The Impact of Organizational Support, Environmental Health Literacy on Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Rural Living Environment Improvement in China: Exploratory Analysis Based on a PLS-SEM Model

Abstract

The active participation of farmers is not only a real demand to alleviate the dilemma of “free-rider” in improving the rural living environment but also a requirement of the Times to realize ecological sustainability and rural revitalization. The planning behavior theory tells us that improving farmers’ willingness is an important prerequisite for farmers’ activities. This paper constructs the analysis framework of “organizational support (government and village committee) → environmental health literacy → farmers’ willingness” from the actual practice of government-led rural living environment improvement. Using data from a sample of 1225 farmers in Gansu Province and Jiangsu Province, China, we empirically tested the mechanisms of organizational support on farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement and the mediating effect of environmental health literacy using formative structural equation modeling. The study showed that organizational support positively affected farmers’ willingness to participate, the effect of emotional support was more potent than that of instrumental support, and there were regional differences in the relative effects of government support and village committee support on farmers’ willingness to participate. All four types of organizational support positively affected environmental health literacy, but the degree of the effect differed and showed regional heterogeneity. Among the direct effects of farmers’ environmental health literacy on their willingness to participate, basic skills made the highest contribution, followed by basic ideas and the lowest basic knowledge. Among the indirect effects, basic skills made the most significant contribution in the pathway of organizational support to increase farmers’ willingness to participate through fostering farmers’ environmental health literacy. The results can provide a theoretical basis for government and village committees to policy optimization and improve the system, improve the resource utilization of the government and village committees, improve farmers’ environmental health literacy, and change farmers’ participation attitude.

1. Introduction

From the experience of the world, any country with a large agricultural population will inevitably have problems with the countryside, agriculture, and farmers [1]. Under the mode of agricultural productivism before the 1990s, agricultural production led to overcapacity and caused serious rural environmental problems [2]. Trade liberalization has exacerbated imbalances in rural development [3], and rural disparities in Western countries show that, from a global perspective, there was a general pattern of rural transformation [4]. European countries, developed countries such as the USA, and some South-East Asian countries have transitioned from productivism to post-productivism [5]. In the context of post-productivism, “rural” is increasingly moving away from the single meaning of” agriculture” and” farming” [4,6]. Rural areas are gradually shifting from agricultural development to multi-functional rural centers, and the ecological value of rural areas is valued [3].

Whether recalling the history of rural revitalization in the West or the case of rural revitalization in China, the primary factor in rural construction is maintaining an excellent ecological environment in the countryside. A good ecological environment is the foundation of human existence and health. In the modernization and development of China, despite rapid economic development, the rural ecological environment has not been effectively protected. The cumulative risk of environmental pollution to public health is already in manifestation [7], which is one of the main reasons for the “great rural exodus [4].” At the beginning of 2020, the new coronavirus pandemic seriously affected public health and economic development [8]; it prompted a rethinking of the building of safe, healthy, and comfortable rural living environments [9]. Improving the rural environment has become an urgent safeguard for people’s health. The improvement of the rural environment and the revitalization of rural areas are new demands for a better life put forward by the vast number of peasants after the economic level of our country has been raised [10,11], and fully accord with Maslow’s demand hierarchy theory [12].

According to the theory of economic externalities, the positive externalities of improving rural human settlements mean that government support is essential for improving rural human settlements [13]. For a long time, the environment of human settlement in rural areas has been influenced by the traditional dual structure of urban and rural areas. There are significant differences between urban and rural areas regarding investment, facilities, and environmental quality of human settlements’ environmental governance [10]. To change this situation, the Chinese Government has used financial resources and administrative power to implement projects such as constructing beautiful villages, improving the rural environment, and creating demonstration villages for the rural human settlements environment; it has to some extent, improved the ecological and human settlements environment in China’s rural areas. However, the problems of the ecological and human settlement accumulated over the long term will not be fundamentally resolved in the short term [14]. Historically, relying too much on the Government’s administrative power and large-scale state investment in human, material, and financial resources to achieve ecological habitability in vast rural areas has been costly and unsustainable [10,15].

Some scholars have argued that rural residents’ natural ‘presence” determines that they should be the subject of eco-environmental governance in rural spaces [16,17]. In theory, Boxer, an American scholar, believes that the 21st century will be an era of citizen governance, in which citizen participation is the core mechanism [18]. However, since the tax reform in 2005, county and township finances have faced severe revenue and expenditure pressure; they can no longer afford public projects in rural areas. In this context, ensuring the availability of public goods in rural areas through community-farmer cooperation has proved effective [19]. Some scholars have also pointed out that mobilizing the active participation of farmers in the provision of rural public goods, ecological protection, and health risk protection is more effective than total government allocations [20]. Unfortunately, however, farmers have not taken collective action, not only in agricultural production, such as providing public infrastructure for agriculture [21]. In addition, in the area of rural environmental rehabilitation, the participation of farmers in the environmental rehabilitation of human settlements is not very active, and the mobilization of the Government is not effective.

Looking back at the historical changes and institutional reforms in rural China, we can find some reasons why Chinese farmers are in a collective action dilemma. From 1949 to 1978, from the founding of New China to the 30 years of reform and opening up, the supply of public goods in rural China depended mainly on replacing capital with labor. The Government mobilized and organized the labor force to undertake intra-village public investment projects. The large-scale people’s communes created the conditions for such large-scale labor to replace capital [13]. After 1978, the reform household contract responsibility system and the reform of agricultural taxes and fees hugely influenced the collective action of farmers. Specifically, replacing the collective farming system with the household contract responsibility system meant the non-collectivization of the farming system and the disintegration of the collective farming organization. The supply mechanism used to provide local public goods in rural China has lost its foundation [13]. Secondly, the agricultural taxation reform brought about the upward transfer of financial power, resulting in the rural grassroots organizations of the financial power has been effectively lost, significantly reducing the grassroots Government’s organizational and mobilizing capacity and the ability to provide public goods [22]. In addition, China’s industrialization and urbanization development strategies have exacerbated urban-rural disparities. A mass exodus of labor leads to reduced capacity for collective action in rural areas [23,24]. The atomization and individualization of rural society lead to the weakening of farmers’ collective consciousness, and social norms do not constrain their self-interest consciousness [25]. As a result, they demand higher compensation, which increases the cost of public goods production and leads to an inadequate supply of public goods in rural areas [13]. Finally, the traditional historical experience of rural public goods being provided mainly by the government has negatively impacted farmers’ participation; it has led to a psychological formation of institutional path dependency [26]. In the end, farmers have a negative attitude towards the rural living environment and other village public affairs, which are public goods, and the phenomenon of “government doing, farmers watching” is widespread [27]. This has not only lost the efficiency of the Government’s investment in rural living environment improvement but also seriously hindered the sustainability of human settlements and the construction of beautiful, ecologically livable villages.

In studies related to farmers’ participation in rural living environment improvement, many scholars have conducted theoretical and empirical level studies in terms of farmers’ participation in domestic waste management [28], domestic sewage management [29], and sanitary toilet renovation [30], respectively, including farmers’ willingness to participate [31,32], farmers’ willingness to pay [33,34,35], and farmers’ action [36]. The key factors affecting farmer participation can be summarized into two aspects [26]. One is individual factors, which include farmers’ health levels, cognitive status, migrant work experience, family capital, and household income. Household features have an important influence on farmers’ behavioral decisions, which objectively constrains farmers from participating in living environment improvement. The accumulation of intrinsic qualities such as farmers’ policy understanding, methodological skills mastery, environmental cognition, and environmental literacy can significantly improve farmers’ pro-environmental behavior [26,37,38,39,40,41,42]. Another is external environmental factors such as environmental regulations, social norms, and government support. To some degree, environmental regulation and social norms can guide and restrain farmers’ behavior to a certain extent, and government environmental propaganda and financial support motivate farmers’ participation [30,43,44,45,46,47]. The effects and mechanisms of external support on farmers’ participation behavior have also received increasing attention from the academic community [48,49]. Some scholars suggest that village development, which relies on exogenous forces, is strongly policy-constructive and prone to fall into the trap of campaign-based support, with stability and sustainability to be considered [50]. Village organizational support consisting of instrumental and emotional support positively affects farmers’ participation in small farmland water conservancy construction and management by reducing farmers’ participation costs and increasing the level of organizational commitment and the psychological contract [51,52,53].

