Abstracts (PDF file, 1.8MB) - Society for Risk Analysis

SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts
T2-F.4 Dreyer, M*; Kuhn, R; Dialogik non-profit institute for
communication and cooperation research;
dreyer@dialogik-expert.de
Pharmaceutical residues in the water cycle: a case for
communicating ‘risk’ to the public?
Pharmaceutical residues in the water cycle are emerging
anthropogenic contaminants mainly in the sense that there is
growing recognition of their potential significance as a risk
management challenge. In some countries of the Western
World the notion is spreading that a precautionary approach is
required in light of studies showing that certain substances can
have negative effects in the water flora and fauna and that
some substances are even present in drinking water, and given
an aging population and an increasing use of several
prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Should a
precaution-based management program include public
awareness-raising programs on prudent use and correct
disposal of drugs, and what would definitely need consideration
in the design of such a program? This question is attracting
increasing attention, but is an open and largely unresearched
issue. In order to address this question, it is vital to take into
account the way in which people perceive the issue. So far, we
have hardly any empirical insights into public perception of
possible risks of pharmaceutical residues to environmental and
human health. Our presentation therefore draws largely on
theoretical and empirical insights from the broader literature
on risk perception and communication and presents a set of
(tentative) conclusions. The presentation will highlight that
public awareness programs face the challenge that people
interpret current knowledge about and growing scientific
interest in the issue as an “early indication of insidious danger”
to drinking water supplies. It points out that it is a key
challenge for risk communication aimed at awareness-raising
and behavioral adjustment to balance assertion that there is the
need (and possibility) of preventing the (possible) risk from
materializing with reassurance that there is currently
absolutely no reason to be worried or even alarmed (about
“contaminated” drinking water and/or denial of required
medication).
M4-F.1 Driedger, SM*; Jardine, CG; University of Manitoba;
michelle.driedger@med.umanitoba.ca
Strategies to engage knowledge users in understanding
best practices for communicating about risk
characterized by uncertainty
Risk communication research must be responsive to the needs
of various health and environment agencies and organizations.
Likewise, it is critical that communication best practices
gleaned from research be adequately and effectively translated
into practice. Risk researchers spend a great deal of time
designing studies to try and measure what may work (or not) in
communicating uncertainty to the public. Some studies aim to
assess aspects of testing theory, refining variables, or working
with experimental scenarios with large numbers of participants
to evaluate issues from an exploratory perspective. However,
these studies are not always able to conclude what strategies
will be most effective. Likewise, the context specific nature of
risk communication – varying highly by the issue itself (i.e., is
the degree of outrage potentially high, is the risk
known/voluntary or not, etc) as well as the audience (i.e., is it a
broader public or a specific community directly affected) – are
also important in identifying which communication
mechanisms, strategies or processes will be helpful as opposed
to harmful. The objective of this presentation is to examine the
practice of communicating the science/best practices from a
systematic review to policy influencers and personnel in
environment, public health and health system agencies. To
connect our research findings to this group of policy knowledge
end-users, we incorporated novel strategies to create dialogue
regarding difficult and contentious subjects, including how
admitting uncertainty (i.e., not knowing the answer) can
increase rather than undermine trust. These strategies included
using humor and specific visual illustrations of ineffective
means of communicating uncertainty. We provide reflections
from the ‘trenches’ as well as feedback obtained throughout the
knowledge translation process with the aim to encourage
dialogue and debate among risk communication specialists and
practitioners in the ensuing panel commentary and open
discussion of this symposium session.
W4-J.5 Dudley, SE; The George Washington University;
sdudley@gwu.edu
A Look Back at Regulatory Lookback Efforts
Too often, ex ante predictions of regulatory outcomes
(reductions in health risks, benefits and costs) are not verified
with empirical data ex post. This presentation will survey past
efforts at conducting retrospective review of regulatory effects,
and offer recommendations based on this experience. Despite
experience in other areas, and requirements established by
Congress and each of the previous 6 presidents, ex post review
of regulations tends to take a back seat to ex ante analysis of
regulations before they are issued. While ex-ante regulatory
impact analysis has a long tradition in the United States and
elsewhere, such analyses necessarily depend on unverifiable
assumptions and models, and are thus hypotheses of the effects
of regulatory actions. Better retrospective review would allow
us to test those hypotheses against actual outcomes, but it too
poses challenges. For retrospective review of regulations to be
successful, we need better tools for ex post analysis, and better
incentives for conducting it.
P.6 Dumitrescu, A*; Lemyre, L; Pincent, C; University of
Ottawa; adumi039@uottawa.ca
Spatial analysis of risk perception. The case of Nuclear
Power Plant
The beginnings of research in risk perception can be traced in
the mid-60s to the public debate over use of nuclear energy and
associated industries that have promised a cheap, clean and
safe energy. Over the past decades, the study of public
understanding and perception of risk has developed into a
wide-ranging and interdisciplinary field of research and have
been studied from different psychometric-cognitive and cultural
perspectives. Among all these approaches and theories, there is
no doubt that the psychometric paradigm has emerged as a
leading theory in this field. While psychometric research has
made important contributions, it has been criticized for its
limitation in approaching the perception of risk across different
geographical locations. Indeed, studies that have been
conducted on public understanding and perception of risks in
relation to physical space, proximity and place have produced
mixed and conflicted results. The National Health Risk
Perception Survey 2012 involving a representative sample of
approx. 3000 respondents among Canadian population was
used to study the proximity effect. Our research proposes a new
methodology, which aims to explore the relationship between
proximity to a hazard and perceptions of risk by analysing the
spatiality of risk perception. By geocoding risk perception data,
we compared risk perception between the population living in
the proximity of nuclear power plant and the rest of Canadian
population. Our results are consistent with the findings of other
studies which shown that risk perception is lower among people
living close to nuclear power plants. Additionally, correlations
between living distance from nuclear power plants and risk
perception were explored. The analysis of spatial dimension of
risk perception provides an exceptional level of integration of
individual, environmental and contextual variables and provides
also a link between risk assessment attributable to a specific
hazard and risk perception.
December 8-11, 2013 - Baltimore, MD