[Assessment of risk and risk communication in environmental medicine].

The risk concept intends to make hazards linked to industrialisation and modernisation calculable and to limit and to counterbalance them. Since the possibility of health damages by pollutants can not be excluded once a population has been exposed to them, the task is to estimate and quantify these hazards as risk. In environmental medicine risk stands for the probability that a part of a population exposed to a pollutant will be harmed. The scientific estimation and quantification of health risks is restricted by epistemological, methodological and practical limits. It can not be predicted in a particular case to what extent this not determinable part of the risk contributes to the overall risk. The process of the evaluation of risks with respect to their social justifiability includes value judgements influenced by the respective social area and its interests. The acceptability of risks can only be weighed in relation to their associated benefits. Acceptance of risks requires full knowledge and awareness and mutual confidence which only slowly can grow as the result of a longlasting authentic communication.