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7
Recommendations for Improving
Risk Communication
Drawing lessons from the available understanding about the na-
ture and problems of risk communication, we present four sets of
recommendations in this chapter: (1) recommendations that pertain
to the processes that source organizations use to generate decisions,
knowledge, and risk messages; (2) recommendations that pertain to
the content of individual risk messages; (3) a call for a "consumer's
guide" that will enhance the ability of other groups or individuals to
understand and participate in risk management activities; and (4) a
brief summary of particular areas for which additional knowledge is
needed to resolve current problems of risk communication.
We have attempted a focused search. The committee faced a
central dilemma about how detailed we could expect to be in meet-
ing our charge to discern practical lessons for practitioners. Given
the breadth and diversity of the general topic of risk communication,
any attempt to Took for lessons that apply to all forms of risk com-
munication would constrain us to a discussion so general that any
particular reader would gain little insight. On the other hand, a de-
tailed "cookbook" for particular situations would fail to advance the
broad national discussion that is now needed. We have accordingly
sought a middle ground, electing to narrow our scope in two ways.
First, we have elected to focus on certain forms of risk commu-
nication. The term "risk communication" can cover a vast range of
143
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
actions, from casual telephone calls between two experts to book-
length reports meant for the general public. Our main subject in
this chapter is formal risk messages intended for audiences that in-
clude nonexperts. Included, for example, are press releases, material
prepared for an open meeting in a community or a formal meeting
with representatives of interested outside groups (e.g., a local public
meeting about siting a facility), a government agency's public ex-
planation of a decision it has made, a brochure for citizens concern-
some aspect of public health (e.g., an AIDS pamphlet), package
inserts for prescription drugs, and risk summaries prepared by ex-
perts within an organization for the use of their (less-expert) superi-
ors. We recognize that some of our recommendations may have less
relevance for other very important, but less formal, varieties of risk
communication.
Second, we have directed our recommendations to just two of
the many types of risk-managing organizations that are discussed in
other parts of our report: namely, government agencies and large
private corporations. Again, this choice of emphasis is not intended
to imply that other communicating organizations and individuals-
small firms, citizen/consumer advocacy groups, and so on-are not
important. In fact, many of the points we raise doubtless apply to
them. We chose this narrower range of organizations because they
are most directly involved in many of the best known and most
controversial cases, the committee members have greater knowledge
of their experiences, and we are convinced that improvements by
these organizations would both contribute substantially to easing
the national problem and provide models for other organizations.
Our objective, then, is to improve risk communication, particu-
larly as practiced by government and large corporations. What do
we mean by "improve"? We mean that solutions sometimes ad-
mittedly only partial solutions are put in place for the range of
problems identified in the previous chapter. We emphasize in par-
ticular that we have tried to fashion recommendations that, while
addressed to government and large corporations, will attack the prob-
lems of recipients as well. Our goal is not then to make those who
disseminate formal risk messages simply more effective by improv-
ing their credibility, understandability, and so on such an approach
might serve their interests but could well degrade the overall quality
of risk communication if it meant that they would merely advance
their viewpoints with more influence. "Improvement" can only oc-
cur if recipients are also enabled to solve their problems at the
_, ~
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same time. Generally, this means obtaining relevant information for
better-informed decisions.
We have also focused our recommendations on measures that will
help those groups meet the criteria we have set out above for suc-
cessfuT risk communication. In reality, of course, many organizations
have other criteria for success, such as whether messages convince
recipients to act In a manner that the risk communicator desires. We
have not chosen to recommend actions to hale or~z~ni~z~t.ir~ne mart
those other goals.
In recommending steps to be taken by government entities, we
have necessarily focused on the respective roles of citizens, private
groups, and government in a democratic society. Controversies about
risk communication often turn out to be basic debates about the lim-
its of governmental accountability, legitimacy, and authority. The
~ _ _ 1 _ ~_ ~. . .
~ < -- - <3-F^~- eLA40-U
goal or our recommendations is not to alter American democratic
institutions but to make them work more effectively. Two points
need to be emphasized about accountability. First, our society has
elaborate and politically responsive procedures for assigning respon-
sibilities for making government risk management decisions. Once a
government agency has received that responsibility, it must retain it.
This places inherent limits on what agencies can do in discussing risk
issues with citizens, because they cannot share responsibility with
outside groups; they must remain publicly accountable. Second, ac-
countability increasingly implies an affirmative duty to interact with
interested and affected outside parties in reaching and explaining
individual policy decisions. Although citizens" and the groups that
undertake to represent their interests are not required to Dartic
_
· ~ ~ ~· . ·
mate in such interactions, solving problems of risk communication
becomes much easier if they do, and government needs to ensure that
the opportunity to participate becomes routine.
Implementation of many of our recommendations rim or
ganizational resources of several kinds.