The above research results have important implications for this study, but there is still room for improvement. Firstly, the research on the external influences on farmers’ participation in improving the living environment ignores the possibility of addressing peasants’ participation through organizational support. At the same time, less research has been done on the different impacts of different dimensions of organizational support on farmers’ behavior. Secondly, the current quantitative studies neglect the role and functional difference between village committees and the government in improving the rural living environment. This difference, a characteristic of Chinese rural governance, determines the different focus of the organizational support provided by the two. Thirdly, scholars pay more attention to the influence of environmental literacy on the behavior of farmers but neglect the intrinsic motivation mechanism of environmental health. In recent years, environmental health literacy has been put forward to awaken public health consciousness.

In view of this, this paper refers to the research framework of D.S. H [54] and Q. Liu [55], incorporates organizational support and environmental health literacy into the analytical framework of farmers’ participation in rural living environment improvement based on new endogenous development theory [56], social exchange theory and resource conservation theory, and explores the intrinsic mechanism of the dual factors of organizational support and environmental health literacy that drive farmers’ willingness to participate with the help of structural equation modeling. To reveal the non-equalizing effects of emotional and instrumental support provided by different responsible parties (government and village committees) on farmers’ environmental health literacy and willingness to participate in living environment improvement and to investigate the endogenous effect of environmental health literacy on farmers’ participation in living environment improvement. This has good inspiration for perfecting the theory of farmers’ participation in environmental governance and other public affairs; it can better answer how the government and village committees play their respective roles. Bringing into play the advantages of China’s single system, promoting the improvement of farmers’ level of environmental health literacy, promoting the transformation of the practical problems of farmers’ non-participation, and passive participation in the improvement of human settlements. This provides a theoretical basis for optimizing the working mechanism of the government and village committees to improve the rural environment and also provides ideas for improving the living environment in rural areas of developing countries.

2. Theoretical Analysis

2.1. Organizational Support and Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Rural living Environment Improvement

The concept of organizational support was first proposed by Eisenberger et al. [57]; it refers explicitly to perceived organizational emotional support, the extent to which employees perceive that the organization values their values and contributions and cares about their interests. McMillan [58] argued that the sense of organizational support proposed by Eisenberger et al. represents the emotional value employees feel from the organization and names its emotional support. He emphasizes that to improve employee performance. Organizations should provide emotional support, such as valuing employees and caring for their interests, and instrumental support, such as job facilitation and skills training. This is to enhance employees’ ability to do their jobs while strengthening their reward mentality, which is conducive to achieving organizational goals. According to the differences between the functions and roles of government and village committees in improving the rural living environment, the division of organizational support dimensions is based on existing research [59]. We define organizational support as the emotional and instrumental support provided by village committees and government in the improvement of the rural living environment from two aspects: organizational support sources and organizational support forms.

2.1.1. Impact of Government Support on Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Improving Living Environment

According to Rhoades and Eisenberger, perceived the emotional needs of employees inspire a sense of responsibility for organizational interests and a willingness to pay more to achieve organizational goals [60]. It has been shown that the level of government attention affects the supply of rural public goods [13]. The reform of agricultural taxes has strengthened the responsibility of the Chinese Government for compulsory education, public health, and infrastructure development in rural areas [61]. After joining the WTO, the Chinese government faces a strategic transition from political control to the management of services [62]; all this requires the Chinese government to pay more attention to rural ecology and human settlements. The government’s attention to farmers’ participation and provision of fair and implementable programs for farmers’ participation can help farmers to perceive the government’s fair attitude in environmental management, as well as its determination and ability to address their real needs and participation dilemmas effectively. Based on social exchange and reciprocity theory, when farmers perceive that their rights are respected and valued by the Government, they will respond to the Government’s call to promote the organization’s goals and increase their willingness to participate. Based on the above analysis, hypothesis H1a is presented.

H1a: 

Governmental emotional support positively impacts farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

The government is the main organizer of rural development [63], and the state has increased its support for the countryside through the ‘project system’ [64]. According to the definition of instrumental support by McMillan [58], combining the existing literature [43,65,66] and the actual work of the government in rural living environment improvement, instrumental government support contains the formulation of institutional norms, personnel arrangement, investment, supervision, and management of the living environment. Liang et al. (2022) emphasize that the organization and coordination of government authority are essential for institutional strengths to be realized [67]. On the one hand, the government departments formulate policies and systems to improve the living environment, which is conducive to each participating body’s standardized and orderly participation. At the same time, financial input, material input, and technical guidance have greatly reduced farmers’ participation thresholds [30,43,47]. Information about environmental protection and pollution control can be disseminated in multiple ways, including through television and news media. This extensive publicity shapes the ecological protection environment and can unconsciously influence the subconscious of farmers [68]. This helps farmers understand and grasp the state’s national top-level design and macro-policy orientation for rural development and improves farmers’ self-efficacy in rural development and construction [46]. On this basis, hypothesis H1b is proposed.

H1b: 

Government instrumental support positively impacts farmers’ willingness to participate in the living environment improvement.

2.1.2. Impact of Village Committee Support on Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Improving Living Environment

Village committees play the role of bridging between the government and farmers in rural living environment improvement. The village committee’s emotional support comes mainly from their ability to fully respect the rights and interests of everyone, ensure that villagers’ voices are not deprived, take into account the villagers’ needs, and be fair and just in the actual remediation work process. Based on the social exchange theory, these emotional supports can effectively arouse farmers’ sense of identity and responsibility for the rural living environment improvement and enhance the favorable organizational behavior brought about by the degree of the psychological contract between villagers and village committee. As a result, they show more positive attitudes and behaviors in environmental improvement. When farmers perceive emotional support from village committees, they strengthen emotional bonds [69], and increase their motivation to participate in living environment remediation. Based on the above analysis, we propose the H1c hypothesis.

H1c: 

The emotional support of village committees positively impacts farmers’ willingness to participate in improving their living environment.

In 2005, China abolished the agricultural tax and introduced various agricultural subsidy policies, cutting off the village collective’s economic resources [70]. Due to the general weakness of the village collective economy, village committees rarely have funds for living environment improvement and rely more on financial allocations from higher levels of government. In other words, its national resources go to the countryside. So, the instrumental support that village committees can provide is mainly reflected in formulating arrangements for environmental improvement actions in the village in conjunction with higher-level requirements, organizing and mobilizing farmers to participate, and supervising farmers’ behavior. In general, village committees can use their administrative powers to achieve collective action to reduce the cost of individual farmer participation, form synergies in the remediation of the rural living environment, and improve the effectiveness of remediation [51]. Based on this, we propose hypothesis H1d in this paper.

H1d: 

The instrumental support of village committees positively impacts farmers’ willingness to participate in the living environment improvement.

2.2. Relationship between Environmental Health Literacy and the Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Improving their Living Environment

In 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China defined environmental health literacy as the ability of people to acquire, understand, and apply basic knowledge about the environment and health, thereby promoting a scientific conception of environment and health, a correct judgment of common environmental and health problems and the ability to take positive action to protect their health. This paper continues the concept of environmental health literacy defined by academia and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China. From the three dimensions of the basic idea, basic knowledge, and basic skills, this paper analyzes the influence of farmers’ environmental health literacy on their willingness to participate in improving their living environment.

Its basic idea focuses on farmers’ cognition and attitudes towards the environment and health, such as the relationship between environment and health, a basic awareness of environmental and health issues, and the awareness of prevention and responsibility regarding environmental and health issues. Therefore, when farmers have a higher awareness of environmental health, they can make accurate judgments about the level of their surroundings and are highly sensitive to environmental degradation and the possible risks of physical and mental health damage. Farmers have put forward higher demands to improve the rural living environment based on their health demands; they tend to consciously consider changing the status quo and adjust their behavior, accordingly, increasing their willingness to participate in improving the rural living environment.

Basic knowledge reflects the extent to which farmers have mastered scientific and behavioral knowledge related to the environment and health. Scientific knowledge of the health effects of other environmental pollution, such as air and soil, behavioral knowledge to reduce and prevent environmental pollution effects on health, etc. Farmers’ environmental health knowledge directly affects the success of rural environmental management [71]. Only farmers with sufficient knowledge of the environment and health can form an inner knowledge and understanding of their personal behavior and the relationship between the environment and health; they can effectively identify health risks, change their minds and attitudes, and revisit and modify their behavior [72].

Basic skills reflect farmers’ cognitive skills and operational skills; they indicate whether farmers have a certain action ability to protect the ecological environment and maintain their health, which determines the level of farmers’ understanding and executability of living environment improvement. Wang Ying et al. empirically tested that the higher the level of mastery and proficiency of farmers in domestic waste separation skills, the more inclined they were to implement domestic waste separation and disposal behavior [73]. It is assumed that farmers can identify environmental health risks and take appropriate measures to prevent and cope with them. Under these circumstances, farmers’ self-efficacy in environmental and health protection is high, which can effectively form self-motivation and self-realization and stimulate farmers’ participation enthusiasm.

