Working with the consumer: consumer perceptions of risk
The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, February 2000, identified a crisis with the public’s “negative responses to science associated with Government or industry”, “expressed as a lack of trust”. Factors identified as being behind this included the public’s emphasis on the purpose of science, a more questioning attitude nowadays to authority, issues of independence and openness, a need to make one’s own choices and the importance of people’s values in decisions related to science.Government and consumer organisations working together on these factors can help reduce the gap in perceptions and contribute to more balanced decision- making.
Incorporating people’s values
Government rightly makes every effort to assemble as much relevant scientific and economic data as possible when making decisions. It uses science-based or evidence-based decision making. Perhaps more emphasis could be put on social and psychological aspects. What seem at first to be scientific or economic decisions may actually raise significant social or ethical issues.
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution 21st report resulted in advice that "governments should use more direct methods to ensure that people’s values, along with knowledge and understanding, are articulated and taken into account alongside technical and scientific considerations".1 Experience shows that lay people can engage in complex science when it is relevant to them and they have time to understand the information.
Addressing consumer perceptions of risk
In its booklet ‘Winning the Risk Game’, 2003, the National Consumer Council (NCC) refers to scientific work, suggesting that emotional responses to risk may be a valid evolutionary tool which passes on the learning of previous generations about how to survive risk.2 Consumers also take account of whether innovations have benefits for them.
Academic research and the work of the Department of Health have identified the fright or outrage factors that combine to maximise consumer concern with a risk.
Risks that cause most concern are those perceived to be involuntary, inequitably distributed, inescapable through personal precautions, from a new or unfamiliar source, man-made not natural in origin, likely to cause hidden or irreversible damage, not evident till years after exposure, involving children, pregnant women or future generations and threatening a type of illness or death, such as cancer, which frightens people, striking identifiable victims and poorly understood by science.3 Consumers also take into account whether they have to take the risk all in one go, whether they could cope with any condition caused and how predictable the outcome is.4
By recognising these factors and taking them into account, Government can help the public feel that people in Government are in tune with them and that their views count. Taking account of social, ethical and economic factors alongside scientific expertise may involve social scientists, consumer and public consultation and the use of consumer/lay members on scientific advisory committees.
Horizon scanning techniques can be used to identify risk in time to consult thoroughly. Consumer and lay representatives can be used at an early stage in assessing how seriously the issue might be viewed.
Risk communication
Consumers in the NCC’s research wanted greater openness and honesty to include better communication where facts are uncertain. They suggested improvements including information communicated simply but accurately, in an unpatronising way, in their own terms, in a targeted way, free of jargon and using messengers appropriate to the target. People prefer, for example, "1 in 5" to the use of percentages. Doctors, consumer organisations and independent scientists are trusted messengers.
Problems can be forestalled by considering how risk will be communicated at the policy development stage. Also, by understanding consumer attitudes to a particular risk, as described above, government can use language the public can relate to. The NCC suggests developing communication strategies that emphasise building ongoing relationships with relevant public, key stakeholders and media targets.
1Twentyfirst report; Setting Environmental Standards; 1998.
2Antonio Damasio (Neurochemist) Looking for Spinoza: joy, sorrow
and the feeling brain, Heineman 2003. In 1983, the Royal Society drew
attention to ‘perceived’ risk in Risk assessment: a study
group report.
3Communicating about risks to public health, Department of
Health 1998: See also David Ropeik and Paul Slovic; Global Agenda; 2003.
4Winning the risk game, National Consumer Council, 2003.
Ann Davison
Consumer Engagement Project
2006
Page last modified:
May 15, 2008
Page published: December 14, 2006