We are aware that such
resources will not be adequate in many instances. One r~.c:~,rr~ in
particular time-is crucially lacking for some of the most difficult
risk communication efforts, as when emergency conditions leave no
possibility of consulting with outside organizations or assembling
complete factual information. Other recommendations require staff
resources and the capacity to conduct specialized analyses, both of
which may be in short supply in some organizations. When resources
are so constrained, our recommendations may well best serve as a
reminder of the full set of factors that should be accommodated,
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
although the form of accommodation may fall short of what we
recommend.
Our recommendations are based on our understanding of the
growing literature of studies of risk communication and risk mes-
sages and on committee members' diverse experience with specific
instances of risk communication.
Before we list our recommendations, we would like to draw at-
tention to three general conclusions that we have made:
Conclusion 1. Even great improvement in risk communication
wit! not resolve risk management problems and end controversy (al-
though poor risk communication can create them}. Because risk com-
munication is so tightly linked to the management of risks, solutions
to the problems of risk communication often entail changes in risk
management and; risk analysis. There is, unfortunately, no ready
shortcut to improving the nation's risk communication efforts. The
needed improvement in performance can only come incrementally and
only from assiduous attention to many details.
While it is important to improve risk communication practices,
no one should expect such improvements to end public controversy
over risk management. Risk managers should understand and accept
that, even when they have done all they can to ensure the integrity
of their risk messages, public skepticism of their motives and their
honesty will likely persist. They should appreciate that, particularly
in recent years, distrust has been institutionalized in our country.
While it is important for most risk managers-especially those in
the government to avoid distortions in their messages, they should
expect that many audiences will continue to assume that bias is
present.
We have discovered no sweeping broad-spectrum remedies for
the problems of risk communication described in Chapter 6. Many
will be solved only over the long term and only by sustained ef-
fort. Many of the institutional problems we identified in the previous
chapter fragmentation of authority, legal constraints, and so on-
reflect social decisions about how risk management should be con-
ducted. Such decisions are inherently, and appropriately, political in
nature. Risk communication might well be improved if certain con-
textual constraints were changed or removed. However, such reforms
would also create other advantages and disadvantages that are well
beyond our capacity to evaluate in this study. Thus we are left with a
more modest, ant] necessarily incremental, set of available remedies.
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The source organization's problem of achieving credibility pro-
vides a good example. An organization's credibility can be quickly
lost, as illustrated in the case of the EPA in the early 1980s, when
many observers came to believe that one of EPA's leaders' highest
goals was to dismantle regulatory programs. In contrast, credibility
is gained (or regained) only through a sustained effort to be re-
sponsive to audience concerns and to be accurate, open, and honest
in disclosing essential information. Thus we are led to recommend
concurrent attention to several factors in managing the risk commu-
nication process and in formulating particular risk messages. No one
of these measures, alone, is enough.
An underlying reason for this is that the problems of risk com-
munication are rooted in risk management practices and procedures.
Because of this, several of the measures we recommend call for adjust-
ments in the source organization's procedures for risk management
and for analyzing risk issues. For example, we call for more interac-
tion with audiences and intermediaries while the source organization
considers risk management alternatives, and we suggest how formal
risk assessments should be scoped, reviewed, and presented. We have
explicitly addressed many of our recommendations to risk managers
precisely because they are the individuals within an organization
who can provide the needed coordination of risk communication, risk
management, and the assessment of risk and risk control.
O ~
Conclusion 2. Solving the problems of risk communication is as
much about improving procedures as improving content. Risk man-
agers need to consider risk communication as an important and inte-
gral aspect of risk management. In some instances, risk communica-
tion will, in fact, change the risk management process itself.
.
It would be a mistake to believe that better risk communication
is mainly a matter of crafting better messages. To enhance credibil-
ity, to ensure accuracy, to understand recipients and their concerns,
and to gain the necessary insight into how messages are actually
apprehended, one must ultimately seek procedural solutions. Thus
we devote much of this chapter to matters of process. There may
be many cases in which problems of credibility, potential contro-
versy over value judgments, and diverse audiences reduce the risk
communication task to a simpler matter of making messages clearer,
in themselves. We do not believe that the national frustration over
risk communication practices derives from failures in such "simpler"
cases and therefore have not addressed simpler cases in any detail.
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
Risk managers cannot afford to treat risk communication as an
afterthought. One of the root problems in risk communication is
that, perhaps due to organizational imperatives and tradition, risk
management has too often been treated as a sequential process:
(1) the organization's technical experts assess a risk and explore
options, (2) a risk management decision is made, (3) a message is
internally prepared, and (4) the message is sent to outsiders. Risk
communication is thus regarded as a subsidiary activity.
The importance of risk communication has only recently become
apparent, and even the most progressive risk managers are only
now beginning to adjust to the realization. Improvement of risk
communication requires that the organizations that disseminate risk
messages become simply more deliberate in their communication
efforts.