Based on the above analysis, the following assumptions are proposed.

H2a: 

Environmental health idea positively influences farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

H2b: 

Environmental health knowledge positively affects farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

H2c: 

Environmental health skills positively influence farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

2.3. Mediating Role of Environmental Health Literacy

Because rural governance differs from for-profit institutions such as enterprises and corporations, the traditional theory of social exchange cannot fully explain the logic of farmers’ participation in improving public affairs in rural living environments. To fight the battle against environmental pollution, we need to rely on government departments to raise each resident’s awareness of the importance of environmental health issues and improve their ability to respond to environmental events [44,74]. Resource conservation theory argues that endogenous individual resources, such as farmers’ literacy, and extrinsic work resources, such as organizational support, have core values for farmers’ participation behavior and performance [75]. Emphasis is placed on the interaction between individual internal cognition and the external environment, suggesting that individual behavior changes are influenced by both external and internal cognition [76]. Conversely, environmental health literacy is a dynamic unit of intrinsic endowment analysis [77]. To some extent, it is the result of the individual’s education and summation and understanding of life experiences, as well as the influence of lifestyle habits over time, which can change with the external environment (e.g., organizational support).

In terms of emotional support, if rural living environment remediation is formalized and perfunctory, even if the organization invests a great deal of human, material and financial resources, the farmers will not be able to obtain active organizational emotional support. The overall residence well-being of the village is improved to a certain extent albeit., this kind of improvement method lacking a sense of responsibility and mission will certainly not be recognized by the grassroots. The lack of confidence in environmental remediation may cause farmers with negative feelings toward ecological remediation; it is not conducive to the cultivation of farmers’ environmental health ideas, knowledge, and skills and cannot effectively play the role of organizational support in motivating farmers’ willingness to participate. On the basis of respecting farmers’ environmental health rights health and paying attention to their contributions, we will strengthen farmers’ initiatives to improve their environmental health literacy. The use of social media has broadened the range of information available to farmers [78]; it has made it easier for them to access more knowledge and skills about the environment and health, thereby increasing their awareness and understanding of the relationship between the environment and health. When farmers feel the seriousness, sense of responsibility, fairness, and other positive emotional support from the organization, it is helpful to stimulate farmers to pay attention to their environmental health literacy and initiative spirit.

In instrumental support. The formulation and propaganda of the government’s policy system and action plans and village committees’ publicity, education, and technical training provide farmers with guidance, incentive, and restraint; they can not only directly improve their knowledge and skills but also subtly form a correct cognition of the relationship between environment and health in farmers’ minds and establish an accurate idea of environment and health. However, despite the exponential growth in the amount of environmental information available over the past few decades, this growth has not always translated into environmental behavior [79], and simply providing this information seems inadequate or useful [80]. Scholars, therefore, point out that effective identification of the types of knowledge that encourage environmental behavior is necessary for effective information strategies [81]. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen government and village committees to screen and analyze effective information available to farmers. That is, to assist farmers in increasing their basic skills and making full use of their vernacular knowledge to understand the new problems and situations they face while fully using their potential for innovation and ability to develop their communities [82]. Therefore, through extensive publicity, the government and village committees can further strengthen individual farmers’ environmental health literacy, create an environment protection information atmosphere for the whole society, and increase farmers’ willingness to participate. Therefore, hypotheses H3a andH3b are proposed.

H3a: 

Environmental health literacy is mediating in emotional support influencing farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

H3b: 

Environmental health literacy is mediating in instrumental support influencing farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

Based on the above analysis, a theoretical analysis framework is constructed, as shown in Figure 1.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Methods

Organizational support and environmental health literacy as intrinsic potential variables cannot be directly observed, so we tested the research hypotheses using structural equation models. Based on the different measurement relationships between latent and observed variables, structural equation models can be divided into reflective and formative structural models [83]. In general, the observed variables in reflection models are phenomena of potential variables that are interchangeable between observed variables and require internal consistency. On the contrary, the observed variables in the formative model are the causes of potential variables, and they are not interchangeable between the observed variables; they do not need to satisfy internal consistency constraints. At present, most scholars use software such as Amos, LISREL, and Mplus to analyze the reflection structure model with excellent likelihood estimation (ML). Instead, formative structural models were calculated with partial least squares (PLS) using the Smart-PLS software [84]. Different estimation methods also lead to significant differences in the fitting performance of the two models.

Based on the previous theoretical analysis and the distinction standard of reflective and formative indicators summarized by W.L. Wang et al. [85], the formative measurement model is appropriately applied in this study (please see Table 1 for details). Therefore, the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is established, in which the regression equation of the measurement model is as follows.

$$X={\lambda }_1{X}_1+{\lambda }_2{X}_2+\cdots +{\lambda }_n{X}_n+\delta$$

(1)

In the form, $X$ represents the potential variable, $X_n$ represents the observed variable, $\lambda$ represents the weighting factor, and $\delta$ is the residual term.

Table 1. Sample distribution characteristics.

Statistical Indicators		Jiangsu	Gansu	Total	Statistical Indicators		Jiangsu	Gansu	Total
Gender	Female	313	291	604	Age	<18	1	119	120
	Male	227	394	621		18–25	16	16	32
Education level	Illiterate	8	18	26		26–30	41	18	59
	Know some words	13	23	36		31–40	114	101	215
	Primary Schools	91	122	213		41–50	131	271	402
	Junior high school	223	243	466		51–60	153	118	271
	High School	160	231	391		>60	84	42	126
	University and graduate students	45	48	93	Household expenditure (Unit: RMB 10,000)	<1	2	62	64
Resident status	Village officials	6	24	6		1–3	239	292	531
	Villagers’ representatives	0	15	0		3–6	104	220	324
	Communist Party member	24	54	24		6–10	139	84	223
	General villagers	510	592	510		>10	56	27	83

Table 1. Sample distribution characteristics.

Statistical Indicators		Jiangsu	Gansu	Total	Statistical Indicators		Jiangsu	Gansu	Total
Gender	Female	313	291	604	Age	<18	1	119	120
	Male	227	394	621		18–25	16	16	32
Education level	Illiterate	8	18	26		26–30	41	18	59
	Know some words	13	23	36		31–40	114	101	215
	Primary Schools	91	122	213		41–50	131	271	402
	Junior high school	223	243	466		51–60	153	118	271
	High School	160	231	391		>60	84	42	126
	University and graduate students	45	48	93	Household expenditure (Unit: RMB 10,000)	<1	2	62	64
Resident status	Village officials	6	24	6		1–3	239	292	531
	Villagers’ representatives	0	15	0		3–6	104	220	324
	Communist Party member	24	54	24		6–10	139	84	223
	General villagers	510	592	510		>10	56	27	83

The regression equation of the structural model is as follows.

$$Y_{\eta }={\mathsf{{\rm B}}}_1{\mathrm{Y}}_{\xi 1}+{\mathsf{{\rm B}}}_2{\mathrm{Y}}_{\xi 2}+\cdots +{\mathsf{{\rm B}}}_p{\mathrm{Y}}_{\xi p}+\zeta$$

(2)

In the form, $Y_{\eta }$ represents the potential dependent variable, ${\mathrm{Y}}_{\xi }$ represents the potential independent variable, $\mathsf{{\rm B}}$ represents the structure factor, and $\zeta$ is the residual term.

The form of the econometric model set in this paper is as follows.

$$W={\alpha }_1+{\gamma }_{1}S+{\epsilon }_1$$

(3)

$$M={\alpha }_2+{\gamma }_{2}S+{\epsilon }_2$$

(4)

$$W={\alpha }_3+{\gamma }_{3}S+\beta M+{\epsilon }_3$$

(5)

In the form, $W$ represents farmers’ willingness to participate in the rural living environment improvement program. $S$ represents the organizational support, including government emotional and instrumental support, and village committee emotional and instrumental support. $M$ represents farmers’ environmental health literacy, including basic ideas, basic knowledge, and basic skills. ${\alpha }_1\backsim {\alpha }_3$ is a constant term. ${\gamma }_i$ and $\beta$ is the estimated parameter. ${\epsilon }_1\backsim {\epsilon }_3$ represents the random error term.

