Public perception of scientific uncertainty in relation to food hazards

The research reported here aims to understand how people react to statements expressing risk uncertainty information in the context of a commonly experienced potential hazard, food related risks. Public perception of seriousness of risk for themselves, and for other people was examined for different types of uncertainty, for each of five different food hazards. The results indicated that participants responded to the different types of uncertainty in a uniform way, suggesting that perception of risk associated with uncertainty is not affected by the 'type' of uncertainty. The results further indicated that the seriousness of risk, in the presence of statements of uncertainty, was perceived to be greater for pesticides and genetic modification compared to BSE, high fat diets and Salmonella . It was argued that this could be due to the perceptions of low personal control, and high societal responsibility to protect people and societal control over exposure to the potential risks of pesticides and genetic modification. Under circumstances where people feel they have little personal control over their exposure to a particular hazard, and those social institutions that are perceived to be in control of protecting the public indicate that there is uncertainty associated with risk estimates, the hazard may appear to be 'out of control', which is associated with a perception of serious risk.     

Extrapolating understanding of food risk perceptions to emerging food safety cases

Important determinants of risk perceptions associated with foods are the extent to which the potential hazards are perceived to have technological or naturally occurring origins, together with the acute vs. chronic dimension in which the potential hazard is presented (acute or chronic). This study presents a case study analysis based on an extensive literature review examining how these hazard characteristics affect people’s risk and benefit perceptions, and associated attitudes and behaviors. The cases include E. coli incidences (outbreaks linked to fresh spinach and fenugreek sprouts), contamination of fish by environmental pollutants, (organochlorine contaminants in farmed salmon), radioactive contamination of food following a nuclear accident (the Fukushima accident in Japan), and GM salmon destined for the human food chain. The analysis of the cases over the acute vs. chronic dimension suggests that longitudinal quantification of the relationship between risk perceptions and impacts is important for both acute and chronic food safety, but this has infrequently been applied to chronic hazards. Technologies applied to food production tend to potentially be associated with higher levels of risk perception, linked to perceptions that the risk is unnatural. However, for some risks (e.g. those involving biological irreversibility), moral or ethical concerns may be more important determinants of consumer responses than risk or benefit perceptions. (Lack of) trust has been highlighted in all of the cases suggesting transparent and honest risk–benefit communications following the occurrence of a food safety incident. Implications for optimizing associated risk communication strategies, additional research linking risk perception, and other quantitative measures, including comparisons in time and space, are suggested.     

The antecedent role of personal environmental values in the relationships among trust in companies,information processing and risk perception

Trust and risk perception are important issues for industries such as petrochemical companies, typically considered ‘less trustworthy’ because of the hazards associated with their activities. In this context, individual’s trust in companies may have influence on information processing mode that individual adopts to reach a judgement such as risk perception associated with industrial hazards. We take the heuristic-systematic theory (HSM) as the model for processing information about industrial risk, with trust in companies as its antecedent and risk perception as its consequence. However, this process may be influenced by factors such as personal specific values. This paper analyses, to our knowledge for the first time, the antecedent role of personal values towards environmental issues in the HSM of information processing. The model was tested using data from interviews with 992 residents in an area of the province of Castelló (Spain) close to a petrochemical complex. Structured equation models were used to analyse the data. The results demonstrate the proposed relationships. The main contribution of this paper is the corroboration of the direct and indirect effects of personal environmental values on the variables that make up the trust in companies-HSM of information processing-risk perception sequence. Finally, we recommend that the companies of the petrochemical complex consider the frank, open and bidirectional communication with the residents as the key element to break the association among pro-environmental values, distrust in the companies and perception of the risk.     

