Risk vs. Risk perception

Risk has been defined in a number of ways, but is often seen as the likelihood that an individual will experience the effect of danger. Every utility – sewerage, water, power, and gas – has a full portfolio of such risks. The less we trust the people who are supposed to protect us, or the people, government or corporate institutions exposing us to risk in the first place, or the people communicating to us about the risk, the more afraid we will be. The more we trust, the less fear we feel. The more we are aware of a risk, the more we are likely to be concerned about it. Concern about child abductions rises when the press is full of coverage of an ongoing case, although the probabilities are the same before that case showed up in the papers and after it is resolved. Can it happen to me? Any risk seems larger if you think you or someone you care about could be a victim. This helps to explain why statistical probability is often an ineffective form of risk communication. A risk of 1 in 1,000,000 can still seem threatening if you think you could be the one. This helps explain why the only acceptable level of risk to many people is zero.

These factors offer powerful insights that help explain why our fears often do not match the facts, and why they may be just as big a risk as the specific hazards about which we are worried. They contribute to potentially dangerous misperceptions of risk, which can lead to unsafe behavioral choices, either when we are more afraid of relatively small risks, or not afraid enough of relatively large ones. For example, many Americans sought a sense of control and safety after 9/11 by driving instead of flying. Air arrivals in Las Vegas were down 6.5% and motor vehicle arrivals were up 7.3% at the end of April 2002. 

People respond to a risk or hazard in ways consistent to their perception of that risk.  It is their perception that influences behavior or action. Understanding public perception of natural hazards is necessary in order to impact hazard preparedness, and can be a problem because residents of at-risk areas often have wrong beliefs about the hazard agent and its impacts, are unaware of available adjustments, and may have invalid beliefs about the effectiveness of the adjustments of which they are aware. Research shows that adaptive actions are motivated by awareness of the hazard, knowledge of how it can affect the community, and feelings of personal vulnerability to the potential consequences.

Peter Sandman breaks his work into three areas: scaring people who are ignoring something that is legitimately dangerous and risky; calming down a person who are freaking out over something that's not risky; and guiding people who are freaking out over something that is legitimately risky. To accomplish all this, Sandman came up with a useful equation: Risk = Hazard + Outrage. Deceptively simple, this formula includes both the objective, technical, measurable component (the "hazard") and the cultural, emotional, personal component (the "outrage" factor, including all levels of fear, anger and general upset). It is possible for the actual hazard to be low and the level outrage to be high however, and vice versa, and each situation requires a completely different approach. "Everything hinges on how elevated the hazard and the level of outrage are," explains Dr. Sandman. "If the level of hazard is low and the level of outrage is also low, there's nothing much going on. People aren't upset, and there's nothing for them to be upset about. This is not much of a business opportunity."

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Harvey W. Wiley

Harvey W. Wiley, M.D., was the original-first at the Food and Drug Administration, where he became known as the “Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act.” An early pioneer of food chemistry, food toxicology, and food safety, Wiley was born near Kent, Indiana in 1844. He received an undergraduate degree in 1867 from Hanover College and an M.D. from Indiana Medical College in 1871. Shortly after, Wiley accepted a position teaching chemistry at Indiana Medical College. He obtained a B.S. from Harvard in 1873 and then, in 1874, accepted a faculty position in chemistry at Purdue University. With that knowledge he spent his last years at Purdue studying sorghum culture and sugar chemistry, focusing on the adulteration of sugar with glucose, which was also the subject of his first published paper in 1881. Wiley's educational and early professional experiences set the table for his subsequent pioneering efforts in adulterated food products.

In 1883, Wiley was appointed Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Chemical Division. The division changed its name to the Bureau of Chemistry in 1898, and that is where Wiley conducted his most famous work. He authored early important studies on food adulteration. More significantly, between 1902 and 1907 Wiley directed what would become known as the Poison Squad. Employees of the Bureau of Chemistry and medical students from Georgetown Medical College received free board, eating meals prepared in the bureau's kitchen, during the preparation of which, specific quantities of commonly used chemical preservatives were added to the ingredients. Low paid recent graduates eagerly signed up to join the so-called Poison Squad. The subjects were undergoing medical monitoring – they were required to record their weight, temperature, and pulse rate before each meal and to list what they ate. Then urine and feces samples were collected. Squad members never knew what possible poison they were eating. Still, they all signed waivers absolving the government of liability for possible health impacts.The end result was to determine to what level chemicals were retained, excreted, or changed in their bodies and if any symptoms noted could be attributed to those chemicals. Chemicals used in these experiments included borax, boric acid, copper sulfate, potassium nitrate, saccharin, salicylic acid and salicylates, sulfuric acid and sulfites, benzoic acid and benzoates, and formaldehyde. Wiley was a tireless promoter of food safety.

But there's no doubt that Wiley and his determined volunteers raised public awareness of a risky food supply. That awareness, that growing realization of danger, put intense pressure on the government to fix the problem of contaminated food. Four years after the squads were established, the nation's first law regulating food and pharmaceutical manufacturing went into effect. It was officially known as the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Under Wiley's leadership, the Bureau of Chemistry grew in size and stature after assuming responsibility for enforcement of the 1906 Act.