3.2. Data Sources

Data in this paper were obtained from field research and household interviews conducted in rural areas of Yuzhong County and Zhengning County in Gansu Province, China, and Lishui District and Tongzhou District in Jiangsu Province, China. Due to the differences in the level of economic and social development between regions, the Five-Year Action Plan for the Improvement and Upgrading of the Rural Living Environment (2021–2025) sets out different targets for the improvement of the rural living environment for eastern China, suburban areas in central and western China, and central and western regions, which are located in remote and less economically developed areas, i.e., the progress of the improvement of the living environment in different regions; it means differences in the progress and effectiveness of environmental improvement in different regions. Therefore, this study focuses on different remedial objectives and analyzes the impact of organizational support and farmers’ environmental health literacy on farmers’ willingness to participate in different regions in the context of national policies. According to the availability and comprehensiveness of the study data, Gansu Province was identified as the research area in the northwest, and Jiangsu Province was identified as the research area in the east China region. Considering the differential pattern of rural public goods supply due to geographical differences in China’s existing national conditions, this study considers the distance from the provincial capital cities in selecting the research areas. Yuzhong County in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province, and Lishui District in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province, are included in the research areas. At the same time, Zhengning County, Gansu Province, and Tongzhou District, Jiangsu Province, were randomly selected from non-capital cities in Gansu Province and Jiangsu Province and included in the study (see Figure 2). A random sampling method was then used to randomly select 6–10 townships in each county (district), and 4–10 administrative villages were randomly selected in each township. 10–30 households in each village were randomly surveyed for interviews depending on the size of the village. Interviewing one person per household requires the interviewee to understand the household situation and express his or her thoughts independently and clearly.

The core members of the project team traveled to Gansu and Jiangsu provinces from June to October 2021 to conduct field research and household interviews. To avoid language constraints and to facilitate communication with farmers, a small number of local university students were recruited through school-to-school cooperation and peer relationships; these university students also found several local freelancers through their social connections to assist us in our research work; their participation enabled us to better understand the development process of local rural habitat improvement and helped us to understand the opportunities and dilemmas encountered in the process of habitat improvement at a macro level. At the same time, to avoid interference from village cadres or government employees in the respondents’ answers, the surveyors went to the proposed research villages and towns on their own. We conducted household research through random visits to avoid sample selection bias among respondents. The questionnaire has three parts, one of which is the basic characteristics and environmental health literacy of farmers, the second is the current status of the living environment, and the third is the level of organizational support perceived by farmers. A total of 1255 valid questionnaires were collected, of which 540 were in Jiangsu and 715 in Gansu. The basic characteristics of the surveyed farmers are shown in Table 1.

As can be seen from Table 1, the distribution of the sample by sex, level of education, and residence status is generally balanced. The number of young rural laborers in sample areas of Gansu is significantly lower than in Jiangsu. The number of teenagers was also significantly higher than in Jiangsu. The total annual household expenditure is also lower for farmers in Gansu than in Jiangsu. Overall, these regional differences accord with the characteristics of the regional distribution of china’s rural population and regional economic consumption.

3.3. Variable Selection

3.3.1. Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Rural Living Environment Improvement

The Domestic waste classification, waste centralization, and sewage classification, sewage reduction. However, if farmers were asked about the overall environmental improvement, the answers they received were vague. Therefore, in order to more accurately measure farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement, the questionnaire designed based on the Three-Year Action Plan combines the current situation of rural living environment improvement and differences in farmers’ participation mechanisms in the research area and designs questionnaires around the content of improvement projects in rural living environment improvement that are closely related to farmers’ daily lives. We use the five-level Likert scale to observe farmers’ willingness to participate in domestic garbage classification, domestic garbage concentration, domestic sewage classification, domestic sewage emission reduction, and sanitary toilet renovation.

Farmers’ willingness to participate in improving the rural living environment is the endogenous potential variable in this paper. We find that farmers express their willingness to participate in implementing different treatment projects for living environment improvement more clearly. For example, farmers could express their willingness to participate in the classification of domestic waste, waste centralization, sewage classification, and sewage reduction. However, when farmers are asked whether they are willing to improve their living environment, their answers are breathtakingly simple. Therefore, in order to measure more accurately the willingness of farmers to participate in the improvement of the rural living environment, and in accordance with the Three-Year Action Program, a questionnaire was designed around the projects, which are closely related to farmers’ daily lives. Taking into account the current situation of rural living environment improvement and the differences in the mechanisms for farmers’ participation. The willingness of farmers to participate in household waste classification, centralized collection of domestic waste, domestic sewage classification, reduction of domestic sewage emissions, and improvement of sanitary latrines were observed by means of a five-level Likert scale.

3.3.2. Organizational Support

Data Organizational support is a potential exogenous variable in this paper. On the surface, the village council, as the end of the village governance system, seems indistinguishable from certain strategies and initiatives of the government. When examining these decisions and actions in depth, it becomes clear that the two play different roles [86]. At the same time, policies and projects in villages do not necessarily mean that farmers’ production and living conditions can be optimized, and there are real problems, such as unequal profit-sharing order. Therefore, adding the understanding and interpretation of farmers’ perspectives to the study can greatly enrich the dimension and level of rural revitalization research and enhance its sense of reality and practice [87]. In this study, the organizational support of government departments and village committees for improving the rural living environment was measured through respondents’ self-assessments using a five-point Likert scale. In order to avoid biased perceptions of government support and village committee support, the questionnaire should enable farmers to distinguish between the support of different organizations. For example, the fairness of effective government support focused on whether villages are fair in choosing beautiful villages and model villages for human settlements. In contrast, the fairness in the village committee’s emotional support is based on whether the village cadres followed the rules and regulations to improve the living environment. The propaganda in the government’s instrumental support was characterized by posters and WeChat public numbers, which were directly accessible to farmers. In contrast, the propaganda in the village committee’s instrumental support was mainly carried out through village radio, meetings, or WeChat groups (

Table 2. Meaning and assignment of variables.

Variable Name and Question Item			Assignment
Farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement program (WP)			Very reluctant = 1; Reluctant = 2; Fairly = 3; Willing = 4; Very willing = 5.
	WWS	Are you willing to sort your household waste?
	WWC	Are you willing to throw garbage at a fixed location, such as a garbage container?
	WRS	Are you willing to reduce the discharge of domestic sewage?
	WDS	Are you willing to separate the discharge of domestic sewage?
	WRT	Are you willing to carry out sanitary toilet renovation?
Organizational support
Government support
		Performance of local government departments in living environment improvement.
	Government emotional support (GES)		Not at all = 1; Not quite get to = 2; General = 3; Almost there = 4; Exactly equal to = 5
	GES1	a. Fair and reasonable distribution of remediation materials
	GES2	b. Fair selection of beautiful villages, model villages, etc.
	GES3	c. Try to solve the difficulties encountered in environmental management in the region
	Government instrumental support (GIS)
	GIS1	d. Try to provide funds and the required infrastructure and equipment
	GIS2	e. Responsible for environmental management and providing technical guidance
	GIS3	f. Publicize environmental regulation norms through posters and public numbers
	GIS4	g. Township government department staff to inspect the township
Villages Committee Support
		Performance of village committee departments in living environment improvement.
	Village committee emotional support (VES)		Not at all = 1; Not quite get to = 2; General = 3; Almost there = 4; Exactly equal to = 5
	VES1	a. Can respect the rights and interests of each person and value individual opinions
	VES2	b. Care about the needs of villagers and provide assistance
	VES3	c. act according to rules and regulations and do not seek personal gain
	Village committee instrumental support (VIS)
	VIS1	d. Promote relevant knowledge and skills through radio and WeChat groups
	VIS2	e. Set the requirements and the time and personnel arrangement of activities
	VIS3	f. Organize and mobilize villagers to make their yards and public areas hygiene
	VIS4	g. Supervise the environmental behavior of villagers and carry out hygiene evaluation
Environmental health literacy (EHL)
		Do you agree with the following statements?
	EHI1	a. Clear water and green mountains are important guarantees for health	Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; General = 3; Agree = 4; Strongly agree = 5
	EHI2	b. Rural garbage and sewage and village appearance need to be treated
	EHI3	c. The village environment can be destroyed as long as the income can be improved *
	EHI4	d. The village sanitary environment depends on the consciousness of each person
	EHI5	e. Farmers participate in living environment remediation more efficiently than the government
	EHK1	f. Children, pregnant women, and the elderly are more sensitive to harmful factors.
	EHK2	g. Extreme weather has directly affected human life and health
	EHK3	h. Heart and lung diseases may be acquired in a seriously polluted place for a long time
	EHK4	i. Rational disposal of domestic waste is good for health and environmental protection
	EHK5	j. Burning garbage and dumping sewage pollute the environment and increase health risks
	EHS1	k. Reduce going out or wearing masks in heavy pollution and dust storms
	EHS2	l. Learn and master how to separate household garbage
	EHS3	m. Learn about environmental information in their location through TV and the internet
	EHS4	n. Have the ability to report to the relevant authorities if a company damages the environment

Note: “*” means the reverse question item.

