she established CSRM and was instrumental in ANU purchasing the SRC (and is a board director). Active in the NGO sector she assisted the first government sanctioned ACT Pill Testing Trial, sits on governance boards of the Ted Noffs Foundation, The Farm at Galong and the IIAB of Griffith Institute of Criminology.

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Citation

Biddle, N., Edwards, B., Herz, D. & Makkai, T., ANU Poll #32: Exposure and the impact on attitudes of the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires, Canberra: Australian Data Archive, The Australian National University, 2019.

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