At their best, risk communication efforts can be expected to af-
fect the risk management process itself. Considerations of risk com-
munication might, for example, determine what kinds of analyses of
risks and benefits are performed, how risk assessments are summa-
rized, what options are explored, and what people are consulted in
exploring possible courses of action.
Risk communication requires its own specialized expertise and
deliberate planning and evaluation. Senior managers need to devote
attention and time to managing risk communication efforts per se. It
is a mistake to simply consider risk communication to be an add-on
activity for either scientific or public affairs staffs; both elements
should be involved. There are clear dangers if risk messages are
formulated ad hoc by public relations personnel in isolation from
available technical expertise; neither can they be prepared by risk
analysts as a casual extension of their analytic duties.
Conclusion 3. Two broad themes are apparent in the extended
list of recommendations: that communication efforts should be more
systematically oriented to specified audiences and that openness is the
surest policy.
Both the management of the process of formulating risk messages
and the content of risk messages should be systematically oriented
to the intended audience. The most effective risk messages are those
that quite self-consciously address the audience's perspectives and
concerns. Similarly, the best procedures for formulating risk mes-
sages have been those that involved interactions with recipients and
that elicited recipients' perceptions and needs.
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A central premise of democratic government the existence of
an informed electorate-implies a free flow of information. Suppres-
sion of relevant information is not only wrong but is usually, over
the Ton ger term, also ineffective. Risk messages should be explicit
about current knowledge of the subject risk but also about the lim-
its of that knowledge and the existence of disagreement among the
experts or others. The long-term improvement of credibility, in par-
ticular, depends on openness. Several of our procedural and content
recommendations are intended to foster openness and to promote
openmindedness about outside viewpoints.
MANAGEMENT OF THE PROCESS
Much recent concern about risk communication has centered
on questions of message content. Failures have frequently been at-
tributed to the inability of the audience to comprehend complex
technical issues and to the tendency of risk messages to be badly
written. This view would lead one to seek solutions in the design of
better risk messages themselves. Our assessment has led us to believe
that longer-term solutions are equally likely to involve attention to
and changes in the process by which risk management decisions are
made and explained.
There are two basic reasons for our emphasis on process. First,
when lessons about message content are identified, the operational
question becomes one of ensuring that those lessons are systemati-
cally followed. Procedural safeguards provide the best assurance of
routine compliance. Second, and more important, it is increasingly
clear that content and process are not easily separated, particularly
on the crucial matter of appearing credible. If recipients believe the
process is flawed for example, if the communicating organization is
known to ignore or reject certain facts, viewpoints, or options they
are likely to doubt the message, even if it is, in fact, technically
competent.
This section is addressed to risk managers- those senior officials
who have the overall responsibility of determining their organiza-
tion's action. These risk managers also oversee the preparation of
risk assessments and risk messages associated with the action to be
taken.
We identify four process objectives that are key elements in
improving risk communication: goal setting, openness, balance, and
competence. We note that these objectives are general in nature.
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
Different management styles may work best for different managers
in particular situations, in pursuit of these four objectives.
Setting Realistic Goals
Some past deficiencies in risk communication efforts have arisen
because risk managers have not appreciated that risk communication
needs to receive deliberate management attention. Until now, risk
communication efforts have all too often been pursued with implicit
or impractical objectives within the source organization.
Risk comImmication activities ought to be matters of conscious
design. Practical goals should be established that explicitly accom-
modate the political/legal mandates and constraints bounding the
process and the roles of the potential recipients of the organization's
risk messages. Explicit consideration of such factors encourages real-
istic expectations, clarification of motives and objectives (both within
the source organization and among outside groups and individuals),
and evaluation of performance.
Consideration of these issues of practical goals and impediments
to their achievement may be the only way for managers to reach re-~
alistic expectations. Otherwise, source organizations may set them-
seIves up for frustration and, if naive or insensitive programs result,
for disrespect among recipients that can only aggravate any preex-
isting tensions about how the risk should be managed.
Effective program management is enhanced by setting explicit
objectives. This is especially important with respect to risk commu-
nication because of the difficulty of assessing the effect of messages.
A cornerstone of systematic risk communication goals is a realistic
review of the political and legal context of the communication ef-
fort and the risk management decisions to which it relates. What
is one empowered to do? Can messages properly attempt to induce
recipients to take certain actions or can they only transmit neu-
tral information? Who must receive the information? What level
of understanding (if any) must be assured? How active a part can
interested and affected parties be allowed to play in the risk manage-
ment process? Analysis contributing to goal setting provides a way
to articulate the basic premises for action and a basis for evaluation
of performance.
Such analysis sets the general context for a risk communication
effort. It needs then to be translated into operational objectives.
For example, how many people should receive the message? What
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changes (if any) should be observed in recipients' beliefs or actions
regarding the risk? Will recipients be motivated to listen? Will they
rely on other, possibly contradictory, sources? Realistic assessment
of factors affecting message preparation, transmission, and receipt
can be an important contribution to an organization's effective par-
ticipation in the risk communication process.
