target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_36bf9a1b-c143-5529-b49e-6c76cde7844c">15 Covello, V.T., Mumpower, J. (1985). “Risk analysis and risk management: an historical perspective.” Risk Analysis 5 (2):103–120.16 16 See, e.g., Covello, V.T, Merkhofer, M. (1993). Risk Assessment Methods. New York: Plenum Press.
17 17 See Cole, T.W, Fellows, K.L. (2008) “Risk communication failure: a case study of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.” Southern Communication Journal, 73(3):211–228. See also the case study of Hurricane Katrina in Fearn‐Banks, K. (2007). Crisis communications: A casebook approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
18 18 Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2020). Community Concern Assessment Tool. Accessed at: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communications‐toolkit/documents/08_community‐concern‐assessment‐tool_508.pdf
19 19 New York Times, December 2, 2020. “Covid‐19 Live Updates: C.D.C. Director Warns Winter May Be ‘Most Difficult Time’ in US Public Health History.” Accessed at: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/02/world/covid‐19‐coronavirus?name=styln‐coronavirus®ion=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&impression_id=9875aa71‐34e7‐11eb‐937d‐ad0013f652b2&variant=1_Show
20 20 American Psychological Association (2020). Stress in America 2020: A National Mental Health Crisis. Accessed at: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/report‐october; See also American Psychological Association (2021). Stress in America: 2021. One year later, a new wave of pandemic health concerns. Accessed at: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/one‐year‐pandemic‐stress
21 21 See, e.g., Gottman, J. (2011). The Science of Trust. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 19–20
22 22 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Macmillan Publishers.
23 23 Rock, D. (2008). “SCARF: a brain‐based model for collaborating with and influencing others.” NeuroLeadership Journal, ( 1), 1–7. See also Scarlett, H. (2019). Hilary Scarlett (2019, Neuroscience for Organizational Change: An Evidence‐based Practical Guide to Managing Change (2nd Edition). London and New York: Kogan Page Limited Publishing Co.
24 24 Coombs, W.T., Holloday, S.J. (2017). Handbook of Crisis Communication. London. Wiley‐Blackwell
25 25 Ulmer, R., Sellnow, T., Seeger, M. (2011). Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
26 26 Heath, J., O’Hair (2009). “The Significance of Crisis and Risk Communication,” in Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication, eds. R.L. Heath and H.D. O’Hair. New York: Taylor and Francis/Routledge.
27 27 Oliver‐Smith, A., (1999). “What is a disaster?” in The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective, eds Oliver‐Smith, A., Hoffman, S. New York: Routledge, p. 19.
28 28 United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. (2009), UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction, p. 9. Accessed at: https://www.unisdr.org/files/7817_UNISDRTerminologyEnglish.pdf
29 29 Lindell, M.K, Lindell, M.K, Prater, C.S., Perry, R.W. (2006). Fundamentals of Emergency Management. Washington, D.C.: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accessed at: https://training.fema.gov/hiedu/aemrc/booksdownload/fem/ p.5.
30 30 Kroeber, A., Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definition. New York: Vintage Books.
3
An Overview of Risk Communication
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
This chapter offers a general understanding of the field of risk, high concern, and crisis communication and how you might communicate risk information to audiences. At the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
identify the situations that require effective risk communication;
remember what makes risk perception a social construct;
employ the factors that help – and inhibit – an individual’s ability to understand and evaluate risk information;
remember each risk communication principle and guideline is based on trust, transparency, cooperation, dialog, and respect; and
demonstrate a basic understanding of how risk communication theory translates into good practice.
This chapter begins with a puzzle. The puzzle illustrates several key principles of effective risk communication in practice.
3.1 Case Diary: Complex Issues Destroy Homes
A government agency hired me to work with them on a mysterious problem. Homeowners in scattered locations were complaining that green, slimy, and foul‐smelling substances were oozing through cracks into the basements of their homes. Their basements served as family rooms, and children played in the contaminated basements.
The community was poor. Many homeowners were unemployed and could not afford to move or pay for toxicity testing. Homeowners asked the government to test the substances for toxicity. When the results revealed that the substances were highly toxic, homeowners asked the government agency for assistance in relocation and in addressing possible health problems.
The government’s environmental detectives were perplexed. They shared this perplexity with me and asked if I could help. What was the source of the toxic green substances? The environmental detectives had applied principles of epidemiology, first identified by John Snow, who is often considered the father of field epidemiology, in his now classic investigations of the sources of cholera outbreaks in London in the nineteenth century.1 But, the houses in this case study community with contaminated
