Johnson Branden B, Chess Caron
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):829-40. doi: 10.1111/1539-6924.00360.
The prospect of industrial accidents motivated the U.S. Congress to require in the Clean Air Act of 1990 that manufacturing facilities develop Risk Management Plans (RMP) to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) by July 1999. Industry worried that the requirement to communicate to the public a "worst-case scenario" would arouse unnecessary and counterproductive fears among industry neighbors. We report here the results of focus groups and surveys with such neighbors, focusing particularly upon their reactions to messages about a hypothetical worst-case scenario and management of these risks by industry, government, and other parties. Our findings confirmed our hypotheses that citizens would be skeptical of the competence and trustworthiness of these managers and that this stance would color their views of industrial-facility accident risks. People with job ties to industry or who saw industrial benefits to the community as exceeding its risks had more positive views of industrial risks, but still expressed great concern about the risk and doubt about accident management. Notwithstanding these reactions, overall respondents welcomed this and other related information, which they wanted their local industries to supply. Respondents were not more reassured by additional text describing management of accidents by government and industry. However, respondents did react very positively to the concept of community oversight to review plant safety. Claims about the firm's moral obligation or financial self-interest in preventing accidents were also received positively. Further research on innovative communication and management of accident risks is warranted by these results, even before recent terrorist attacks made this topic more salient.
工业事故的潜在可能性促使美国国会在1990年的《清洁空气法》中要求制造企业制定风险管理计划（RMP），并于1999年7月前提交给美国环境保护局（USEPA）。企业担心向公众传达“最坏情况设想”的要求会在企业周边居民中引发不必要且适得其反的恐慌。我们在此报告针对此类周边居民的焦点小组讨论和调查结果，特别关注他们对有关假设的最坏情况设想的信息以及企业、政府和其他各方对这些风险的管理的反应。我们的研究结果证实了我们的假设，即公民会对这些管理者的能力和可信度持怀疑态度，而这种态度会影响他们对工业设施事故风险的看法。与企业有工作关联或者认为社区从工业中获得的利益超过其风险的人对工业风险的看法更为积极，但仍对风险表示极大担忧，并对事故管理表示怀疑。尽管有这些反应，但总体而言，受访者欢迎此类及其他相关信息，并希望当地企业提供这些信息。政府和企业对事故管理的补充说明文字并未让受访者更安心。然而，受访者对社区监督工厂安全的概念反应非常积极。关于企业在预防事故方面的道德义务或自身经济利益的说法也得到了积极回应。即使在最近的恐怖袭击使这个话题更加突出之前，这些结果也表明有必要对事故风险的创新沟通和管理进行进一步研究。
