COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Dynamic Risk Perceptions about Mexican Swine Flu

许多决定都是在面临风险和不确定性的情况下做出的，而且每个人的个人决定都会影响其他人的结果。2009年爆发的猪流感（甲型H1N1流感）提供了一个机会，可以研究非专业人士对风险的看法如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及这些看法如何促使人们愿意采取预防行为（如使用抗病毒药物或自我隔离），这些行为不仅会对采取这些行为的人产生影响，还会影响人群中其他人的风险。调查人员使用的是关于人的网络调查？美国人的风险意识和采取预防措施的意愿，从疫情的第一个消息发布后几天开始，并在整个疫情期间定期持续。这项研究考察了媒体关于流感爆发的信息、对风险的认识以及采取预防措施的兴趣之间的长期关系。这次新传染病的爆发提供了一个难得的机会，可以研究风险认知和预防行为如何随着时间的推移而变化，以应对有关危险如何展开的信息。研究结果不仅可能对公共卫生应对自然灾害产生影响，还可能对了解不确定性下风险感知和决策的基本机制产生影响。

Many decisions are made in the face of risk and uncertainty and under circumstances where each person's individual decision affects other people's outcomes. The 2009 outbreak of swine flu (influenza A H1N1) provides a chance to study how lay people's perceptions of risks change over time and how those perceptions drive willingness to engage in precautionary behaviors (such as anti-viral medication use or self quarantine) that not only have consequences for the person who engages in the behaviors but that also affect the risks for others in the population. The investigators use an internet survey regarding people?s risk perception and willingness to take precautionary measures to query cohorts of US adults starting a few days after the first news of the outbreak and continuing at regular intervals throughout the epidemic. The research examines the relationships over time among information from the media about the influenza outbreak, perceptions of risk, and interest in taking precautionary measures. This outbreak of a new infectious disease represents a rare opportunity to study how risk perceptions and precautionary behaviors change over time in response to information about how the hazard unfolds. The results could have implications not only for public health responses to natural disasters but also for an understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying risk perception and decision making under uncertainty.