).

3.3.3. Environmental Health Literacy

Organizational support is a potential exogenous variable in this paper. Environmental health literacy is an exogenous and endogenous latent variable in this model. In this study, we have improved the scale in the “Environmental Health Literacy of Chinese Citizens (Trial)” to account for the real-life differences between the living environment of farmers in rural areas and urban residents in China. For example, the phrase “reducing motor vehicle emissions can improve air quality in urban environments” was deleted. Nuclear radiation, noise pollution, and hazard signs are more closely linked to the daily lives of China’s urban residents than in rural areas. For this reason, we have eliminated some questions that are significantly more distant from the lives of farmers. In addition, to avoid farmers becoming impatient and perfunctory with too many questions, we have eliminated the usual “I do not know, I have never heard of it” to control the number of questions. At the same time, to solve the problem that farmers did not understand the question’s meaning in the previous research, the original measurement scale language was translated into colloquial and everyday language. Table 2 shows this study’s ultimate measure of environmental health literacy.

4. Results

4.1. Measurement Model Estimation

4.1.1. Validity Test

The data analysis in this paper was implemented with the help of Smart PLS 3.3.3. The construct validity test of the formative measurement model examines two main aspects: First, whether the data model test results are consistent with the expected hypotheses. Second, whether the indicator weights of the observed variables on the latent variables are greater than 1 and significant at the 5% level [88], or greater than 0.5 if not significant [89]. The results of the validity test in this study are shown in

Table 3. Indicator loading results of the measurement models.

Potential Variables	Observations Variables	Weights			Potential Variables	Observations Variables	Weights
		Jiangsu	Gansu	All Samples			Jiangsu	Gansu	All Samples
GES	GES1	0.448 ***	0.430 ***	0.428 ***	VES	VES1	0.531 ***	0.411 ***	0.469 ***
	GES2	0.457 ***	0.448 ***	0.447 ***		VES2	0.346 ***	0.335 ***	0.334 ***
	GES3	0.334 ***	0.449 ***	0.406 ***		VES3	0.400 ***	0.424 ***	0.405 ***
GIS	GIS1	0.503 ***	0.511 ***	0.517 ***	VIS	VIS1	0.135 **	0.236 ***	0.196 ***
	GIS2	0.179 ***	0.169 ***	0.171 ***		VIS2	0.266 ***	0.233 ***	0.234 ***
	GIS3	0.313 ***	0.304 ***	0.296 ***		VIS3	0.124 **	0.303 ***	0.226 ***
	GIS4	0.336 ***	0.232 ***	0.262 ***		VIS4	0.682 ***	0.427 ***	0.550 ***
EHI	EHI1	0.352 ***	0.274 ***	0.299 ***	EHS	EHS1	0.397 ***	0.327 ***	0.351 ***
	EHI2	0.299 ***	0.325 ***	0.294 ***		EHS2	0.271 ***	0.252 ***	0.256 ***
	EHI3	0.261 ***	0.330 ***	0.280 ***		EHS3	0.333 ***	0.255 ***	0.284 ***
	EHI4	0.130 **	0.130 ***	0.162 ***		EHS4	0.297 ***	0.346 ***	0.327 ***
	EHI5	0.255 ***	0.123	0.185 ***	WP	WWS	0.137 ***	0.175 ***	0.167 ***
EHK	EHK1	0.473 ***	0.205 ***	0.325 ***		WWC	0.285 ***	0.253 ***	0.259 ***
	EHK2	0.314 ***	0.244 ***	0.310 ***		WRS	0.300 ***	0.224 ***	0.255 ***
	EHK3	0.174 ***	0.174 ***	0.151 ***		WDS	0.150 ***	0.208 ***	0.176 ***
	EHK4	0.232 ***	0.206 ***	0.194 ***		WRT	0.301 ***	0.274 ***	0.287 ***
	EHK5	0.128 ***	0.337 ***	0.240 ***

Note: “**”, “***” the significant at the 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

.

As seen from Table 3, the weights of the measured variables on the latent variables in the three models of all samples, Jiangsu, and Gansu, reached significant at the 5% level. Moreover, the indicator weights are all positive, which is consistent with the expected hypothesis; they indicate that this study’s measured variables can better reflect the latent variables and pass the construct validity test. It is noteworthy that the government’s instrumental support (GIS) has the most significant weight of financial input (GIS1) (0.503, 0.511, and 0.517 in the three models, respectively). This measured variable has the highest contribution to the potential variable of instrumental support from the government. Relative to other aspects, farmers rely more on and pay more attention to government financial inputs, which is more in line with reality. Second, the contribution of farmers’ awareness of responsibility and role perception (EHI4) in environmental health literacy(EHI) is relatively low, indicating that although farmers recognize the importance and necessity of living environment improvement, they do not think they should be the responsible subject. In addition, the instrumental support of village committees (VIS) showed significant regional differences, with the highest contribution of supervision and management (GIS4) and program development (VIS2) in Jiangsu province and a lower contribution of publicity and guidance (VIS1), and organizational mobilization (VIS3) than in Gansu; it is possible because the Jiangsu region has performed living environment improvement earlier and formed better social norms in the village area. The village committees rely mainly on institutional channels to carry out their work. In contrast, the Gansu region started later and needed to rely on more investment in propaganda and mobilization for preliminary governance.

In addition, the cross-loading method is used to verify the discriminant validity between structures. The loadings represent the contribution of an item to the latent variable to which it belongs. At the same time, the cross-loadings are, in fact, the contribution of an item to other latent variables. The cross-loadings test is valid if the indicator’s loadings on the construct in question are greater than all of its loadings on the other constructs [90]. The test results are shown in

Table 4. Cross-loadings on each configuration.

Cross-Loadings	WP	EHS	GIS	GES	VIS	VES	EHI	EHK
VIS1	0.518	0.490	0.550	0.457	0.736	0.562	0.479	0.434
VIS2	0.546	0.532	0.582	0.507	0.777	0.607	0.489	0.463
VIS3	0.543	0.524	0.578	0.506	0.768	0.601	0.489	0.449
VIS4	0.628	0.601	0.630	0.559	0.910	0.645	0.602	0.549
GIS1	0.633	0.593	0.881	0.580	0.614	0.612	0.564	0.522
GIS2	0.509	0.471	0.694	0.460	0.484	0.497	0.435	0.402
GIS3	0.555	0.512	0.778	0.497	0.595	0.570	0.516	0.459
GIS4	0.522	0.507	0.744	0.478	0.551	0.544	0.505	0.417
EHS1	0.712	0.863	0.577	0.608	0.572	0.579	0.699	0.618
EHS2	0.643	0.778	0.507	0.552	0.507	0.529	0.625	0.546
EHS3	0.656	0.819	0.561	0.589	0.581	0.570	0.675	0.599
EHS4	0.660	0.815	0.552	0.592	0.535	0.562	0.678	0.608
EHI1	0.655	0.637	0.526	0.578	0.531	0.522	0.814	0.568
EHI2	0.663	0.698	0.554	0.599	0.552	0.552	0.836	0.631
EHI3	0.611	0.623	0.506	0.553	0.500	0.513	0.770	0.592
EHI4	0.677	0.677	0.518	0.579	0.527	0.533	0.828	0.624
EHI5	0.668	0.705	0.549	0.603	0.538	0.540	0.837	0.608
EHK1	0.616	0.622	0.492	0.542	0.512	0.542	0.620	0.861
EHK2	0.606	0.604	0.501	0.511	0.506	0.534	0.607	0.842
EHK3	0.544	0.551	0.443	0.480	0.465	0.494	0.567	0.767
EHK4	0.567	0.588	0.476	0.524	0.469	0.512	0.610	0.806
EHK5	0.566	0.576	0.456	0.469	0.469	0.480	0.592	0.778
VES1	0.609	0.584	0.614	0.558	0.612	0.849	0.548	0.535
VES2	0.561	0.528	0.550	0.499	0.598	0.786	0.515	0.502
VES3	0.594	0.576	0.595	0.518	0.630	0.836	0.547	0.523
GES1	0.583	0.549	0.516	0.783	0.493	0.524	0.565	0.490
GES2	0.577	0.548	0.482	0.776	0.482	0.474	0.563	0.481
GES3	0.579	0.578	0.528	0.781	0.499	0.498	0.542	0.483
WGC	0.871	0.706	0.617	0.645	0.627	0.635	0.692	0.635
WGP	0.895	0.735	0.630	0.658	0.587	0.630	0.734	0.642
WRS	0.869	0.699	0.631	0.653	0.635	0.618	0.697	0.607
WDS	0.852	0.707	0.613	0.643	0.616	0.607	0.662	0.593
WRT	0.877	0.715	0.631	0.647	0.593	0.630	0.701	0.644

Note: one expects that an indicator has the highest loading value (in bold) with the construct to which it has been assigned.

for the total sample. The results indicate that the test for discriminant validity between the constructs in this study is valid.

