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

SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts
P.130 Kowalek, Denna; Howard University ;
denna.kowalek@gmail.com
Understanding risk: Applying the CAUSE model in a
content analysis of emergency management organizations
coverage of hurricane Sandy.
Andersen and Spitzberg (2010) state that by many measures,
the world is becoming a more dangerous place. The fact that
there are more people in more places, from more cultures,
often in greater levels of density, means that when disasters
occur, they have the potential to affect more people, and more
organizations and institutions are responsible for managing
such disasters. Examining emergency management
organizations communicative messages during Hurricane
Sandy in the fall of 2012 allows risk and crisis communicators
to determine how the hurricane information was disseminated,
thus providing further precautionary and preparedness actions.
Understanding how people view disasters and precautionary
and preparedness will help generate more effective risk
communication campaigns. This research will utilize Rowan’s et
al. (2009) CAUSE model as a framework to understand how The
National Weather Service (NOAA), American Red Cross and
FEMA incorporated precautionary and preparedness action into
their coverage of Hurricane Sandy. This will be done to
determine how emergency management organizations created
understanding through their messages. This information is
crucial to understand in order to comprehend precautionary
and preparedness actions regarding disasters. A content
analysis will be conducted of messages from the National
Weather Service, American Red Cross, and Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) to understand how messages
addressed the U in the CAUSE model, understanding, while
discussing precautionary and preparedness actions regarding
Hurricane Sandy.
W2-E.4 Kponee, K*; Vorhees, D; Heiger-Benays, W; Boston
University School of Public Health; kzkponee@bu.edu
Exposure to highly contaminated drinking water in a
rural Nigerian Village
In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
reported findings from its study of petroleum hydrocarbon
contamination in the Ogoniland region of Nigeria where
frequent and massive oil spills have destroyed vast areas,
including farmland, fisheries, and water supplies. UNEP
recommended research and remedial action to protect human
health, with some recommendations focused on the Ogale
community where residents rely on a drinking water supply
contaminated with benzene and other petroleum hydrocarbons.
Benzene alone has been detected at concentrations almost
2,000 times higher than the USEPA drinking water standard.
UNEP staff observed people using the contaminated drinking
water and noted that its strong odor. Because such elevated
exposures are likely to be associated with a range of acute and
chronic effects, UNEP recommended emergency provision of
clean drinking water, medical surveillance, and implementation
of a prospective cohort study to investigate the effects of
exposure to the contaminated drinking water in Ogale. There
are no reports indicating that these recommendations have
been implemented except for provision of clean water in late
2011. This study implements some of UNEP’s recommendations
for Ogale. Based on an investigator-administered questionnaire
to one hundred households, this study provides a (1) detailed
assessment of exposure to the contaminated water supply; and
(2) a preliminary comparison of self-reported symptoms and
health outcomes in the community served by the contaminated
drinking water supply and a nearby comparable community
served by a relatively clean drinking water supply. This study
represents the logical next step to determine whether the
extremely high levels of exposure in Ogale might be associated
with acute and chronic adverse health effects. It also might
improve understanding of how oil spills affect human health, a
question that has eluded those investigating oil spills involving
lower levels of exposure.
P.91 Kroner, O*; Wullenweber, A; Willis, AM; Toxicology
Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA); Kroner@TERA.org
Rethinking Risk Data: ITER 2.0
For 17 years, the International Toxicity Estimates for Risk
(ITER) database (www.tera.org/iter) has been a centralized
source of peer-reviewed chronic human health risk values. ITER
is a free resource, providing access to international risk
information with a side-by-side comparison of risk values. Since
1996, the database has grown to include over 700 chemicals
and includes risk values derived by organizations from around
the world. However, during this time the world has seen major
advancements in computational processing power, database
mining and programming, and user interface design. In short,
we are learning to extract more knowledge from the available
data. With an eye to the future, a series of stakeholder surveys
have been conducted to evaluate how ITER and risk information
is currently used by risk assessors, and how ITER may be
restructured to be most useful to meet the risk assessment
community’s needs. Survey results indicated several areas for
improvement and have spurred a call for ITER 2.0, which is
currently underway. The redesigned system will be built to
support additional problem formulations (NAS, 2009), offering
flexibility to include additional data types such as acute values,
occupational exposure levels, biomonitoring equivalents, and
possibly ecological risk values. Possible user interface
enhancements will allow for searching and sorting by chemical
class, target endpoint, date of derivation, and uncertainty
factors, and allow for cross chemical comparisons and
meta-analyses. The development of ITER 2.0 based on user
feedback will help organizations share their risk work, and help
risk scientists navigate the available data to streamline public
health protection efforts.
P.90 Kugihara, N; Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka
University; kugihara@hus.osaka-u.ac.jp
Effects of changing frequency of heterogeneous stimuli
over time on estimation of frequency
Two kinds of stimuli (i.e. photos and words) were shown
repeatedly to participants for twenty minutes. The photos have
neutral emotional valence (e.g. spoon, tissue paper and dish)
and words were nonsense syllables (e.g. nuse, heyo and rue).
These stimuli were shown according to two types of schedules,
HF (high frequency) and LF (low frequency). As for HF, the
presented frequency increased rapidly and reached the peak
(60 times per minute) in two minutes, then decreased
gradually. As for LF, it increased gradually and reached the
peak (6 times per minute) in two minutes, then decreased. HF
and LF schedule were done at the same time. In one condition,
stimuli of HF were words and LF were photos and in another
condition HF were photos and LF were words. If a disaster
occurs, mass media have a tendency to try to identify and
pursue a target in charge of the tragic event. The frequency of
the newspaper articles pursuing targets varies and fluctuates
through time. Some researches indicate that transitions in
scapegoats (targets) occur as time advances from persons or
groups to society or to our culture. My past laboratory studies
showed that these transitions were mainly caused by our
memory bias. This means that the rare targets picked up by
articles overestimated and also the degree of the
overestimation increases as time advances. However, these
experiment used same kinds of stimuli. Therefore participants
may fail to discriminate these stimuli. To avoid this problem the
present study used heterogeneous stimuli (words and photos)
as HF and LF. Results showed that perceived frequencies of LF
were overestimated, and the subjective peak of LF appeared
later than actual peak. On the other hand frequencies of HF
were underestimated, and estimation peak nearly corresponded
to presentation peak. These results indicate that even if
presented stimuli were heterogeneous we have subjective
biases of frequency and of its peak estimation.
December 8-11, 2013 - Baltimore, MD