Safeguarding Openness
In many cases risk communication efforts have founclered because
public trust and credibility were damaged because risk management
was conducted behind closed doors or because of a patronizing atti-
tude toward interested outside groups.
Risk communication should be a two-way street. Organizations
that communicate risks should ensure elective dialogue with poten-
tially affected outsiders. This two-way process should exhibit:
. a spirit of open exchange In a common undertaking, not a
series of 'canned briefings discussion should not be restricted to
technical 'nonemotional issues-and
early and sustained interchange, including the media and
other message intermediaries.
Openness does not ordinarily, however, imply empowerment to de-
tee ne the host organization's risk management decisions. To avoid
misunderstanding the limits of participation should be made clear
Tom the outset.
O:~1 ~L _ 1 ~- 1 ~1 . . . · . . ..
.
l~l;Sx 1lla~lag~r~ snoula resist one temptation to close their pros
cesses to outside scrutiny and participation unless, as is rarely the
case, extreme conditions warrant secrecy. As a practical matter,
problems of risk communication for many past cases seem most pro-
nounced when risk communicators have not appeared to value open-
ness. In addition, many of the cases that were resolved relatively
effectively were marked by openness.
Openness thus has practical benefits both for the organization
that manages risk and for outside participants, but there are deeper
reasons for it. Openness is highly valued in a democratic society like
ours because public accountability is a central element of our political
culture. This is particularly true for organizations that are respon-
sible to an electorate or that are charged with a public purpose, but
private organizations are hardly immune in contemporary America.
The fact that ours is a democratic culture means that there are strong
negative sanctions in public opinion for evidence of secrecy. When
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
governments or corporations can be found guilty of withholding in-
formation, they commonly find themselves severely condemned, and
their credibility is damaged for some time, regardless of the content
of their risk message. Thus openness may be seen both as a matter of
principle and a matter of practical wisdom for operating in a culture
where many others take openness to be a matter of principle.
Openness may take diverse forms in diverse risk management
settings. When a government agency considers issuing a regulation,
it can involve representatives of interested and affected groups in
discussions of the rationale for action, quantitative and qualitative
indications of the subject risk, available alternatives, and other fac-
tors affecting its choice. If an organization undertakes to advise
the general public of a risk associated with personal behavior (e.g.,
diet, sex), it can involve representatives of the intended audiences
in discussions of the need for risk messages and the best ways to
compose them. If a corporation decides to locate a new facility in
a community, it can draw community groups into discussions of the
nature of risks presented by the facility and take steps to control
such risks. Risk messages will prove much more Biscuit to convey
when recipients believe they were excluded from risk management
decisions that affect them.
Openness also provides an opportunity for risk managers to re-
ceive important information from outside the organization relevant
to their risk management decisions, as is amplified in the later dis-
cussion of competence.
Effective Dialogue
The most productive interactions are those that treat outside
parties as fully legitimate participants, so that two-way exchange
occurs. If the host organization conveys the impression that it is
meeting with groups simply to diffuse outside concerns, or to edify
"uninformed" lay risk perceptions, this goal cannot be met. If mutual
trust is established, the host organization will benefit from fresh
ideas, will understand better how its formal risk messages will be
perceived, and will be able to incorporate needed adjustments to
messages earlier than if opposition forms in response to a message.
Participating organizations will have a chance to understand the
basis for action and to determine for themselves the degree to which
the risk decision and the associated risk message are based on full
and open-minded consideration of available knowledge and the full
range of alternative actions.
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Eliciting participation is not simply the passive provision of
access to the process of forming risk messages. Many outside groups
have had frustrating experiences in which their views have been
elicited but not listened to. An example is the holding of pro forma
public hearings, which frustrated participants later fee} should have
been labeled as "talkings," not hearings, from the host organization's
apparent lack of attention to points raised. Active effort should be
applied to identifying the full set of interested and affected groups
and ensuring that the full range of potentially contending viewpoints
is apprehended. The risk manager should ensure that those in the
organization have come to understand:
. what the participants know, believe, and do not believe about
the subject risk and ways to control it;
. what quantitative and qualitative information participants
need to know to make critical decisions; and
. how they think about and conceptualize the risk.
To accomplish this, those within the organization who interact
directly with outside participants should be good listeners. They
should not make facile prejudgments about what people think and
know and which options they will prefer. They should be prepared
for skepticism, antagonism, and hostility. They should respect the
legitimacy of subjective, as distinct from coldly analytic' responses.
They should not be surprised if people are more interested in matters
of trust, credibility, and fairness than in the technical details of risk
estimates and risk reduction options. They should not expect outside
participants to know, or to necessarily accept, the legal or other
practical boundaries that constrain the risk decision.
Risk managers should expect, and not resent (or appear to re-
sent), skepticism about their motives in establishing more open pro-
cedures. They should understand that the fear of co-optation may
impede trust, at least initially.