4.1.2. Covariances Diagnosis

Multiple correlations will seriously affect the least squares estimates. Therefore, this paper further diagnoses the variables for multicollinearity. Generally, a VIF value below 10 can be considered no multicollinearity between variables [85]. The results showed that the VIF values of all variables were less than 3 or close to 3, i.e., the explanatory strength of the measured indicators in this study was high, and the covariance among all indicators was low, meeting the requirements of model validity.

4.2. Model Goodness of Fit Test

The goodness-of-fit test of the formative structural equation model constructed in this study draws on the fitness criteria of Henseler et al. [91]. The results of the model operations (

Table 5. Fitting results of the model.

Statistical Test Volume	Jiangsu			Gansu			All Samples
	SRMR	d_G	NFI	SRMR	d_G	NFI	SRMR	d_G	NFI
Adaptive criteria or critical values	<0.08	<0.95	>0.9	<0.08	<0.95	>0.9	<0.08	<0.95	>0.9
Test results	0.042	0.306	0.913	0.061	0.327	0.933	0.051	0.242	0.943
Model fitness judgment	acceptable	Adaptation	acceptable	Good	acceptable	acceptable	Good	acceptable	acceptable

) are shown in Table 5. Each fit index meets the essential criteria for the good or fit of the model, indicating that the model fit of this study is good in all cases.

4.3. Estimation of the Structural Model

The structural model evaluation includes three aspects. One is whether the coefficient of determination (R²) of the endogenous latent variables reaches a significant level. Two is whether the sign of the parameters represented by the path coefficients between latent variables is consistent with the desired direction assumed by the theoretical model. Three is whether the path coefficients are significant, i.e., the effects between variables have substantial significance.

The coefficient of determination of endogenous latent variables, R², reflects the extent to which endogenous variables are explained, with R² ranging from 0 to 1. Larger values indicate stronger explanatory power. In general, R² close to 0.25 can be considered slightly weak explanatory power; close to 0.5 indicates that the model has moderate explanatory power, and close to 0.75 indicates that the model’s explanatory power is very significant [92]. To remove the effect of changes in the number of explanatory variables on the model’s goodness of fit, the squared residuals and the sum of squared total deviations were divided by their respective degrees of freedom to obtain the adjusted coefficient R²_adj. The closer the two values are to each other indicates that the estimated bias of the parameter R² is smaller. The coefficient of determination R² of farmers’ willingness to participate in all three models of this study was greater than 0.75 (see

Table 6. Endogenous latent variables R² and R²_adj.

Variables	R2 (R2adj)
	Jiangsu	Gansu	All Samples
WP	0.792 (0.789)	0.762 (0.760)	0.777 (0.775)
EHI	0.609 (0.606)	0.593 (0.590)	0.602 (0.601)
EHK	0.552 (0.549)	0.473 (0.470)	0.495 (0.493)
EHS	0.597 (0.594)	0.634 (0.632)	0.628 (0.626)

Note: R² and R²_adj denote the coefficient of determination and adjustment coefficient of the endogenous latent variable, respectively, and the closer the two values are to each other indicates the estimated bias of parameter R² is smaller.

), indicating that organizational support and environmental health literacy can explain farmers’ willingness to participate well. The R² of the basic idea, basic knowledge, and basic skills were all close to 0.5, indicating that organizational support also had moderate explanatory power for environmental health literacy with the measured. The coefficients of the Jiangsu sample were close to the excellent level, indicating that although other factors may also impact farmers’ environmental health literacy level, organizational support is still one of the critical factors; it confirms that organizational support and farmers’ environmental health literacy in rural living environment improvement are essential factors influencing farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement.

Table 7. Estimation results of the impacts of organizational support and environmental health literacy on farmers’ willingness to participate in rural living environment improvement.

Effectiveness	Path	Jiangsu	Gansu	All Samples	Effectiveness	Path	Jiangsu	Gansu	All Samples
Direct effect	GES -> EHI	0.414 ***	0.384 ***	0.410 ***	Indirect effects	GES -> EHI -> WP	0.071 ***	0.088 ***	0.088 ***
	GES -> EHK	0.323 ***	0.295 ***	0.299 ***		GES -> EHK -> WP	0.028 **	0.032 ***	0.029 ***
	GES -> EHS	0.434 ***	0.334 ***	0.374 ***		GES -> EHS -> WP	0.108 ***	0.095 ***	0.100 ***
	GIS -> EHI	0.220 ***	0.095 **	0.154 ***		GIS -> EHI -> WP	0.037 ***	0.022 **	0.033 ***
	GIS -> EHK	0.137 ***	0.052	0.099 ***		GIS -> EHK -> WP	0.012 *	0.006	0.010 **
	GIS -> EHS	0.167 ***	0.131 ***	0.163 ***		GIS -> EHS -> WP	0.042 ***	0.037 ***	0.044 ***
	VES -> EHI	0.162 ***	0.160 ***	0.158 ***		VES -> EHI -> WP	0.028 ***	0.037 ***	0.034 ***
	VES -> EHK	0.271 ***	0.261 ***	0.264 ***		VES -> EHK -> WP	0.023 **	0.028 ***	0.025 ***
	VES -> EHS	0.162 ***	0.235 ***	0.208 ***		VES -> EHS -> WP	0.040 ***	0.067 ***	0.056 ***
	VIS -> EHI	0.100 **	0.236 ***	0.163 ***		VIS -> EHI -> WP	0.017 **	0.054 ***	0.035 ***
	VIS -> EHK	0.127 ***	0.171 ***	0.141 ***		VIS -> EHK -> WP	0.011 *	0.019 **	0.014 ***
	VIS -> EHS	0.121 ***	0.207 ***	0.162 ***		VIS -> EHS -> WP	0.030 ***	0.059 ***	0.043 ***
	GES -> WP	0.236 ***	0.084 ***	0.158 ***	Total effect	GES -> WP	0.442 ***	0.299 ***	0.375 ***
	GIS -> WP	0.117 ***	0.149 ***	0.126 ***		GIS -> WP	0.208 ***	0.214 ***	0.212 ***
	VES -> WP	0.106 ***	0.106 ***	0.095 ***		VES -> WP	0.197 ***	0.238 ***	0.211 ***
	VIS -> WP	0.078 **	0.039	0.059 **		VIS -> WP	0.136 ***	0.170 ***	0.151 ***
	EHI -> WP	0.170 ***	0.230 ***	0.216 ***
	EHK -> WP	0.086 **	0.109 ***	0.096 ***
	EHS -> WP	0.249 ***	0.283 ***	0.268 ***

Note: “*”, “**”, “***” the significant at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

reports the path coefficients of organizational support to farmers’ environmental health literacy and willingness to participate in improving human settlements.

In the direct effect of organizational support on farmers’ willingness to participate in living environmental improvement, all sample estimation results showed that both affective and instrumental support from the government and affective and instrumental support from the village committee positively motivated farmers’ willingness to participate. The coefficients of the influence paths were 0.158, 0.126, 0.095, and 0.059, respectively. Research hypotheses H1a, H1b, H1c, and H1d, were verified. Overall, the government support effect is significantly higher than the village committee support, indicating that the correct guidance and policy and institutional construction of the higher-level government in remediation actions contribute more to farmers’ active participation than the implementation and execution of the village committee. Moreover, the emotional support effect is more vital than the instrumental support. That means the policy starting point and flexibility space, institutional rationality, and the service attitude of government and village committee personnel are more likely to motivate farmers’ emotional acquisition and participation than material inputs and institutional normative constraints such as publicity, education, and supervision and management.

Regionally, the Jiangsu estimate is consistent with the overall sample. In contrast, the instrumental support of the government in Gansu has the most significant promotion effect, followed by the village committee’s emotional support. The instrumental support failed the significance test. According to the survey, the reliance on government financial allocations for rural living environment improvement in the Gansu region is higher. Farmers generally believe that the instrumental support provided by village committees in living environment improvement is more inclined to administrative work, which is a passive acceptance of special assignments. Possible reasons for this are the weak economic development of the Gansu region and the weakness of village collective financial resources, which weaken the ability of village committees to invest material resources in the supply of rural public goods. In order to obtain more support from national resources, village committees may pay more attention to the assessment requirements of higher-level governments in promoting rural living environment improvement. Such a practice may produce an imbalance in the focus of village committees between the actual needs of farmers and the governance requirements of the government, failing the incentive of instrumental support from village committees.

