Helping the Public Make Health Risk Decisions

Abstract

Making risky decisions is difficult, both for reasons of which we are aware and for those of which we are unaware (Fischhoff, 1988). Many decisions are fairly routine. It is rare to see someone transfixed, unable to decide whether to cross the street, put on a seat belt, or add some table salt. Through trial and error, we have figured out the right way to act and thereby avoid making these decisions deliberatively. When we develop these rules of behavior for ourselves, they become habits; when society provides them, they become traditions. Life becomes difficult with decisions such as those that risk analysts must make, where one must think the decision out from the beginning and get it right the first time, either because the action has irreversible consequences or because the feedback that life provides is so poor that there are no clear indicators to prompt mid-course corrections. How to respond to possible leaks from a local landfill, to the storage of World War II nerve gas in one’s county, to the health effects of shellfish or olive oil or of a spouse’s smoking—these are all tough decisions.