The job of interacting with outside participants should not be
delegated to lower-level staff. Those with the power to make the
decisions under discussion need to be directly involved in face-to-face
dialogue, at least for the major issues, for this provides convincing ev-
idence of the organization's sensitivity to the viewpoints of interested
and affected groups.
In some cases it may be advisable to formalize the participa-
tion, for example, by forming a citizen advisory group. Such a move
would signal an organizational commitment to continue to listen en cl
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IMPROVING RISK COM:MUNICATION
Comparing Risks
One factor that inhibits public understanding of risk messages
is that people often cannot easily relate the low say, 1 in 10,000-
risk probabilities presented to their everyday experience. They are
thus often deprived of a sense of the personal meaning of the risk
in question and so cannot arrive at a comfortable decision about
whether to take actions to deal with the risk or whether to be
concerned at all about the hazard. In theory, at least, this difficulty
can be overcome by quantitative comparisons between risks between
familiar and less familiar risks).
Risk comparisons can be helpful, but they should be presented
with caution. Risk comparisons must be seen as one of several inputs
to risk decisions, not as determinants of decisions. There are proven
pitfalls when risk e of diverse character are compared, especially
when the intent of the comparison can be seen as that of minimizing
a risk (by equating it to a seemingly trivial risk). More usefi~} are
comparisons of risks that help convey the magnitude of a particular
risk estimate, that occur in the same decision context (e.g., risks
Tom dying and driving to a given destination), and that have a
similar outcome. Multiple comparisons may avoid some of the worst
pitfalls. More work needs to be done to develop constructive and
helpful form of risk comparison.
In theory, at least, comparative information should be an attrac-
tive element of risk messages. We have advised that the best risk
messages are those that inform the recipient's actual choices, and
increasingly those choices are between courses of action (or inaction)
that represent different risks. Risk comparisons ideally might help
individuals steer a prudent course between risks of various sizes.
However, actual attempts to compare risks have engendered con-
siderable controversy and distrust. One reason for this is the fear
that comparisons will be used to influence and even mislead the lay
public. Individuals are known, for example, to subjectively underes-
timate actual incidence rates for some fatal risks (e.g., those resulting
from asthma and strokes) and to overestimate others (e.g., risks that
are especially feared, like those resulting from tornadoes and bo-
tulism). Thus, comparing a risk to the likelihood of death by asthma
would probably induce most people to similarly underestimate it.
Another difficulty is that alternatives often have more than one
risk attribute, and different people emphasize different facets. For a
particular choice, for example, one group might concentrate on the
relative number of deaths associated with each alternative, and a
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second group may emphasize the way risks (or costs) are distributed
among various groups within society. The choice of any single metric
for comparison will thus ignore facts that some observers may value
highly.
Some who have used comparative risk information seem to have
done so on the assumption that recipients would, upon seeing that a
particular risk is small, elect to stop worrying about it. Implicit was
the notion of an "action threshold," or perhaps a "worry threshold,"
that would render subthreshold risks unfit for serious consideration.
The notion has a debilitating flaw, and it is not surprising that
risk comparisons that seemed to be used to trivialize certain risks
met with objections. Personal and organizational risk management
decisions are based on many factors, of which a risk estimate is only
one. For example, even a trivial risk may be worth eliminating if
the costs of elimination are negligible; to suggest that people should
decide based on one factor for example, expected mortality alone
is somewhat analogous to saying people should make purchases based
solely on comparative pricing without considering the value of the
product to them. In practice, risk comparison data can rarely be
closely linked to specific decisions in the absence of other critical
information about decision options.
In general, comparisons of "unlike" risks should be avoided, as
they have often either confused message recipients or irritated them
because they were seen as unfair or manipulative. Directly comparing
voluntary (e.g., skiing) and involuntary (e.g., air pollutants) risks,
or natural (e.g., earthquakes) and technological (e.g., food additives)
risks, for example, is rarely a good idea. More generally, those
who prepare risk messages should appreciate the weakness of risk
comparisons as a means of placating people about risks that are
calculated to be small.
When can comparisons be used in a risk message? Three situa-
tions suggest themselves:
1. To help message recipients comprehend probabilities. In iso-
lation a term like "one chance in a million per year" may convey
little. An analogy to lengths (1 inch to 16 miles) or volumes (1 drop
to 16 gallons) may help some people; reference to other known one-
to-a-million risks of the type under discussion (for lung cancer, that
of smoking a certain number of cigarettes; for private transportation
mortality, that of traveling 300 miles by car) may help others, if they
have a grasp of the reference risk.
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
2. To directly compare alternative options. Personal and orga-
nizational decisions can be better informed if the risks of alternative
actions are bald out in comparable terms. Comparing the risks of
coffee and tea consumption, or the risks of air and automobile travel
between two points, may improve one's ability to make informed
choices (again, however, one would not expect a risk comparison to
necessarily dominate in such choices). For a regulatory agency the
health risk of a pesticide may be directly compared to that of its
substitute if it were removed from commerce.
