Risk communication in the light of different risk perspectives

Abstract

A risk perspective contains the fundamental building blocks forming the understanding of risk, and can be based on scientific pillars and/or more informal conceptions and judgments of risk (risk perceptions). In this paper we discuss how the risk perspectives of various actors influence risk communication in relation to processes concerned with the assessment and management of risk. Based on a set of five defined risk perspectives, we investigate how the risk perspective influences the risk communication and how and to what extent differences in risk perspectives can cause barriers and problems in the communication. An important aim of the paper is to show how awareness about the different risk perspectives can assist in solving these problems. The paper concludes that the main barriers to good risk communication are not the lay people's poor understanding of the risks and the risk assessment tools, but the risk analysts who have not done their job in a professional way: established some scientific pillars for their work.