Among the direct effects of farmers’ environmental health literacy on their willingness to participate, the results of all sample estimation and the regional estimation were consistent in that environmental and health ideas, knowledge, and skills all positively influenced farmers’ willingness to participate with impact coefficients of 0.216, 0.096, and 0.268 respectively. Thus, hypotheses H2a, H2b, and H2c were tested. However, the marginal effects of the three aspects of literacy are different. Basic skills contributed most strongly to farmers’ willingness to participate, followed by basic ideas, and basic knowledge was the weakest. This may be due to the fact that, as the national standards and requirements for farmers continue to improve, farmers’ participation is increasingly dependent on their mastery of basic skills. By region, the environmental health literacy of farmers in Gansu is generally lower than that of farmers in Jiangsu. However, the effect of literacy on farmers’ willingness in Gansu is more significant than that of farmers in Jiangsu. Therefore, changing farmers’ environmental health ideas in Gansu and improving their knowledge and skills will improve their willingness to participate in rural living environment improvement compared to Jiangsu.

In the direct impact of organizational support on farmers’ environmental health literacy, overall organizational support (government instrumental support, government emotional support, village committee instrumental support, and village committee emotional support) plays a positive role in the development of farmers’ environmental health literacy (basic ideas, basic knowledge, and basic skills). Emotional support promotion affects farmers’ environmental health literacy more than instrumental support, suggesting that emotional support enhances farmers’ sense of organizational identity and f belonging more than passive input of ideas, knowledge, and skills. Based on the theory of social exchange and reciprocity principle, it is easier to improve farmers’ environmental health literacy by stimulating their learning initiative through emotional support.

Notably, in addition to the influence of instrumental support of village committees having an impact on farmers’ environment and health, government support has a greater impact on improving farmers’ literacy levels than village committees. The influence of government support and the emotional support of village committees on the cultural literacy of Jiangsu farmers is more potent than that of Gansu. This may be due to the important and irreplaceable role that the current government-led environment improvement of rural living plays in providing improved resources and macro-public opinion guidance. Jiangsu’s second and tertiary industries are developing well, farmers have more jobs nearby, which weakens the influence of migrant workers on farmers’ participation in rural public affairs [4], and farmers’ access to information is not limited to the support of the government and village committees. In addition, the improvement in the level of economic development has made the pursuit of the well-being of farmers no longer limited to the improvement of income levels; they require an appropriate living environment [13] and a greater focus on environmental pollution and health risks [93], so they are subjectively more motivated to improve their environmental health literacy. By contrast, the economic development of the Gansu region is more backward. There are few local employment opportunities for farmers, so the school-age workforce usually works between provinces and cities. Middle-aged and young people returning to their villages is low. The rural population left mainly old, sick, and young, who are more limited in their concern for and ability to participate in rural public affairs; they have a weak ability to learn about the environment and health and have a single channel of understanding, so they rely heavily on the village committees as a transmission path.

In addition, the contribution of different types of organizational support to different aspects of environmental health literacy varies. The contribution of government instrumental and emotional support to basic ideas and skills is relatively high. The contribution of the village committee’s emotional support to basic knowledge is relatively high. There are regional differences in the influence of instrumental support of the village committees on farmers’ literacy. The reason for this may lie in basic ideas such as “protecting the environment are everyone’s responsibility”, and “Clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver.” and basic skills such as environmental pollution complaints; these are the important publicity content of China’s ecological civilization construction strategy. The basic idea and skills of farmers’ environment and health have been significantly improved with government support through a wide range of government information dissemination environments [68]. More emotional support from village committees could effectively increase the exchange of environmental and health-related content among farmers, promote the dissemination of basic knowledge and related experiences within communities, and improve farmers’ environmental and health knowledge and skills. The improvement of the rural living environment in Jiangsu started early, and farmers generally have a good idea of environmental health. With the improvement of the living environment, Jiangsu village committees should provide corresponding support to enhance farmers’ environment and health knowledge and skills. Gansu, by contrast, has a relatively lagging economy, with farmers demanding much higher incomes than environmental management [94]. Therefore, the main objective of the Gansu Village Committee is to change the concept of economic emphasis on the environment, and then to teach farmers how to preserve the environment and health, and in the process to infiltrate environmental and health knowledge. In other words, the different stages of remediation have led to different levels of literacy being affected differently by means of village committee support.

The decomposition of the indirect effects of organizational support on farmers’ willingness to participate shows that overall organizational support effectively improves farmers’ environmental health literacy and willingness to participate. Hypotheses H3a and H3b were tested. Organizational support significantly increases farmers’ willingness to participate through environmental health skills, followed by the idea and knowledge. The government and village committees should focus on training farmers in environmental health literacy skills in the current living environment improvement efforts. The most significant effect of governmental emotional support to influence farmers’ willingness to participate through farmers’ environmental health literacy is followed by village committee emotional support, then village committee instrumental support, and the weakest mediating effect of governmental instrumental support to influence farmers’ willingness to participate through their literacy.

Overall, government support is more likely to enhance farmers’ willingness to participate to a greater extent than village committee support. Emotional support is higher than instrumental support. The results show that the government’s information is more likely to influence farmers’ willingness to participate than village committees’ information, organization, and monitoring. In particular, inputs of public goods, such as finance and equipment, can reduce the threshold for farmers’ participation. Moreover, farmers are more motivated to participate through emotional acceptance than instrumental support. In addition to the governmental emotional support, the overall effect of organizational support on farmers’ willingness to participate was higher in Gansu than in Jiangsu. The analysis shows that although the instrumental support of Gansu village committees does not directly affect farmers’ willingness to participate, it can greatly improve farmers’ environmental health literacy to a large extent and thus increase their willingness to participate. In other words, farmers’ environmental health literacy has played a crucial role in regulating Gansu. Under strong mediating effects and the significant influence of emotional support on farmers’ literacy, the overall influence of government emotional support on farmers’ willingness to participate in Gansu was higher than that of government instrumental support.

5. Discussion

5.1. Comparison with Literature

The improvement of the rural living environment is one of the effective paths to help farmers yearn for a better life. In China, the government has made good efforts to remediate the pollution, but the farmers’ negative participation dilutes the allocation efficiency of government resource allocation. Therefore, converting farmers’ participation attitude and increasing their enthusiasm for participation is a beneficial path to realizing orderly development of the rural living environment.

The study found that each standard deviation increase in farmers’ environmental health skills, ideas, and knowledge leads directly to an increase in farmers’ willingness to participate, i.e., 0.268, 0.216, and 0.096 standard deviations increase in farmers’ willingness to participate. The direct and overall effects of government emotional support, government instrumental support, village committee emotional support, and village committee instrumental support on farmers’ willingness to participate declined sequentially, and the indirect effects of emotional support were generally higher than instrumental support. The contribution of farmers’ environmental health skills was much higher than the basic knowledge mastery on farmers’ willingness to participate. In terms of regional differences, the support effect of government instruments was higher in Jiangsu than in Gansu. However, the instrumental support effect of the village committee is quite the opposite. The improvement of farmers’ environmental health literacy in Gansu contributes more to farmers’ willingness to participate than in Jiangsu.

The significant positive effect of the degree of support from government departments on farmers’ willingness to result is consistent with the findings of numerous scholars [43,95]. Financial input is the most significant latent variable in government instrumental support, consistent with academics’ findings [43]. Meanwhile, the conclusion of this study that village committee support positively and significantly affects farmers’ willingness to participate verifies the findings of L. Su et al. [96]. Teng et al. [97] studied the game processes of government, village collectives, and farmers in rural household waste sorting; according to them, the special status of village committees makes them more binding on farmers than the government, which is consistent with the conclusion of this study on the effect of government support in the Gansu region. Furthermore, the effect of government support in Jiangsu is much higher than village committee support, which verifies that He et al. [98] pointed out that village-level organizational cohesion and authority have declined and that village governance mechanism plays an unsatisfactory role in environmental governance. The findings in terms of regional differences also validate the findings of existing studies that government attention has a more substantial impact on the supply of public goods in regions where the supply of public goods to farmers is adequate and, therefore, less in demand by farmers [13].

