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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