The use of multi‐level modelling in risk research. A secondary analysis of a study of public perceptions of genetically modified food

Many studies have examined the relationship between various individual variables and people's perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food. A problem with this type of research is that contextual factors are completely ignored. This article explores the use of multi‐level modelling in the field of risk research, by re‐analysing a recent British study of public perceptions of GM food. As the study employed a multi‐stage sampling strategy, it could be used to examine simultaneously the individual and spatial variation in trust and the acceptability of GM food. While the geographical variation in acceptability was largely due to compositional differences between the sampling points, a geographical variation in trust remained after controlling for individual differences. The analysis demonstrated that city‐dwellers commonly have more trust in the regulation of GM food than other respondents. Next to being associated with a number of socio‐demographic variables, both acceptability and trust were related strongly to voting intention. Moreover, the results suggest that there is a link between vulnerable groups, feelings of exclusion, and (dis)trust. The article is concluded by arguing that multi‐level modelling provides new opportunities for simultaneously examining the individual and contextual basis of public perceptions of controversial risk issues.     

Risk as perceived by the German public: pervasive risks and “switching” risks

In 2001, a major project on the perception and evaluation of risks in southern Germany was conducted consisting of survey data as well as of semi‐structured interviews. With reference to the psychometric paradigm, this article analyzes public risk perception, pointing out the perceived risk semantic for nuclear energy, GM‐food, mad cow disease (BSE), crime, global climate change, mobile telephony and its radiation risks. These hazards reveal different patterns of risk perception and different levels of risk acceptability. Secondly, a comparison of qualitative and quantitative findings will be conducted: qualitative analyses indicate that the results of quantitative rating scales on the perception, evaluation and acceptance of technical and environmental hazards might be misleading since the public's focus on risks as elicited by open association stimuli relies much more on ‘everyday‐life’ and ‘pervasive’ risks than for instance on hazards emerging from new technologies. The relevance of technological risks tends to be dependent on the context: If explicitly mentioned in newscasts, in debates or listed in questionnaires memories, fears or other immediate responses become activated, yet they may be forgotten a short time later. We have called this phenomenon “switching effect” and the respective risks “switching risks”. In standardized opinion polls such ‘switching effects’ may evoke firm judgments, even if the importance in the interviewee's mental representation seems marginal.     

People’s responses to risks of electromagnetic fields and trust in government policy: the role of perceived risk,benefits and control

Trust in government policy affects the way people perceive and handle risks. In our study, we investigated the relationships between trust in government policy regarding electromagnetic fields (EMF), perceived risk and perceived benefits of public and personal EMF sources, perceived control over exposure to EMF and responses to the possible EMF health risk (e.g. protest against placement of mobile phone base stations or power lines, or taking own measures against EMF exposure). Previous research indicated that perceived risk and benefits mediate the relationship between trust and people’s risk responses. Additionally, we suggest that perceived control over EMF exposure affects the relation between trust in government policy and perceived risk, and, consequently, the risk responses. We performed a survey among the Dutch population (n?=?1009), which contained questions about risk responses to EMF, perceived risk and benefits of several EMF sources, trust in government policy and perceived control over EMF exposure. Comparing public EMF sources, i.e. power lines and mobile phone base stations, to personal EMF sources, i.e. microwave ovens and cordless and mobile phones, we tested our hypotheses. Variations in risk responses to both public and personal EMF sources were mainly explained by risk perception. In addition, perceived risk partially mediated the relationship between trust in government policy and risk responses. For public sources, perceived control over exposure weakened the negative relationship between trust and perceived risk. We conclude that, especially in people with low perceived control, a lack of trust in government policy may enhance perceptions of health risks, thereby increasing their inclination for risk responses.     

The role of negative associations and trust in risk perception of new hydrogen systems

In this study the moderating role of trust and negative affective associations on the inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgements is investigated. A survey (N = 406) was held in the Netherlands on the public perception of new hydrogen systems, during the time that a demonstration project with hydrogen buses was being undertaken. The data of the survey show that for the group of respondents with a negative evaluation of trust in actors involved, an inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgements can be observed. Furthermore, for the group of respondents that had elicited negative affective spontaneous associations with hydrogen in general, the inverse relationship was also found. The inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgements was not observed in the group not making these spontaneous associations. The strongest negative correlation between risk and benefit judgements was found for those who had a negative evaluation of trust and had elicited negative affective spontaneous associations. In all cases the general affective evaluation of hydrogen systems was the mediating factor in this inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgements. These findings provide evidence for the moderating role of trust and negative affective associations on the observed inverse relationship between perceived benefit and perceived risk.     

