n risk communication in our lives – mostly as the perceiving public. But what does it mean to be on the other side - the messenger of potentially negative news to public who have a stereotyped reputation of developing paranoia on a pin prick?
Building on Chapter 14-6 from LaGrega et al, I researched some more studies available on the internet on environmental risk communication. Google took me straight to the website of Center for Risk Communication in NY, headed by Dr. Vincent Cavello. The website presented a featured article on “The Determinants of Trust and Credibility in Environmental risk Communication – An Empirical Study” by Richard G. Peters, DrPH, Vincent T. Covello, PhD, David B. McCallum, PhD that was published in Risk Analysis. 1997; 17(1):43-54. 
But first, I found an interesting section on risk communication myths which I decided to spread across my blog for an interesting read. (Source: Risk Communication Guidelines for Public Officials, 2002 published by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, MD). Additional myths can be found on http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/risk/riskprimer/vision.html#%20myths
The essence Dr. Covello et. al’s paper is “What factors determine trust and credibility?”. Despite many theories floating around, their study appears to be the first of its kind that conducted an empirical analysis to validate the hypothesized factors. Visit http://www.centerforriskcommunication.com/publications.htm if you want to look at the complete paper. Interestingly, the key finding from the study was: “It appears that defying a negative stereotype is key to improving perceptions of trust and credibility”
According to the paper, a testament to the above finding was the response of Johnson and Johnson during their 1982 tylenol tampering case. Johnson and Johnson defied the corporate stereotype, responding aggressively to protect the public health and safety by removing all its Tylenol product from the retail shelves.
Another interesting source that unanimously appears in risk communication is the website of Peter Sandman. Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter M. Sandman is one of the preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants in the United States today, and has also worked extensively in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. His unique and effective approach to managing risk controversies has made him much in demand for other sorts of reputation management as well (Source: http://www.psandman.com/bio.htm).
There a are a lot of interesting resources and links to effective approaches to risk communication on his website. Most notably, th
ere is a downloadable training video by Dr. Sandman himself on “Quantitative Risk Communication: Explaining the Data”. It’s a whopping 87 minutes long. The video link below contains the same video but you can watch streaming rather than downloading it. Happy watching :)
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