Contrary to what some think, there is no single overriding problem and thus no simple way of making risk communication easy. Several important misconceptions need to be dispelled before the real problems of risk communication can be addressed. Where an unusually strong degree of advocacy seems warranted, officials should seek legitimization of such actions through the democratic process.ĬOMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT RISK COMMUNICATION Procedural strategies such as independent review processes can be used to determine the appropriateness of the use of influencing techniques. A public official should be aware of the political risks and of the legitimate constraints placed upon government in advocacy. Government officials must be accountable for their decisions and will likely find their efforts to influence contested if they stray from accepted scientific views or if they challenge popular consensus. We construe risk communication to be successful to the extent that it raises the level of understanding of relevant issues or actions for those involved and satisfies them that they are adequately informed within the limits of available knowledge.įinally, it should be noted that one of the most difficult issues we faced concerned the extent to which public officials in a democratic society should attempt to influence individuals-that is, to go beyond merely informing them-concerning risks and such risk-reducing actions as quitting smoking. Some take the position that risk communication is successful when recipients accept the views or arguments of the communicator. We view success in risk communication in a different way also. When risk communication is viewed in this way, significant, though perhaps less obvious, underlying problems can be better discerned and treated. We see risk communication as an interactive process of exchange of information and opinion among individuals, groups, and institutions. Instead, we make a crucial distinction between risk messages and the risk communication process. We found a focus on one-way messages too limiting, however. Because much of the controversy seems to center on the content of specific messages, it was tempting to proceed along the lines of many previous discussions about risk communication and concentrate on message design. In this report the Committee on Risk Perception and Communication takes a different perspective. In the past the term risk communication has commonly been thought of as consisting only of one-way messages from experts to nonexperts. Messages that nonexperts can understand necessarily present selected information and are thus subject to challenge as being inaccurate, incomplete, or manipulative. Often a message that is precise and accurate must be so complex that only an expert can understand it. Experts are frequently accused of hiding their subjective preferences behind technical jargon and complex, so-called objective analyses. Frequently, there is enough uncertainty in the underlying knowledge to allow different experts to draw contradictory conclusions. The hazards they describe are often themselves centers of controversy. Risk messages can be controversial for many reasons. This report addresses these and other problems confronting risk communication. But this simple comparison may be misleading because it does not specify the respective levels of exposure, leaves out potentially relevant nonlethal consequences, and uses language (picocuries per liter) unfamiliar to most people. This statement places an unfamiliar risk (radon exposure in homes) in juxtaposition to a more familiar risk (death in an auto accident), which may help people understand the magnitude of this unfamiliar risk. One reads, for example, that “radon risk can equal or exceed the 2% risk of death in an auto accident,… for anyone who lives 20 years at levels exceeding about 25 picocuries per liter” (Kerr, 1988). Risk messages are difficult to formulate in ways that are accurate, clear, and not misleading. Government and industry also send out messages about hazards and their risks, sometimes directly to the populace but more often through intermediaries, such as the print and broadcast media. News reports describe such hazards as pollutants in the air and in drinking water, pesticide residues in food, threats from radiation and toxic chemicals, and AIDS. Hazards of modern life surround us and so, too, does communication about the risks of those hazards.
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