Risk comparisons and risk communication: Issues and problems in comparing health and environmental risks

In response to rising public fears and concerns about hazardous activities and technologies, analysts and policy makers have increasingly advocated risk comparison as a means for improving public perceptions and understanding of health and environmental risks. Several authors have argued, for example, that the risks of new substance, activity, or technology can best be understood and appreciated by comparing the risks of the substance, activity, or technology with the risks of more common or familiar substances, activities, and technologies (e.g., Wilson 1979; 1987;, Cohen and Lee, 1979; Crouch and Wilson, 1982; 1984;, Ames et al., 1983; 1987;, Morrall, 1986). Basic assumptions underlying the argument are that comparisons help put risks in psychological perspective, that they provide a conceptual yardstick, that they improve understanding of risk magnitudes, and that they are more intuitively meaningful than absolute numerical probabilities (e.g., Slovic and Fischhoff, 1982; Morrall, 1986; Wilson, 1987).

[1]  M. Eisenbud.  Sources of ionizing radiation exposure , 1984 .

[2]  M. C. Bean.  Tools for environmental professionals involved in risk communication at hazardous waste facilities undergoing siting, permitting, or remediation , 1987 .

[3]  Edmund A. C. Crouch,et al.  Inter-Risk Comparisons , 1984 .

[4]  Kenneth H. Craik,et al.  Psychological Perspectives on Technology as Societal Option, Source of Hazard and Generator of Environmental Impacts , 1985 .

[5]  John H. Herbert,et al.  A Risky Business , 1979 .

[6]  Victor F. Weisskopf,et al.  Reactor safety study , 1976 .

[7]  M. Douglas,et al.  Risk and Culture , 1983 .

[8]  Lester B. Lave,et al.  Health effects of electricity generation from coal, oil, and nuclear fuel , 1973 .

[9]  Richard Wilson.  Commentary: Risks and Their Acceptability , 1984 .

[10]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[11]  Charles E. Cobb.  Living with radiation , 1989 .

[12]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Informing people about risk , 1980 .

[13]  Edmund A. C. Crouch,et al.  Risk Assessment and Comparisons , 1988 .

[14]  S. Epstein,et al.  Cancer and diet. , 1984, Science.

[15]  Leigh Jp,et al.  Estimates of the probability of job-related death in 347 occupations. , 1987 .

[16]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Judged frequency of lethal events , 1978 .

[17]  Vincent T. Covello,et al.  Effective risk communication : the role and responsibility of government and nongovernment organizations , 1989 .

[18]  D. Buss,et al.  Contemporary Worldviews and Perception of the Technological System , 1986 .

[19]  W. Lowrance,et al.  Of Acceptable Risk: Science and the Determination of Safety , 1976 .

[20]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Weighing the Risks: Risks: Benefits which Risks are Acceptable? , 1979 .

[21]  Bernard L. Cohen,et al.  Long‐Term Consequences of the Linear‐No‐Threshold Dose‐Response Relationship for Chemical Carcinogens , 1981 .

[22]  P Slovic,et al.  Powerline frequency electric and magnetic fields: a pilot study of risk perception. , 1985, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[23]  Norman C. Rasmussen,et al.  The Public Perception of Risk , 1983 .

[24]  B. Ames,et al.  Dietary carcinogens and anticarcinogens. Oxygen radicals and degenerative diseases. , 1983, Science.

[25]  C. L. Comar,et al.  Health Effects of Energy Production and Conversion , 1976 .

[26]  Lennart Sjöber.  Strength of belief and risk , 1979 .

[27]  A. Tversky,et al.  On the elicitation of preferences for alternative therapies. , 1982, The New England journal of medicine.

[28]  V. Covello.  The perception of technological risks: A literature review , 1983 .

[29]  A. Cornelius Benjamin,et al.  Science, Technology, and Human Values , 1966 .

[30]  L. Gold,et al.  Ranking possible carcinogenic hazards. , 1987, Science.

[31]  L B Lave,et al.  Health and safety risk analyses: information for better decisions. , 1987, Science.

[32]  Paul R. Kleindorfer,et al.  Insuring and Managing Hazardous Risks: From Seveso to Bhopal and Beyond , 1987 .