3. To gauge the relative importance of different causes of the
same hazard. Discussions of public and private actions with respect
to indoor radon may be improved, for example, by a comparison of
radon with smoking and other known causes of Jung cancer.
One interesting approach is the use of risk ladders, for which
a range of probabilities is presented for a single class of risks. The
discussion of Figure 5.1 shows the limitations of past use. If one is
careful, however, the use of multiple comparisons helps counteract
the possibility that people may severely rn~sestimate a particular
risk, even though it is farn~liar to them. It also reduces the danger
of arousing the scientific disputes that can often arise when only two
risk estimates are compared, one or both of which are subject to
scientific debate.
Ensuring Completeness
If the information in a risk message is incomplete, the recipients
may be unable to make well-informed decisions.
A complete information base contains five types of qualitative
and/or quantitative information: (1) the nature of the risk, (2) the
nature of the benefits that might be affected if risk were reduced,
(3) the available alternatives, (4) uncertainty In knowledge about
risks and benefits, and (5) management issues. There are major
advantages in putting the information base into written form as an
adjunct to the rislr message.
Those who prepare risk messages should ensure that the mes-
sages are complete. A suggested risk information checklist of relevant
topics for the design of a complete message, drawn from the descrip-
tion in Chapter 2, is summarized in Figure 7.1.
Two points are worth emphasis. First, a complete risk message,
as we have defined it, includes information other than a risk assess-
ment; it covers the characterization of current or possible efforts to
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATURE OF RISKS
1. What are the hazards of concern?
What is the probability of exposure to each hazard?
What is the distribution of exposure?
What is the probability of each type of harm from a given exposure
to each hazard?
What are the sensitivities of different populations to each hazard?
How do exposures interact with exposures to other hazards?
What are the qualities of the hazard?
8. What is the total population risk?
INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATURE OF BENEFITS
1. What are the benefits associated with the hazard?
2. What is the probability that the projected benefit will actually
follow the activity in question?
3. What are the qualities of the benefits?
4. Who benefits and in what ways?
5.
6.
7.
How many people benefit and how long do benefits last?
Which groups get a disproportionate share of the benefits?
What is the total benefit?
I NFORMATION ON ALTERNATIVES
1. What are the alternatives to the hazard in question?
2. What is the effectiveness of each alternative?
3. What are the risks and benefits of alternative actions and of not
acting?
4. What are the costs and benefits of each alternative and how are
they distributed?
UNCERTAINTIES IN KNOWLEDGE ABOUT RISKS
1. What are the weaknesses of available data?
2. What are the assumptions on which estimates are based?
3. How sensitive are the estimates to changes in assumptions?
4. How sensitive is the decision to changes in the estimates?
5. What other risk and risk control assessments have been made and why
are they different from those now being offered?
INFORMATION ON MANAGEMENT
1. Who is responsible for the decision?
2. What issues have legal importance?
3. What constrains the decision?
4. What resources are available?
FIGURE 7.1 Risk message checklist.
175
reduce risk. Some topics include the cost of control, who pays, how
effective the approach is, and whether the control implies additional
risks of its own. Uncertainty in the analysis of risk control measures
should be included. The message should also contain pertinent in-
formation about how any risk management decision has been or will
be made.
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
Second, the checklist used for preparing a complete risk mes-
sage should be used to ensure that the underlying analysis itself is
complete; that is, concern for risk communication should influence
the conduct of risk assessment and risk control assessment. If the
information base developed in the analytic process is incomplete, the
risk message will be deficient.
There are advantages to compiling and keeping the information
base in written form. In at least some cases, for example, it will
prove useful to compile a "white paper" of factual information on
the subject risk. As described in the section above on management
of the process, a written record provides a useful management tool
for risk communication; if the underlying information is in written
form, it can be examined (and perhaps improved) by others inside
and outside the organization, helping to prevent surprises when the
risk message is disseminated. Such a document also can provide a
useful single source for diverse messages, enhancing consistency and
accuracy. When feasible, this document should be made available as
an adjunct to the formal risk message.
Whether or not the information base is compiled in written
form, risk communicators should treat it and be seen as treating
it as work in progress that is continually subject to improvement.
Discussions and debates that surround a risk message often raise new
questions, and new data can arise from research and other sources.
A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO RISE AND
RISE COMMUNICATION
A major theme of this report is that risk communication should
be understood to be a two-way interchange between source organiza-
tions and those, including the public and its representatives, who are
the intended recipients of risk messages. In the previous pages we
have directed many recommendations about the process and content
of risk communications efforts to source organizations, specifically
government agencies and large corporations.
