Burger Joanna, Gochfeld Michael
Nelson Biological Laboratory, Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8082, USA.
Risk Anal. 2009 Aug;29(8):1156-69. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01191.x.
There is widespread agreement that stakeholders should be included in the problem-formulation phase of addressing environment problems and, more recently, there have been attempts to include stakeholders in other phases of environmental research. However, there are few studies that evaluate the effects of including stakeholders in all phases of research aimed at solving environmental problems. Three underground nuclear blasts were detonated on Amchitka Island from 1965 to 1971. Considerable controversy developed when the Department of Energy (DOE) decided to "close" Amchitka. Concerns were voiced by subsistence Aleuts living in the region, resource trustees, and the State of Alaska, among others. This article evaluates perceptions of residents of three Aleutian village before (2003) and after (2005) the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation's (CRESP) Amchitka Independent Science Assessment (AISA). The CRESP AISA provided technical information on radionuclide levels in biota to inform questions of seafood safety and food chain health. CRESP used the questions asked at public meetings in the Aleut communities of Atka, Nikolski, and Unalaska to evaluate attitudes and perceptions before and after the AISA. Major concerns before the AISA were credibility/trust of CRESP and the DOE, and information about biological methodology of the study. Following the AISA, people were most concerned about health effects and risk reduction, and trust issues with CRESP declined while those for the DOE remained stable. People's relative concerns about radionuclides declined, while their concerns about mercury (not addressed in the AISA) increased, and interest in ecological issues (population changes of local species) and the future (continued biomonitoring) increased from 2003 to 2005. These results suggest that questions posed at public meetings can be used to evaluate changes in attitudes and perceptions following environmental research, and the results are consistent with the hypothesis that the AISA answered questions about radionuclides, and lowered overall concern about radionuclides, but left unanswered concerns about the health effects of mercury.
人们普遍认为，利益相关者应参与到解决环境问题的问题制定阶段，最近，也有人尝试让利益相关者参与环境研究的其他阶段。然而，很少有研究评估在旨在解决环境问题的研究的所有阶段纳入利益相关者的效果。1965年至1971年期间，在阿姆奇特卡岛进行了三次地下核爆炸。当美国能源部（DOE）决定“关闭”阿姆奇特卡岛时，引发了相当大的争议。居住在该地区的自给自足的阿留申人、资源受托人以及阿拉斯加州等表达了担忧。本文评估了利益相关者参与风险评估联盟（CRESP）的阿姆奇特卡独立科学评估（AISA）之前（2003年）和之后（2005年）三个阿留申村庄居民的看法。CRESP AISA提供了生物群中放射性核素水平的技术信息，以解答海鲜安全和食物链健康问题。CRESP利用在阿特卡、尼科尔斯基和乌纳拉斯卡的阿留申社区公开会议上提出的问题，来评估AISA前后的态度和看法。AISA之前的主要担忧是对CRESP和美国能源部的可信度/信任，以及有关该研究生物学方法的信息。AISA之后，人们最关心健康影响和风险降低，对CRESP的信任问题有所下降，而对美国能源部的信任问题保持稳定。人们对放射性核素的相对担忧有所下降，而对汞（AISA未涉及）的担忧有所增加，并且从2003年到2005年，对生态问题（当地物种的种群变化）和未来（持续生物监测）的兴趣增加。这些结果表明，公开会议上提出的问题可用于评估环境研究后态度和看法的变化，结果与以下假设一致：AISA回答了有关放射性核素的问题，并降低了对放射性核素的总体担忧，但未解答有关汞对健康影响的担忧。
