Final Program - Society for Risk Analysis

BMEGs may take years to achieve, but will represent values with greater communityacceptance.W4-A.4 Thrasher JF, Hammond D, Reid J, Driezen P, Boudreau C; thrasher@mailbox.sc.eduUniversity of South CarolinaWHICH PICTORIAL WARNING LABELS ON CIGARETTE PACKAG-ING WORK BEST? EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM SMOKERSAND YOUTH IN MEXICO AND THE USBackground: By 2010, 31 countries had implemented pictorial health warninglabels (HWLs), and the US will implement this policy in 2012. Research is neededto determine which pictorial HWLs content is most effective. The primary objectiveof the current study was to evaluate pictorial HWLs with different executionalstyles (graphic depiction of smoking consequences; human suffering; symbolic representationof risk) and that included testimonial text or not. The secondary aimwas to determine whether population subgroups (i.e., smokers vs. nonsmokers; youthvs. adult; low vs high SES; Mexican vs. US populations) responded differently topictorial HWLs. Methods: The sample comprised adult smokers (19 or older) andolder adolescents (16 to 8 year old smokers and nonsmokers) in Mexico (n=535 andn=527, respectively) and the US (n=722 and 677, respectively). The Mexican samplewas recruited from public settings in Mexico City and the US samples were drawnfrom an online panel. For each of 15 different health effects, 5 to 7 HWLs weredeveloped to capture executional elements. Participants rated all HWLs for 2 randomlyselected health effects, rating them for attention, relevance, credibility, negativeemotional arousal, and perceived effectiveness. Linear mixed effects models wereestimated to determine HWL characteristics associated with higher ratings, and wetested interactions between HWL characteristics and individual-level characteristics.Results: HWLs with graphic depictions, elements of human suffering, and that includedtestimonial text were rated as most effective. Negative emotional arousal appearsto mediate much of the perceived effectiveness. Similar patterns were observedacross population subgroups within and across countries. Conclusions: These resultssuggest that pictorial HWLs have similar effects across populations and there maybe little need to target messages to particular subgroups with this innovative publichealth communication intervention.W1-C.2 Tikhomirov NP, Tikhomirova TM; emf@rea.ruPlekhanov Russia University of EconomicsCRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RADIATION PROTECTION REGULATIONSMost approaches to radiation risks evaluation are based on linear nonthresholdconcept. Both small and large doses might result in cancer disease. A risk is generallydetermined as probability of disease that is supposed to be linearly dependent ondose. For small doses, frequencies of radiation associated cancer can’t be effectively182separated from general cancer statistics. For large doses, there is no enough statistics.Therefore coefficient of linear does-response dependency is estimated from statisticsof average doses (200-500 mSv). Then these dose-response effects are extrapolatedon small doses. Although the linear extrapolation results in risk overestimation, radiationprotection regulations are based on these estimations. Consequently norms ofradiation protection are excessively restrictive and costly. Let’s show excessiveness ofradiation protection regulations in comparison with other risks that are estimated asdeath probability from different events (disease, accidents etc.). We usually considerrisks that are estimated in the range from 10-5 to 10-2. Generally upper bound ofacceptable risk is 10-4. According to ICRP, radiation risk for effective annual dose20mSv is 0,00114, 50 mSv - 0,00285, 100mSv - 5,7 mSv. But these values characterizeprobability of disease, and moreover sometimes in the future. In order to compare radiationrisks with other risks, we adjust radiation risks taking into account probabilitiesof death from cancer, disease duration etc. Adjusted radiation risks are in the rangefrom 10-5 to 10-3. Such comparative study of radiation risks show that such costlymeasures as evacuation of the population and rehabilitation of the areas might not benecessary for annual doses below 50mSv (adjusted risk ~10-4).P.23 Timofeev AA, Sterin AM; arseni@developitbest.comRIHMI-WDCANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN DENSITY OF DISTRIBUTION OF AIRTEMPERATURE OVER LAST DECADES USING QUANTILE REGRES-SION METHOD AND RADIOSONDE MEASUREMENTSTemperature is one the most important physical parameter of the Earth atmosphere,which affects virtually any process, including extreme events, like, for example,the formation of storm clouds. Modeling risks caused by extreme weather eventsis an important part of modern climatology. And many researches are being done toinvestigate climate changes and particularly global air temperature changes (Globalwarming). But most of those studies are based on tracking changes in mean valuesof the temperature. However, in many cases, extreme events are caused by temporaryextreme values of physical parameters of the atmosphere, not by smooth change ofmeans. Sometimes, the number of extremely high or low values may increase significantlywithout visible change of widely used monthly means. So it is crucial to notonly track changes of the mean temperature, but also address changes in the densityof distribution. As I’ve shown at my previous report, quantile regression method allowsassessing distribution changes effectively, by calculation full range of trends formeasured distributions of the climatic parameter, which gives it significant advantagesover traditional methods. In this paper, new methodology was applied to the actualair temperature measurements made on selected weather stations over recent 30 to40 years using weather balloons. Different issues, we’ve faced to when using real-lifedata, such as erroneous values, missing values, large gaps in time series, e.t.c. were con-