If risk communication is a two-way enterprise, both sides have
rights and responsibilities that must be understood if the process is
to work well. The following recommendation is directed at improving
the recipient's ability to participate meaningfully in risk management
and risk communication. It is based on the conclusion that, at
this stage, nonexpert participants have different understandings of
the nature of risk and how it is managed. It is also based on the
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conclusion that the risk communication process would benefit if the
interested public were better able to ask intelligent, probing questions
of those in government, industry, and elsewhere who prepare risk
messages for their consumption. As source organizations become
more accomplished at risk communication, we expect that there will
be more opportunities for two-way interactions. We believe there
needs to be a national locus for improving the public's ability to
participate.
Major government and private organizations, including envi-
ronmental and consumer groups, that sustain risk communication
efforts should jointly fund the development of a Consumer's Guide
to Risk and Risk Communication. The purposes of this guide would
be to articulate key terms, concepts, and trade-offe in risk communi-
cation and risk management for the lay audience, to make audiences
better able to discern misleading and incomplete information, and
to facilitate the needed general participation in risk issues.
Such a guide should:
. involve support from, but not control by, the federal govern-
ment and other sources of risk messages;
. be under the editorial control of a group that is clearly ori-
ented toward the recipients of risk messages, and under a~ninistra-
tive management by an organization that is known for its indepen-
dence and familiarity with lay perspectives, and that can undertake
the needed outreach and public information effort; and
. cover subjects such as those suggested below e.g., the nature
of risk communication, the concepts of zero risk and comparative
risk, and evaluating risk messages and others designated by project
participants.
We believe that the development of such a guide would have
several advantages. It would help orient the interested public and
the leaders of organized groups and prevent some of the misunder-
standing that has occurred in the past. It would provide nonexpert
participants with tools and concepts to enhance their participation,
including sections about how to identify incomplete, imbalanced, or
misleading messages. The process of writing it would advance na-
tional discussion about areas of current controversy among players
in an often adversarial process of making risk management decisions.
The guide would also articulate the basis for public skepticism that
sometimes causes consternation among those responsible for risk
management and the design of risk messages.
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IMPROVING RISK COMMUNICATION
Project Support
It is important that major risk communicators federal agencies,
large corporations" support the project. We would expect that the
project would require about ~ year to complete and that it would
require a full-time staff of two or three persons. Allowance should
be made for wide distribution of gratis copies of the final document.
Provision should be made to update the guide 3 to 5 years after it
is published; updating will help ensure that there is a national focal
point for continuing interactions among the groups that, together,
can bring about long-term improvement in risk communication.
Project Management
Editorial control of the guide should be exerted by a steering
group in which the views and concerns of the lay recipients of risk
messages are paramount. It should not be difficult to identify indi-
viduals who reflect an appropriately broad range of lay perspectives.
The steering group should also include a minority of other relevant
perspectives (e.g., risk managers, scientists and other experts, media
representatives, and advocacy groups).
The project requires a stable but independent administrative
home. For practical reasons it would be most suitably placed under
the aegis of an existing organization in order to permit an efficient
start-up and a reliable dissemination/outreach phase. The admin-
istrative home should be one that is credible to all sides involved
in risk management issues and one that has demonstrable relevant
experience. The League of Women Voters and the National Safety
Council are two of several organizations that meet these criteria.
An integral part of the project should be the design of a dis-
semination effort that, among other possibilities, makes use of com-
patible existing efforts at public outreach involving aspects of risk
by professional (e.g., American Bar Association, American Medical
Association, American Chemical Society) and other groups.
Content of the Gliide
We offer a brief topic list as representative of subjects to be cov-
ered in a consumer's guide (see Figure 7.23. In addition to coverage
of these points and other subjects raised during the guide project
itself the guide might contain a directory of information resources
on risk topics for the lay public and groups that represent it.
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WHAT IS RISK?
Key Terminology and Concepts
Hazard, exposure, probability, sensitivity, individual risk,
population risk, distribution of risk, unattainability of zero risk
Qualitative Attributes
Voluntariness, catastrophic potential, dreadedness, lethality,
controllability, familiarity, latency
WHAT DOES RISK ASSESSMENT CONTRIBUTE?
Quantification
Quality, completeness, uncertainty, confidence
Scientific and Policy Inferences
Assumptions, assessment of benefits, risk management choices
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE RISK COMMUNICATION PROCESS?
Setting
Public debate about decisions, informing or influencing personal action
Purpose
Messages can inform, influence, or deceive
Interaction Among Participants
Contending conclusions, justifications, credibility, and records
HOW CAN YOU FIND OUT WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW?
Technical Content
Demystifying jargon, comparing relevant risks, finding trusted interpreters
Independent Sources
Information clearinghouses, academic or public service sources
HOW CAN YOU PARTICIPATE EFFECTIVELY?
Finding the Right Arena
Identifying the responsible decision maker, getting on the agenda
Intervention
Identifying points and times for intervention, marshalling support
HOW CAN YOU EVALUATE THE MESSAGES AND THE COMMUNICATORS?
Accuracy
Factual base, track record, consistency, self-serving framing, use of
influence techniques, misleading risk comparisons
Legitimacy
Standing, access, review, due process justification
Interpreting Advocacy
Comparing competing arguments, seeing where information has been omitted
questioning message sources
.
