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Figure 2.1 Risk communication goals.

Building trust means building confidence and repairing trust if lost or damaged. It also includes building alliances and partnerships with those perceived to be trustworthy. Promoting knowledge means raising awareness and understanding of risks and dangers; promoting message consistency and transparency; and informing perceptions, attitudes, practices, beliefs, decisions, intentions, and behaviors. Encouraging supportive relationships and constructive dialogue means strengthening existing relationships, building new relationships, promoting participation and involvement by all interested parties, gaining consensus or agreement, promoting mutual aid, and enabling productive conversations. Lundgren and McMakin elaborate on these goals in their discussion of care and consensus risk communication.¹²

      Of the three goals of risk communication, building trust is the most important. It is the first and most consequential step toward effective risk communication.

The functions of risk communication are multifold.¹³ First, it must communicate the probabilities and consequences of known risks to stakeholders. Second, it must communicate to stakeholders proposals and policies for preventing, avoiding, mitigating, reducing, and managing the risk. Third, it should seek consensus among stakeholders regarding a specific course of response and mitigation.

From a stakeholder perspective, Renn argues the ultimate purpose of risk communication is “to assist stakeholders and the public at large in understanding the rationale for a risk‐based decision, and to arrive at a balanced judgment that reflects the factual evidence about the matter at hand in relation to their own interests and values.”¹⁴ A key challenge in risk communication is establishing communication networks and channels where stakeholders can trust each other and work together.

      Risk communication is not public or health education. Public and health education requires risk communication skills, but the two tasks are distinct activities. “Education” implies a “teacher/student” relationship, in which the expert transfers and shares knowledge. Risk communication is primarily more of a peer‐to‐peer, two‐way communication.

      Risk communication also is not public relations. The typical focus of public relations is attempting to make people see issues the way the client or sponsor wants them seen. By comparison, the assumption of risk communication is that experts and nonexperts often have different perspectives on risk‐related issues and that these different perspectives need to be heard, acknowledged, and respected.

      At the heart of risk communication are efforts to understand and appreciate the perceptions and worldviews of others. If people perceive that their stress, concerns, worries, and fears are not being heard, acknowledged, respected, and addressed, they may lose trust in experts and risk management authorities. An effective response to these concerns is to engage in dialog, listen to concerns, and have a transparent discussion of what the scientific data about the risk show, including uncertainties. A key concept of risk communication is that the overall risk management process is seen differently from those who live with the risk than those who generate or manage the risk.

2.4 Risk Communication and Its Relationship to Risk Analysis

Risk analysis is a set of scientific methods for identifying risks, evaluating the likelihood and consequences of the risks occurring, and deciding how best to prevent, avoid, mitigate, reduce, manage, and communicate the risk.¹⁵ Modern, formal risk analysis has four components: hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication.¹⁶ The first component, hazard identification, comprises methods for identifying hazards and the conditions and events under which they potentially produce adverse consequences. The second component, risk assessment, comprises methods for organizing and evaluating information about the nature, strength of evidence, likelihood, and magnitude of adverse outcomes. The third component, risk management, comprises methods for analyzing, selecting, implementing, and evaluating actions to reduce risk. The fourth component, risk communication, comprises methods for communicating results from hazard identification, risk assessment, and risk management. As shown in Figure 2.2, risk communication interacts with all components of a risk analysis.