Trust and community building in the Doñana (Spain) toxic spill disaster

Appeals to public participation and, more generally, to a wider involvement of civic networks in the management of environmental conflicts are becoming more common after the difficulties that both the Market and the State appear to have in regulating these conflicts. The concern of this paper is with how central elements in civic society, such as interpersonal trust and community-building mechanisms, are influenced by environmental catastrophes. The case of the toxic spill disaster in Doñana, Spain, is presented in order to examine whether this accident had any effect on interpersonal trust and the mobilization of civic networks in the area. From the analysis, it can be concluded that involvement of civic networks in the management of these situations depends on the magnitude (real or perceived) of the disaster but also on the performance of public institutions regarding the event.     

Lay views on uncertainty in environmental health risk assessment

It has been argued that presenting uncertainty in environmental health risk estimates may increase citizens' risk knowledge and trust in the honesty and competence of the institutions providing such estimates; on the other hand, careless communication could have undesirable results. Reported here is a study of how American laypeople think about uncertainty in risk assessment, and its implications for risk management, extending earlier experimental research (Johnson and Slovic, 1995). A long closedended questionnaire (based in part on qualitative research) was given to 280 Eugene, Oregon, residents (largely college students). Uncertainty was presented in the form of a range of risk estimates, primarily in a hypothetical case of a chemical in drinking water. The findings suggest that it will be a challenge to present uncertainty in environmental health risk estimates to the public in ways that inform, rather than confuse or outrage, this important audience.     

Something old and something new: comparing views about nanotechnology and nuclear energy

This paper provides a review and evaluation of different food‐risk prioritization and management frameworks that have been developed by governmental food‐safety authorities, regulatory agencies and non‐governmental institutions worldwide. It emphasizes the need for a new science‐ and risk‐based system approach to microbial risk prioritization. We find that most studies and projects argue for a systematic and multi‐disciplinary approach to risk prioritization but nevertheless lack it. Human and public health issues have constituted the core focus of food‐risk analysis in food‐borne risk prioritization studies, where the majority of studies use the concept of disease burden. Even though it is widely recognized that economic and market‐level impacts of microbial hazards and preventive interventions to reduce food‐borne risks are crucial to the performance of industries and markets, they are almost never accounted for in risk prioritization frameworks.     

The determinants of integrating policy-based and community-based adaptation into coastal hazard risk management: a resilience approach

Abstract

A growing number of studies focus on improving the understanding of how the households’ adaptations can be encouraged in the process of coastal hazards and risk management. Particularly, this process is undergoing a major paradigm shift as it moves from an approach dominated by policy-based adaptation to another one in which community-based resilience building is favored. Thus, this article aims to apply a resilience approach to improve the knowledge about how public measures influence private autonomous adaptation behavior, through a transdisciplinary investigation of household adaptation behavior and its determinants. The Resilience Framework of Household Autonomous Adaptation to Climate- and Weather-Related Hazard Risks (ROHACHR) is proposed and combined with a focus group meeting and multivariate analysis to compare pre-disaster, during a disaster, post-disaster adaptations, and resilience behavior of households. Using an empirical survey of the households in three coastal municipalities in Taiwan, we examine the relationships between public measures and private adaptations that provides three distinguishing types of household behavior: ‘core’, ‘trust in governmental aid’, and ‘awareness and structures’. Results show that providing hazard risk information may be one step toward encouraging private autonomous adaptations. Several factors that help foster resilience also appear to be influential in households’ adaptation decisions, such as specific and positive governmental aid, information trust, and social capital. Based on these results, it shows that the ROHACHR is useful to characterize households’ adaptation and resilience behavior and explain how they respond to public measures. Finally, the policy implications of our findings for improving resilience of coastal communities and encouraging public-private collaboration in the process of hazard risk management are discussed.     

