Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
Risk Anal. 2022 Nov;42(11):2376-2399. doi: 10.1111/risa.14006. Epub 2022 Sep 13.
This article uses ten case studies to illustrate the information needs, various communication approaches, and the communicator's role in explaining environmental health risks from a variety of hazards, to a variety of audiences, over time frames from days to years, using in person consultation, lectures, zooms, and email formats. Events often had a long history before the communication began and may have had a long tail afterward. Audiences may be public officials, companies, workers, communities, or individuals. Each individual may have their own understanding or mental model regarding the hazard, exposure, and risk. The communicator's role or intention may be to reassure an audience that has unrealistic exaggerated concerns or fears or to protect a client if the fears are realistic. Or it may be altruistic to inform a complacent audience to take the risks it faces more seriously. Although risk assessment research has advanced the techniques for communicating abstruse probabilities to audiences with low numeracy, in my experience, audiences are unimpressed by precise-sounding probability numbers, and are more interested in whether exposure is occurring or may occur and how to stop it. Often audiences have reason to be outraged and may be more concerned about punishing wrong doers than about the hazard itself, particularly when the exposure is past and cannot be undone. Thus, there is a difference between discussing the riskiness of a situation (risk communication) and what you are going to do about the situation (risk management). Risk communication is successful when the audience responds as intended, calming down or taking action. These case studies are drawn from a large number of risk communication experiences that I and my Rutgers colleagues have engaged in over the past four decades. Through the 20th century, New Jersey was the most densely industrialized State in United States. New Jersey experienced growth of the chemical and petrochemical industries and the unfortunately profligate disposal of toxic wastes. Having the most Superfund sites of any state is a dubious distinction, but New Jersey also has the most experience in evaluating and responding to these hazards.
本文通过十个案例研究，说明了在不同的时间框架内（从几天到数年），针对不同的受众（包括公众官员、公司、工人、社区和个人），从各种危害中解释环境健康风险时，信息需求、各种沟通方法以及沟通者的角色。事件在沟通开始之前往往有很长的历史，并且之后可能还会有很长的影响。受众可能对危害、暴露和风险有自己的理解或心理模型。沟通者的角色或意图可能是向那些有不切实际的夸大担忧或恐惧的受众重新保证，或者在恐惧是现实的情况下保护客户。或者，向自满的受众传达信息，让他们更认真地对待所面临的风险，这也可能是出于利他主义。尽管风险评估研究已经改进了向低数学素养受众传达深奥概率的技术，但根据我的经验，受众对听起来准确无误的概率数字并不感兴趣，他们更关心暴露是否正在发生或可能发生，以及如何阻止它。通常情况下，受众有理由感到愤怒，他们可能更关心惩罚肇事者，而不是关注危害本身，尤其是当暴露已经过去且无法挽回时。因此，讨论情况的风险（风险沟通）和你将对情况采取的措施（风险管理）之间存在差异。当受众按照预期做出回应，冷静下来或采取行动时，风险沟通就是成功的。这些案例研究来自于我和我在罗格斯大学的同事在过去四十年中参与的大量风险沟通经验。在 20 世纪，新泽西州是美国工业化最密集的州。新泽西州经历了化学和石化工业的增长，以及不幸的有毒废物肆意处置。拥有美国超级基金计划（Superfund）站点最多是一种值得怀疑的区别，但新泽西州在评估和应对这些危害方面也拥有最多的经验。