FIGURE 7.2 A consumer's guide to risk and risk communication.
RESEARCH NEEDS
As a result of our deliberations, we recommend the nine specific
research topics listed below. Some stem directly from the problems
identified in Chapter 6. Others are based on our review of available
information and the substantial practical experience of committee
members. Two criteria guided our selection of topics: (1) additional
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knowledge would lead to material improvement in risk communica-
tion practices and (2) creation of such knowledge is likely, given past
results and current research methods. We have not set priorities
among the topics.
Risk Comparison
If performed thoughtfully, risk comparison holds promise of mak-
ing risk communication more relevant and meaningful to recipients.
However, three issues need to be explored to prevent past shortcom-
ings of the technique.
. Comparability. When are two risks "similar" enough in na-
ture to be compared without misreading, confusing, or angering re-
cipients? What are the crucial dimensions across which risks should
not be compared?
. Apprehension of risk magnitudes. How do people apprehend
the magnitudes of risks; in particular, how do they interpret very
small probabilities, which often seem beyond most people's intuitive
understanding? How do different ways of presenting risk magnitudes
affect people's feeling for the size of risks?
Validation. The use of risk comparisons is undermined if
there is doubt about the validity of the data that are compared. Risk
estimates used in risk comparisons must be validated in two ways:
(1) as to the current scientific accuracy and the associated uncer-
tainty or qualifications and (2) as to whether nonexperts are known
to systematically underestimate or overestimate such estimates sub-
jectively (which would make them inappropriate as "anchors" in risk
comparisons).
Risk Characterization
We need better ways of presenting complex information about
risk clearly and accurately and better understanding of the limita-
tions of techniques for simplifying complex material. How do people
respond to alternative ways of characterizing risks, including alter-
native treatments of uncertainty?
Role of Message Intermediaries
We need a better empirical base for understanding the role of
intermediaries in carrying and translating risk messages. What chan-
nels (mass media, specialized media, advocacy groups, community
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organizations, localprofessionals and other opinion leaders, casual
acquaintances) do people actually use? How do people validate and
integrate messages from multiple sources in deciding what to do, or
what to believe, about a particular risk? Case examinations and a
review of research in allied fields (e.g., medical education) can help
elucidate the direct and indirect flow of information from source to
recipient.
Pertinency and Sufflciency of Rim Formation
Risk communicators need to focus on the information that is
most pertinent to recipients' needs; they are in danger of wasting
the limited access they have to their audience if they are viewed
as preoccupied with marginal issues. What types of information do
people actually find pertinent in reaching personal decisions about
risk? How does this compare with what the risk manager or decision
analyst thinks should be pertinent? How and when do people deter-
mine that they do not need additional information in order to decide
what they will do about a risk? What information appears necessary
to trigger active personal concern about a risk?
Psychological Stress
Given the number and variety of known risks in modern life,
what conditions are necessary to induce stress about a particular
risk in persons and communities? Which of the messages that appeal
to fear, or that advert to imminent danger, actually cause stress? If
people are stressed about a particular risk, how is their apprehension
of risk information affected?
Recipiente"'Mental Modeled
.
The information in risk messages is useful only if recipients can
Incorporate it into their prior thinking about the risk and its man-
agement. Only by better knowing how recipients conceptualize risks
and their risk decisions can people create more effective messages. In
particular:
. How do people think about the risk decisions that confront
them? For example, what alternatives do they consider, and what
consequences are they aware of?
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~ How do people think about the causal processes that create
risks? For example, do they misconceive exposure processes, and
how effective do control efforts seem, intuitively?
~ How do people perceive the social/governmental processes
involved in managing risks? For example, what do they believe reg-
ulatory agencies are empowered to do, and when are public interest
advocates seen as credible?
Risk Literacy
How do people learn the "analytic" concepts and language they
need to understand risk statements? Do they lack important con-
cepts? What kinds of materials, including special curricular materials
in science and mathematics education, might be effective?
Retrospective Cases
There is a dearth of case studies that focus directly on risk
communication. In particular, retrospective case materials should be
prepared that:
. Examine risk communication processes, including such topics
as the role of experts and others in message preparation, whether
and how outside groups were involved in risk management and risk
communication decisions, and the role of intermediaries in message
· e
transmission.
. Analyze the responses of recipients and how the responses
corresponded to the expectations of the source.
Contemporaneous Assessments of Risk Cases
Too seldom are there attempts to learn from ongoing cases of
risk management. This is partly due to an understandable desire
to concentrate resources on solving a risk problem, rather than cal-
ibrating it; nonetheless, real-time assessments can provide valuable
knowledge for making general improvements in risk communication.
This contemporaneous research should address such matters as how
people react to different types of messages and channels; what their
actual concerns, frustrations, and data needs are; and how effective
alternative communication and message strategies are.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
risk messages
