Renn Ortwin
Center of Technology Assessment, Industriestr. 5, 70565 Stuttgart, Germany.
Toxicol Lett. 2004 Apr 1;149(1-3):405-13. doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2003.12.051.
Health and environmental scientists, professional risk managers and the general public strongly disagree about the seriousness of many risks. Most members of the public are concerned about long-term effects of risks, equity and fairness issues, lack of personal control, and the pace of technological diffusion into their cultural environment, whereas professional toxicologists and risk managers focus on the task to minimize the probability of adverse effects caused by a potentially hazardous agent or activity. To bridge the gap between the professional mandate and the public perception of risk, two-way communication has to be initiated between scientists, risk managers, interest groups, and representatives of the affected public. This dialogue should serve three major functions:to facilitate understanding of different risk perspectives among scientists, regulators and stakeholders as well as groups of the public; to enlighten all these constituencies about different rationales for dealing with toxicological risks; to develop appropriate procedures for conflict resolution. A prerequisite for a successful communication is the willingness of each group to respect the perspective of all the other participating groups and to include their concerns into the decision making process. The conference paper reviews the literature on the three main functions of risk communication: message recognition, mutual understanding and respect as a prerequisite for trust building and resolution of risk-related conflicts. The paper discusses the structure of the communication process from a descriptive and a normative point of view and draws on empirical studies about risk perception and communication. The argument will be made that risk cannot be understood as a monolithic concept that penetrates different research disciplines and risk management camps. Risk should rather be seen as a mental instrument that allows prediction of future hazards and facilitates risk reduction measures. Due to the inherent ambiguity and uncertainty of conceptualizing risk, different concepts of risk compete with each other and rely on different rationales. The main goal of risk communication is, therefore, integration of different concepts of risks, in particular with respect to setting priorities in risk reduction and mitigation. The author will introduce a recent initiative by the OECD Chemical Risk Group to accomplish this goal.
健康与环境科学家、专业风险管理者和普通公众在许多风险的严重性问题上存在强烈分歧。大多数公众关注风险的长期影响、公平性问题、缺乏个人掌控以及技术融入其文化环境的速度，而专业毒理学家和风险管理者则专注于将潜在有害因素或活动所导致的不利影响概率降至最低的任务。为弥合专业职责与公众风险认知之间的差距，必须在科学家、风险管理者、利益集团以及受影响公众的代表之间展开双向沟通。这种对话应发挥三大主要功能：促进科学家、监管者、利益相关者以及公众群体之间对不同风险观点的理解；使所有这些群体了解应对毒理风险的不同基本原理；制定解决冲突的适当程序。成功沟通的一个先决条件是每个群体都愿意尊重其他所有参与群体的观点，并将他们的关切纳入决策过程。会议论文回顾了关于风险沟通三大主要功能的文献：信息识别、相互理解以及尊重作为建立信任和解决风险相关冲突的先决条件。本文从描述性和规范性角度讨论了沟通流程的结构，并借鉴了关于风险认知和沟通的实证研究。本文将论证，风险不能被理解为一个贯穿不同研究学科和风险管理阵营的单一概念。相反，风险应被视为一种思维工具，它能预测未来危害并促进风险降低措施。由于风险概念化存在固有的模糊性和不确定性，不同的风险概念相互竞争且依赖不同的基本原理。因此，风险沟通的主要目标是整合不同的风险概念，特别是在确定风险降低和缓解的优先级方面。作者将介绍经合组织化学风险小组为实现这一目标而开展的一项近期举措。