我国商业银行信贷风险原因分析及防范建议

信贷风险是金融机构和监管部门风险防范与控制的主要对象和核心内容,长期以来,风险管理水平不高制约了我国商业银行核心竞争力和盈利能力的提升。本文阐述了信贷市场的道德风险、逆向选择、寻租行为等问题,分析了信贷风险产生的主要原因,同时对进一步防范我国商业银行信贷风险提出建议措施。     

Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal risk

Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies – an assumption that underlies a common worldview on the public understanding of science, which has been named the deficit model. We argue that the effects of awareness are not as straightforward. In particular, awareness of coastal hazards might not lead to more technically accurate risk perceptions. Based on research on risk perception normalization, we explored the hypothesis that coastal risk awareness reduces coastal risk perception – in particular the perceived likelihood of occurrence of coastal hazards – through its effect on reliance on protective measures to prevent risk. Individuals can rely on protective measures, even when those are not effective, as a positive illusion to reduce risk perception. This effect might be stronger for higher probability hazards and for permanent residents of costal zones. Data from 410 individuals living in coastal zones corroborated most of our expectations. Global results demonstrated a risk normalization effect mediated by reliance on current measures. Additional analyses made clear that this effect occurred in 2 of the 5 high-probability hazards (flood and storm), and not in the low-probability hazard (tsunami). Normalization might be more likely among high-probability hazards which entail catastrophic and immediate impacts. This effect was also found among permanent residents, but not among temporary residents. Results imply that coastal risk management might benefit from (a) taking risk perception normalization effects into account, (b) tailoring strategies for permanent and temporary residents and (c) promoting a higher public engagement, which would facilitate a more adaptive and effective coping with coastal risk than the use of positive illusions.     

The meta‐governance of risk and new technologies: GM crops and mobile telephones

The stylistic shift from government to governance in the regulation of risks associated with new technologies is often portrayed as an attempt to reach a deeper consensus over public controversies and to avoid future risk management failures. Stakeholder involvement in decision‐making through more inclusive and learning styles is seen as increasingly necessary in order to correct the steering deficit of the state, to rebuild trust in state institutions, and to obviate problems caused by uncertainty and different value perspectives in risk assessments. In this paper we scrutinise this model of risk and governance in the light of recent developments in the UK, focusing in particular on the regulation of genetically modified crops and mobile telecommunications technology. We conclude that the shift to governance is best understood in terms of the accommodative response of the state to a number of new challenges: primarily posed by the changing role of the private sector; by pressures on government to engender public trust in the face of shifting social values; and by the related difficulty in taking decisions with confidence and legitimacy. There is a perceived need within government for a more deliberative approach to regulation and standard‐setting, achieved by a creative combination of managed scientific order and the establishment of deliberative cooperative institutions. However the creation of deliberative mechanisms and institutions is not an easy passage, especially if it is accelerated by uncontrollable political events. Indeed, we caution against romantic interpretations of governance as indicating a uniform popular trend towards the democratisation of state decision‐making, despite the very real opportunities for reform that it affords. Rather, we suggest that a more plausible account is provided by seeing governance as a form of adaptive management necessitated by a series of interlocking economic and social changes, and responses to successive risk management crises.     

Trust and the risk of consuming polluted water in Shanghai,China

It is commonly understood that political trust reduces public perceptions of various kinds of risk. However, this knowledge largely comes from research conducted in liberal democratic states, and so may have little explanatory power in China. Though it has an authoritarian government, China has enjoyed relatively high levels of political trust, and so is a unique case from which to advance knowledge about political trust and risk perception. We describe the relationship between risk perception and political trust in China through analysis of results from a survey of 5007 residents in Shanghai asking about people’s perceptions of the risk of consuming tap water (a key public good), and their levels of trust in the public water authorities. Findings reveal that political trust in general, and trust in the perceived fairness, honesty and capability of water authorities significantly reduces the perception of the risk of consuming tap water. This suggests that the inverse relationship between trust and risk perception applies regardless of whether a society is democratic or authoritarian.     

