Johnson Branden B
Bureau of Risk Analysis, Division of Science, Research and Technology, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, P.O. Box 409, Trenton, NJ 08625-0409, USA.
Risk Anal. 2003 Aug;23(4):781-9. doi: 10.1111/1539-6924.00355.
Given the prevalence of uncertainty and variability in estimates of environmental health risks, it is important to know how citizens interpret information representing uncertainty in risk estimates. Ranges of risk estimates from a hypothetical industry source elicited divergent evaluations of risk assessors' honesty and competence among New Jersey residents within one mile of one or more factories. A plurality saw ranges of risk estimates as both honest and competent, but with most judging such ranges as deficient on one or both dimensions. They wanted definitive conclusions about safety, tended to believe the high end of the range was more likely to be an accurate estimate of the risk, and believed that institutions only discuss risks when they are "high." Acknowledgment of scientific, as opposed to self-interested, reasons for uncertainty and disputes among experts was low. Attitude toward local industry seemed associated with, if not a cause of, attitudes about ranges of risk estimates. These reactions by industry neighbors appear to replicate the findings of Johnson and Slovic (1995, 1998), despite the hypothetical producer of risk estimates being industry instead of government. Respondents were older and less educated on average than were the earlier samples, but more diverse. Regression analyses suggested attitude toward industry was a major factor in these reactions, although other explanations (e.g., level of scientific understanding independent of general education) were not tested in this study.
鉴于环境健康风险评估中不确定性和可变性普遍存在，了解公民如何解读风险评估中代表不确定性的信息就显得很重要。来自假设行业来源的风险评估范围，引发了距离一家或多家工厂一英里范围内的新泽西居民对风险评估人员诚实度和能力的不同评价。多数人认为风险评估范围既诚实又可靠，但大多数人认为这样的范围在一个或两个维度上存在缺陷。他们想要关于安全性的确切结论，倾向于认为范围的高端更有可能是对风险的准确估计，并且认为机构只有在风险“很高”时才会讨论风险。对专家之间不确定性和争议的科学原因（而非利己原因）的认可程度较低。对当地行业的态度似乎与对风险评估范围的态度相关，即使不是其原因。尽管风险评估的假设提供者是行业而非政府，但行业周边居民的这些反应似乎重现了约翰逊和斯洛维奇（1995年、1998年）的研究结果。与早期样本相比，受访者平均年龄更大、受教育程度更低，但更加多样化。回归分析表明，对行业的态度是这些反应的一个主要因素，尽管本研究未对其他解释（例如，独立于普通教育的科学理解水平）进行测试。