[33]  Joseph V. Rodricks,et al.  Assessment and Management of Chemical Risks , 1984 .

[34]  G. B. Gori.  The regulation of carcinogenic hazards. , 1980, Science.

[35]  P Slovic,et al.  The nature of technological hazard. , 1983, Science.

[36]  Peter House.  Comparing energy technology alternatives from an environmental perspective , 1980 .

[37]  B. Cohen.  Society's valuation of life saving in radiation protection and other contexts. , 1980, Health physics.

[38]  Burton Al.  The environment as hazard , 1978 .

[39]  P Slovic,et al.  Informing the public about the risks from ionizing radiation. , 1981, Health physics.

[40]  J F Morrall,et al.  A REVIEW OF THE RECORD , 1986 .

[41]  C. Hohenemser,et al.  Risk in the Technological Society , 1983 .

[42]  D. Winterfeldt,et al.  Beyond acceptable risk: On the social acceptability of technologies , 1982 .

[43]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  Why a Diagram is (Sometimes) Worth Ten Thousand Words , 1987 .

[44]  L. Ross,et al.  Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. , 1981 .

[45]  B. Cohen,et al.  A catalog of risks. , 1979, Health physics.

[46]  C. Starr.  Social benefit versus technological risk. , 1969, Science.

[47]  The Lancet Planetary Health.  Weighing the risks. , 2020, The Lancet. Planetary health.

[48]  R. F. Griffiths,et al.  Comparative risks of electricity generating fuel systems in the U.K. : by R.A.D. Ferguson, Peter Peregrinus Ltd., Stevenage, U.K., and New York, 161 pp., £30.00 (U.K.), £34.50 (overseas). , 1983 .

[49]  F. D. Sowby.  RADIATION AND OTHER RISKS. , 1965 .

[50]  H. J. Otway,et al.  Nuclear power: The question of public acceptance , 1978 .

[51]  R. Doll,et al.  The causes of cancer: quantitative estimates of avoidable risks of cancer in the United States today. , 1981, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

[52]  Lee W. Merkhofer,et al.  The Use of Risk Comparison to Aid the Communication and Interpretation of the Risk Analyses for Regulatory Decision Making , 1987 .

[53]  B D Dinman,et al.  The reality and acceptance of risk. , 1980, JAMA.

[54]  Detlof von Winterfeldt,et al.  Communicating Scientific Information About Health and Environmental Risks: Problems and Opportunities from a Social and Behavioral Perspective , 1987 .

[55]  G. A. Miller,et al.  Book Review Nisbett, R. , & Ross, L.Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980. , 1982 .

[56]  H. Inhaber,et al.  Risk with energy from conventional and nonconventional sources. , 1979, Science.

[57]  William W. Lowrance.  The Agenda for Risk Decisionmaking , 1983 .

[58]  E E Pochin,et al.  The acceptance of risk. , 1975, British medical bulletin.

[59]  Lester Lave,et al.  The Strategy of Social Regulation , 1981 .

[60]  John D. Graham,et al.  Value of a Life: What Difference Does It Make?' , 1981 .

[61]  Health costs associated with the mining, transport and combustion of coal in the steam-electric industry , 1974, Nature.

[62]  E E Pochin,et al.  Occupational and other fatality rates. , 1974, Community health.

[63]  Joseph V. Rodricks,et al.  The Analysis of Actual Versus Perceived Risks , 1983, Advances in Risk Analysis.

[64]  P. Slovic.  Perception of risk. , 1987, Science.

[65]  H. Kunreuther.  Disaster Insurance Protection: Public Policy Lessons , 1978 .

[66]  Detlof von Winterfeldt,et al.  Patterns of Conflict About Risky Technologies , 1984 .

[67]  R. Allen,et al.  Evaluation methods for environmental standards , 1983 .

[68]  E A Crouch,et al.  Risk assessment and comparisons: an introduction. , 1987, Science.

[69]  L. Sagan.  Human costs of nuclear power. , 1972, Science.

[70]  R. Kasperson.  Six propositions on public participation and their relevance for risk communication. , 1986, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[71]  J. Linnerooth,et al.  The Role of Risk Assessment in a Political Decision Process , 1983 .

[72]  An approach to setting radiation standards. , 1978 .