Communicating with the public during health crises: experts' experiences and opinions

Governments and health agencies worldwide are planning for a potential influenza pandemic. Their plans acknowledge the importance of public communication during an outbreak and include related guidelines and strategies. Emerging infectious disease (EID) communication is a new addition to the literature, drawing on health promotion communication, crisis communication and environmental/technological risk communication. This paper adds to the literature, exploring the notion of ‘effective communication during health crises' by reporting on interviews with 22 public health officials, scientists and communications professionals responsible for communicating with the public. When analyzed in the context of the risk communication literature, the interviews reveal several considerations for health risk communicators. First, given the important role that mass media will play in an EID outbreak, there is an urgent need for public health to build partnerships with journalists based on an understanding of the two parties' unique societal roles. Second, seemingly practical communications considerations – such as how certain to be about information before sharing it and whether to engage in two‐way communication with the public – have ethical dimensions that deserve attention. Third, there are unique challenges associated with communicating uncertainty, which would benefit from an exploration of the role of trust in health crisis communication.     

A meta‐level analysis of major trends in environmental health risk governance

Internationally but also within countries, large differences exist regarding how environmental health risks (EHRs) are governed. Despite these differences, at a meta‐level some general trends can be discerned that may point to a convergence of EHR governance regimes. One, EHR governance regimes are increasingly taking into account cost‐benefit considerations, sectoral goals outside the health risk domain, public concerns and stakeholder interests in early stages of decision‐making. Two, EHR objectives are increasingly integrated in other, sectoral policies such as land use planning. Three, an increased differentiation of EHR standards is observed (partly as a consequence of the former characteristic). Still little systematic empirical research has been conducted on the dynamics in EHR governance regimes and their causes, on what EHR governance regimes have produced in terms of (perceived) risk reduction and on how these results can be explained. This paper proposes a systematic framework for analysing, explaining and evaluating shifts in EHR governance regimes. The framework in turn is applied to examine and understand the shift towards more integrated and differentiated EHR governance regimes.     

Exploring dimensionality in the origins of hazard-related trust

Linked to the belief that trust affects public responses to hazard management is the question of reasons for this trust or distrust. The scanty research on this topic is poorly designed and tends not to examine the rationales of citizens themselves. A classification of potential reasons under the rubrics of 'competence,' 'care' and 'consensual values' points up the strengths, limitations, and inconsistencies in suggested explanations, and raises the question of whether trust is one- or multidimensional. This discussion aims to provide a foundation for better specification of terms and hypotheses in designing research on trust and its constituents.     

证券监管者与中介机构博弈下的腐败行为分析

在证券市场中,中介机构为特定单位、个人提供专业服务,因其在特定领域有所专长而受到公众信赖;然而,中介机构往往滥用这种信赖和专业优势,做出有损于当事人或其他人合法利益的不当行为。中介机构作为市场的参与者必然会受到监管部门的监督与管理,它的不当行为可能导致监管者的腐败,而当监管者存在腐败行为时,也会进一步诱致中介机构的非理性选择。本文将主要探讨证券监管者的腐败行为,并分析监管者的心理特征,进而构建中介机构与监管者的博弈模型。     

Financial services consumption constraints: Empirical evidence from Rwandan rural households

The concentration of banking and financial institutions in the city and/or urban in any developing countries in general, Rwanda in particular creates various constraints in availing and consuming different financial products and services by the rural households. The article examines the forms and determinants of credit constraint status of rural households of Rwanda and the impact of constraints variables on availing and using the range of financial products and services. The study concludes that 42.5 per cent of the Rwandan rural households surveyed face triple forms of credit constraints including self-imposed constraints, quantity rationing and risk rationing by formal financial institutions. However, quantity rationing is perhaps not as pervasive as self-imposed rationing and risk rationing by the lenders. The results from the empirically tested model revealed that in addition to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of households, the variables constraining demand and/or supply of financial services with reference to accessibility were significant predictors of households' credit constraints. The study informs on the needs for innovative systems, products and services that would increase access relax credit constraints and improve rural consumers' welfare. The authors conclude that establishing an enabling legal and regulatory environment, providing adequate public goods and physical infrastructure, designing capacity building and technical assistance programs and maintaining political and macroeconomic stability are perhaps major public and policy issues needed for a robust rural financial market.