This study shows that farmers’ environmental health literacy mediates between organizational support and farmers’ willingness to participate, which is consistent with the findings of Zhang and Wang [99]. The fact that farmers have a better mastery of basic ideas than the level of basic knowledge promotes their willingness to participate is quite similar to the findings of many scholars [100,101]. It has also been pointed out that the higher farmers’ environmental knowledge, the stronger their willingness to participate in environmental management. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen and popularize the knowledge of the living environment improvement and to realize the improvement of the living environment from “unknown” to “know” to “will do” in the minds of farmers.

5.2. Limitations and Future Research

Certainly, there are still some drawbacks and limitations to this study. First, all the variables measured in the paper were collected in a self-reported manner. Although this method is often used in relevant studies and is widely accepted in academia, homogenous data can still bring systemic bias. Secondly, there are fewer reverse examination questions for measuring environmental health literacy assessment, which may be social approbation. In future studies, we can use a combination of self-reported subjective and countryside neighborhood assessments to obtain these assessments and reduce the likelihood of systematic bias. Simultaneously, anti-question items were added to avoid the impact of social desirability on the accuracy of the questionnaire data.

Empirical facts show that government support for rural living environment improvement in China currently faces the governance dilemma of institutional dependency. At the same time, village committees have administrative development trends, which can adversely affect the effectiveness of government support and village committee support [102]. Unfortunately, this study lacks quantitative evidence to confirm the adverse effects of such institutional dependence and administration of village committees, which to a certain extent, weaken the effect of organizational support on farmers’ participation. How quantifying this adverse effect will be one of the elements that future research needs to attack.

With the rapid development of social media, scholars have pointed out that different types of online media are decisive triggers of collective action [103]. Therefore, it is necessary to include the information in the research framework of farmers’ collective behavior in future studies. At the same time, some scholars have questioned that individual willingness to participate does not necessarily translate into actual action. Hence, the study needs to verify further the influence of organizational support and farmers’ environmental health literacy on the paradoxical phenomenon of their willingness to participate and behavior and identify the key factors that shift farmers’ willingness to govern to environmental behavior. In future research, the process of realizing the value of rural multi-functionality will be explored in the context of the overall environmental improvement process from a post-productivism perspective.

Nevertheless, this study analyzes the mediating role played by environmental health literacy by elaborating on the influence of government support and village committee support on farmers’ participation in living environment improvement and provides a theoretical and factual basis for the influence of government and collective organizations on farmers’ collective actions. With the development trend of rural globalization, exploring farmer participation in rural living environment improvement is a valuable practice for the coupled development of rural human-land relations; it refers to the bottom-up governance model in Europe and the United States [104,105]. Further, it enriches the rural development paths in East Asian countries aiming to narrow the urban-rural gap [87].

6. Conclusions

6.1. Conclusions

Based on the post-productivism changes in the global countryside, this study focuses on the goal of ecological livability in China’s rural revitalization strategy, takes rural living environment improvement as the focus, and examines the impact of organizational support on farmers’ willingness to participate in living environment improvement in the context of China’s rural development history. The study takes the new endogenous development theory as the research paradigm, based on social exchange theory and resource conservation theory, and incorporates organizational emotional support with instrumental support and environmental health literacy in rural public affairs. Notably, this paper constructs an analytical framework of farmers’ willingness to participate in rural living improvement driven by internal and external factors of organizational support (government support and village committee support) and environmental health literacy from the reality of the pluralistic governance system of Chinese villages composed of the government, village committees, and farmers. We explore the practical paths that can activate farmers’ enthusiasm to participate in rural living environment improvement. The results show that the government and village committees influence farmers’ participation in living environment improvement through the direct path of “organizational support → farmers’ willingness to participate” and the indirect path of “organizational support → farmers’ environmental health literacy → farmers’ willingness to participate”.

First, all four types of organizational support positively impact farmers’ environmental health literacy and willingness to participate. Overall, government support has a higher direct effect on increasing farmers’ willingness to participate than village committee support. However, there are geographical differences in the level of support from different organizations. In areas with weaker economic development, the support of village committees has a higher effect on the willingness of farmers to participate than in areas with higher economic development. Government support is the opposite way.

Second, among the direct paths of influence of environmental health literacy on farmers’ willingness to participate, the contribution of basic skills was the highest, followed by ideas, and the lowest by knowledge. Organizational support at different levels positively affected all dimensions of farmers’ environmental health literacy. The pathway of organizational support to enhance farmers’ willingness to participate by improving their environmental and health skills was the most effective.

Third, except for the instrumental support of village committees, the direct effect of emotional support on farmers’ willingness to participate and the indirect effect mediated by environmental health literacy was higher than the instrumental support; it is determined by the demographic structure of villages and the relationship between farmers and village committees.

Fourth, the government’s instrumental and emotional support improved farmers’ basic ideas and skills more effectively. By contrast, village committee emotional support was more effective in improving farmers’ basic knowledge, and village committee instrumental support contributed the most to farmers’ environmental and health knowledge based on regional differences. At the same time, it was most effective in improving basic ideas in Gansu.

Based on the above findings, it is clear that the differentiated organizational support provided by the Chinese government and village committees directly and effectively promoted farmers’ willingness to participate in rural living environment improvement. At the same time, organizational support also improves farmers’ willingness to participate by increasing their environmental health literacy levels. However, there are significant differences between the political and administrative systems in China and the West. However, in the area of public services, like Western governments, the same local governments support and provide them. Therefore, the trend of citizen participation in local government governance is the same as in the West. Even though village committees are a characteristic of China’s grassroots governance system, rural communities, rural organizations, and other collective organizations can play in other countries can play the same role as Chinese village committees.

6.2. Implications

Based on the findings of this paper, we offer the following policy insights.

Firstly, to address the issue of emotional support beings more effective than instrumental support, we recommend that government departments take into account rural realities in formulating policy systems and operational goals and consider practical feasibility based on equity in the light of farmers’ needs and immediate interests. When implementing policies and organizing the coordinated participation of farmers, the village committee should put people first, end formalization and strategy, and strengthen farmers’ confidence in environmental governance.

Secondly, from the following aspects to enhance the support of the instrument: For the government, the first step is to improve the mechanism of diversification of investment, combined with the actual and reasonable planning of the region, to put limited capital into difficult projects provided by farmers spontaneously. Second, speed up local legislation so farmers’ pollution and environmental damage can be punished by law, forming rigid constraints. For village committees, it is necessary to set up a workforce with village cadres, village group cadres, and party members as its core, implement networked management and refine responsibilities for decomposition. The second is to improve the content of the “village rules and regulations”, including the requirements of hygiene and sanitation, waste recycling, and other behavior, and to link with the “reward and punishment” mechanism, moral evaluation, to form a soft restraint on farmers’ behavior. Both government and village committees should use information multimedia channels, up and down one, to play their absolute authority advantage and power distance advantage, the publicity and education from policy interpretation, role model propaganda, scientific knowledge and behavior, and other aspects of the development. At the same time, the focus of publicity should be adjusted to the differences in the stages of remediation in different regions. Such as focusing on the cultivation of farmers’ environmental rights and interests, collective awareness of the village, and awareness of responsibility for pollution control at the early stage and playing the role of ideological leadership; enriching the form of learning of farmers’ knowledge and skills at the later stage of remediation to avoid farmers’ “retreat” due to the difficulty of implementation.

Thirdly, in response to the findings that the positive mediating utility of environmental and health skills is the greatest and that emotional support contributes most to environmental and health skills enhancement, we make the following recommendations. Governments and collective organizations should fully consider local farmers’ living customs and learning abilities and develop scientifically reasonable and humane implementation norms. Emphasis should be placed on training farmers in basic skills, especially waste and sewage sorting and resource utilization, to lower the technical threshold for farmers’ participation. We should open up channels for farmers to obtain information and feedback, collect, resolve and deal with difficulties encountered by farmers promptly, and motivate farmers to adopt rewarding behaviors.

Fourth, in response to the regional heterogeneity of organizational support effects. Local governments and village committees should fully integrate the characteristics of rural development, customs, local finance, and other factors to promote comprehensive management according to local conditions. For example, in this study, Jiangsu Province’s rural living environment improvement is in the stage of improvement and upgrading, so the focus should be on making up for the shortcomings in the construction of supporting facilities and improving the supervision mechanism, enhancing the convenience of farmers’ participation. In Gansu, on the basis of satisfying the need for infrastructure development for the improvement of rural human settlements’ environment and building farmers’ awareness of environmental protection, emphasis is placed on popularizing farmers’ knowledge and ideas of environmental sanitation and encouraging and leading them to participate actively in environmental improvement. Village cadres and Party members should be exemplary leaders to prevent farmers from falling into a situation where “no one takes the lead” or “ do not know how to do”.