Wiley was also a prolific writer during his tenure with the Bureau of Chemistry. The Government Printing Office published four of his major studies, including Influence of Food Preservatives and Artificial Colors on Digestion and Health v. Formaldehyde in 1908. Wiley also wrote several books during this time period, including Chemistry and Longevity: Food in its Relation to Individual and National Development. Dr. Wiley retired from the Bureau of Chemistry in 1912 and became director of the Bureau of Foods Sanitation and Health for Good Housekeeping magazine. While working for the magazine, Wiley developed the well-known Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, which is still in use today. Wiley died on June 30, 1930 at the age of 86. His legacy is still in evidence today in the work of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in the activities of many food and drug toxicologists.

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Exxon Valdez: 20 Years Later, Oil Remains

Four minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Carrying 1,264,155 barrels of oil bound for Washington, the ship had maneuvered out of the shipping lane to avoid icebergs. The timing of the spill, remote and spectacular location, thousands of miles of rugged and wild shorelines, and the abundance of wildlife combined to make it an environmental and societal disaster well beyond the scope of other spills. Initially, response efforts were aimed at keeping the oil out of critical salmon spawning areas by deploying protective boom at the mouths of several rivers and lagoons. There was also hope that the oil might be kept off of the beaches altogether by skimming it from the water before it came ashore. For several days the oil held offshore in a 20 to 30 mile wide sheen and many separate patches of mousse, or weathered and thickened oil. Unfortunately, the oil skimmers were unable to keep the oil from the beaches. A storm that blew in on the night of April 10 sent the first oil ashore in Kenai Fjords National Park.

In the end, approximately 20 miles of the Kenai Fjords coast received oil. This is about five percent of the total coastline in the park and just a fraction of the total coastline oiled during the disaster. Fortunately, the most sensitive salmon spawning areas in the park did not receive oil. Areas classified as moderately or heavily oiled include Pony Cove, Verdant Cove, Taroka Arm, Black Bay, Beauty Bay, Yalik Bay, and McArthur Pass. Seward became a hub of wildlife treatment shortly after the spill occurred. Facilities were set up for cleaning and caring for sea otters, seabirds, and bald eagles; and volunteers from the local community contributed many hours to this effort. Success rates varied, and many animals could not be saved. One hundred eighty-four sea otters were brought to Seward, and eventually only 19 of these were released back into the wild. Success rates were a bit better with birds. Of 1,088 seabirds brought to Seward, 627 were released. Twenty-two bald eagles arrived alive in Seward, and 13 of these were released. The massive effort to document damage and cleanup oil led to people surveying and walking on beaches that are rarely visited. As a result, many new archeological sites were discovered that were previously unknown to scientists. The documentation of these sites increased our understanding of former human habitation of what is now Kenai Fjords National Park, but also exposed these resources to the potential threat of human disturbance.

Three methods were tried in the effort to clean up the spill: burning, mechanical cleanup, and chemical dispersants. Efforts to save sensitive areas were begun early in the cleanup. Sensitive environments were identified, defined according to degree of cleanup, and then ranked for their priority for cleanup. Seal pupping locations and fish hatcheries were given the highest importance, and for these areas special cleaning techniques were approved. Despite the identification of sensitive areas and the rapid start-up of shoreline cleaning, however, wildlife rescue was slow. Adequate resources for this task did not reach the accident scene quickly enough. Through direct contact with oil or because of a loss of food resources, many birds and mammals died.

20 years after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, huge quantities of oil still coat Alaska’s shores with a toxic glaze.  More than 21,000 gallons of crude oil remain of the 11 million gallons of crude oil that bled from the stranded tanker Exxon Valdez. The spill affected people living in or near the sound economically and culturally. Both the long-term and short-term effects of the oil spill have been studied. Immediate effects included the deaths of 100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 Bald Eagles, and 22 orcas, and an unknown number of salmon and herring. An 11,000-person crew removed oil from the beaches until 1994, when government officials decided to end the clean up effort. At that time, what was left of the oil was naturally disintegrating at a high rate, and experts predicted it would be gone within a few years. But it turns out that crude oil – especially when it is spilled in a cold region like southeastern Alaska – lingers in the environment for years. According to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the Exxon Valdez oil is decreasing at a rate of 0-4 percent per year. At this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possible centuries to disappear entirely. To the naked eye, Prince William Sound may appear “normal.”  But if you look beneath the surface, oil continues to contaminate beaches, national parks, and designated wilderness. And as long as the oil is there, it can harm the animals that might come into contact with it. Sea otters once again play in the waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, and salmon and some other species have rebounded. But killer whale populations have not recovered, and the huge schools of whirling herring that fed both fisherman and animals have not returned, reminding scientists that nature’s responses are complex and unpredictable.  

As of December 15, 2009, Exxon paid all owed $507.5 million punitive damages, including lawsuit costs, plus interest, which were further distributed to thousands of plaintiffs. The most positive results from the disaster involve oil tanker safety. In 1990, the U.S Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, setting a schedule for the gradual phase in of a double hull design, providing an additional layer between the oil tanks and the ocean. While a double hull would likely not have prevented the Valdez disaster, a Coast Guard study estimated that it would have cut the amount of oil spilled by 60 percent. The Act set up a liability fund, toughened spill disaster plans, and created a mechanism for citizen-led oversight committees to police safety claims by shippers. Worldwide, the frequency of major accidents in oil shipping has dropped, and insurance experts say safety has improved. The requirement for double-hilled tankers spurred the shipping industry to modernize with much safer ships. 

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