Public Perception of Risk and Risk Management

许多人认为当代科学技术既有益又有害。这导致公众对重要政策和项目的风险管理感到担忧。专家和公众之间的分歧一直是许多由此产生的风险争议的核心。这项研究项目研究了对风险问题及其管理的态度的形成方式，以及对解决风险争议的影响。讨论概念问题的主要经验证据来自对五个风险主题的审查：(1)风险和决策；(2)价值和环境风险；(3)直观毒理学；(4)生物技术和克隆；以及(5)产品污名。这些主题中的每一个都在准备科学文章。这项研究的数据来自决策研究和其他地方的档案，来自正在进行的研究，以及1997年的国家风险调查，该调查旨在产生关于这些主题的新数据。特别是，最近的这项调查包括对少数群体的过度抽样，这将允许检查社会、文化和政治因素，而先前的证据表明，这些因素是人们用来形成他们对风险的感知和他们对公共决策过程的态度的背景的重要部分。这项工作的一个主要重点是开发一个概念性框架，以了解不同的风险处理方法和对风险管理选项的偏好。预计这项研究将为风险沟通、风险管理和公共政策提供信息，作为为公共决策建议新方法的基础。

Contemporary science and technology are perceived by many as hazardous as well as beneficial. This has led to public concerns about risk management of important policies and projects. Differences between experts and the public have been central to numerous resulting risk controversies. This research project studies the way attitudes toward risk issues and their management are formed and the implications for addressing risk controversies. The primary empirical evidence for discussing the conceptual issues comes from an examination of five risk topics: (1) risk and decision making; (2) values and environmental risks, (3) intuitive toxicology, (4) biotechnology and cloning, and (5) product stigma. Scientific articles are in preparation for each of these topics. The data for the study comes from archives at Decision Research and elsewhere, from ongoing research, and from the 1997 national risk survey, which was designed to produce new data on these topics. In particular, this recent survey includes oversampling of minority populations that will allow examination of social, cultural, and political factors that prior evidence indicates are an important part of the context people use to form their perceptions of risk and their attitudes toward public decision processes. A primary focus of this work is to develop a conceptual framework to understand different approaches to risk and preferences for risk management options. This research is expected to inform risk communication, risk management, and public policy in ways that will serve as the basis for recommending new approaches for public decision making.