Exploring risk: current issues in health risk perception in Australia

Traditional approaches to risk assessment and risk management often fail to adequately resolve risk issues. This thesis used empirical examples to raise, describe, explore and discuss contemporary questions in health risk perception in Australia. The thesis explored the utility of the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) to address aspects of scientific, community and media responses to an unprecedented series of claims of cancer clusters located within workplaces over a two year period. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of news media texts and other relevant contextual material showed that: • Risk-related consequences occur because people respond to their perceptions of a risk not the risk itself, regardless of how it is characterised. • Even in the absence of a scientifically identifiable hazard, negative imagery and stigma associated with a product, institution or place are powerful amplifiers of perceived risk. • News media are important knowledge brokers. News media developed a "cancer cluster" narrative that incorporated both expert and lay views of risk. • The SARF has predictive power where the risk phenomenon is studied over time within a cultural framework, incorporates the differing "risk stories" of the many actors, and issues of context are recognised in the study deSign. • The mental models of risk evident within the responses and impacts of "nonrisk" stories may reveal more about the capacity of SARF to describe how mental models of risk determine the response and the impacts. • The regulatory process is an important interface between science and society where the recognition of the perceived risks and benefits (and safety concerns) of all stakeholders can contribute to public understanding and acceptance of new technologies. Additional findings from analyses of Australian risk perception survey datasets showed that: • The effects of trust and affect on acceptability of nanotechnology risks are partially mediated by perceived risks and benefits. • Perceptions of environmental health risks are influenced by beliefs about cancer and chemicals, trust in regulation and personal agency. Insights from the "trust gap" experiences of other new technologies, the application of the active form of the precautionary principle, and the creation of "nanofutures" that meet both community and industry values through effective public engagement are effective strategies for influencing perceived risk in the introduction of nanotechnology. Understanding perceptions of risk is integral to an understanding of risk and to the framing of risk management strategies. There is no single model to define, understand and study risk. Trust, values and beliefs, historical narratives of risk, place attachment and a range of forms of knowledge are important in the development of and public expression of perceptions of risk. Risk cannot therefore be studied independently of the social context in which it is embedded and experienced. Linking knowledge and methods across disciplinary borders can bring a broader perspective to scientific inquiry. The disciplines of epidemiology and public health will benefit from expanding their definition of risk. This will require an expansion of the traditional repertoire of methods and tools for defining, studying, measuring, managing and communicating risk.