This position paper highlights the dire impacts of environmental and household air pollution, which were responsible for 6.7 million deaths globally in 2019. These deaths occurred predominantly in low- and middle-income countries, with Afghanistan reporting the highest age-adjusted mortality rate. The situation worsens during large-scale disasters like earthquakes, which release more pollutants into the air, exacerbating health risks and leading to severe conditions such as pulmonary diseases. Because political factors may hinder foreign NGOs and similar organizations from providing direct support, the frequent occurrence of earthquakes in Afghanistan underscores the critical need for emergency response training for local residents. Consequently, it is essential to provide ERT training, including the proper use of protective equipment, to local populations as well as disseminating risk communication through online technologies and other appropriate means.

Disasters can cause great physical and financial damage to pet owners in developing countries. These effects lead to severe psychological side effects on individuals and families. With the tendency of families to keep pets in these countries, many challenges have arisen regarding how to manage these pets before, during, and after disasters. Therefore, mitigation, prevention, and preparedness measures for these families should be prioritized in the disaster management cycle to minimize psychological effects such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after losing pets.

Community engagement is important for reaching populations at risk for health inequities in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A community-engaged risk communication intervention implemented by a community-engaged research partnership in Southeast Minnesota to address COVID-19 prevention, testing, and socioeconomic impacts has demonstrated high acceptability, feasibility, perceived efficacy, and sustainability. In this study, we describe the adaptation of the intervention by a community-academic partnership with rural African American populations in three Mississippi counties with high COVID-19 disparities. Intervention reach was assessed by the number of messages delivered by Communication Leaders to members of their social networks. Perceived scalability of the intervention was assessed by the Intervention Scalability Assessment Tool. Bidirectional communication between Communication Leaders and community members within their social networks was used by the partnership to refine messages, meet resource needs, and advise statewide decision-makers. In the first 3 months, more than 8482 individuals were reached in the three counties. The intervention was deemed to be highly scalable by partnership members. Adaptation of a community-engaged pandemic CERC intervention is feasible and scalable, and it has the potential to reduce COVID-19 inequities across heterogeneous populations. This approach may be incorporated into current and future pandemic preparedness policies for community engagement.

We conducted three studies to investigate how well pictographs communicate medical screening information to persons with higher and lower numeracy skills. In Study 1, we conducted a 2 (probability level: higher vs. lower) × 2 (reference information: yes vs. no) × 2 (subjective numeracy: higher vs. lower) between-subjects design. Persons with higher numeracy skills were influenced by probability level but not by reference information. Persons with lower numeracy tended to differentiate between a higher and a lower probability when there was no reference information. Study 2 consisted of interviews about the mental processing of pictographs. Higher numeracy was associated with counting the icons and relying on numbers depicted in the graph. Study 3 was an experiment with the same design as in Study 1, but, rather than using reference information, we varied the sequence of task type (counting first vs. non-counting first) to explore the role of the focus on numerical information. Persons with lower numeracy differentiated between higher and lower risk only when they were in the non-counting first condition. Task sequence did not influence the risk perceptions of persons with higher numeracy. In sum, our results suggest that pictographs may be useful for persons with higher and lower numeracy. However, these groups seem to process the graph differently. Persons with higher numeracy rely more on the numerical information depicted in the graph, whereas persons with lower numeracy seem to be confused when they are guided towards these numbers.

Imagine that you have just received a colon cancer diagnosis and need to choosebetween two different surgical treatments. One surgery, the "complicatedsurgery," has a lower mortality rate (16% vs. 20%) but compared to the othersurgery, the "uncomplicated surgery," also carries an additional 1% risk of eachof four serious complications: colostomy, chronic diarrhea, wound infection, oran intermittent bowel obstruction. The complicated surgery dominates theuncomplicated surgery as long as life with complications is preferred overdeath.

In our first survey, 51% of a sample (recruited from the cafeteria of auniversity medical center) selected the dominated alternative, the uncomplicatedsurgery, justifying this choice by saying that the death risks for the twosurgeries were essentially the same and that the uncomplicated surgery avoidedthe risk of complications. In follow-up surveys, preference for theuncomplicated surgery remained relatively consistent (39%-51%) despite (a)presenting the risks in frequencies rather than percents, (b) grouping the 4complications into a single category, or (c) giving the uncomplicated surgery asmall chance of complications as well. Even when a pre-decision "focusingexercise" required people to state directly their preferences between life witheach complication versus death, 49% still chose the uncomplicated surgery.

People’s fear of complications leads them to ignore important differencesbetween treatments. This tendency appears remarkably resistant to debiasingapproaches and likely leads patients to make healthcare decisions that areinconsistent with their own preferences.

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of individual perceptions of tail risks. It focuses not only on the probability, as has been studied by Nicholas Barberis and others, but also on anticipation of damage. We examine how those perceptions relate to experts’ estimates and publicly available risk information. Behavioural factors—availability bias, threshold models of choice, worry and trust—are found to have a significant impact on risk perceptions. The probability of tail events is overestimated, which is consistent with probability weighting in prospect theory. Potential damage is underestimated, one reason why individuals do not invest in protective measures.

The influence of numeracy on information processing of two risk communication formats (percentage and pictograph) was examined using an eye tracker. A sample from the general population (N = 159) was used. In intuitive and deliberative decision conditions, the participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario presenting a test result. The participants indicated their feelings and their perceived risk, evoked by a 17% risk level. In the intuitive decision condition, a significant correlation (r = .30) between numeracy and the order of information processing was found: the higher the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the percentage, and the lower the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the pictograph. This intuitive, initial focus on a format prevailed over the first half of the intuitive decision-making process. In the deliberative decision condition, the correlation between numeracy and order of information processing was not significant. In both decision conditions, high and low numerates processed pictograph and percentage formats with similar depths and derived similar meanings from them in terms of feelings and perceived risk. In both conditions numeracy had no effects on the degree of attention on the percentage or the pictograph (number of fixations on formats and transitions between them). The results suggest that pictographs attract low numerates’ attention, and percentages attract high numerates’ attention in the first, intuitive, phase of numeric information processing. Pictographs thus ensure low numerates’ further elaboration on numeric risk information, which is an important precondition of risk understanding and decision making.

Many individuals experience problems understanding and preparing forlow-probability/high-impact risk, like natural disasters and pandemics –unless they experience these events, yet then it is often too late to avoiddamages. Individuals with recent disaster risk experience are, on average,better prepared. This seems to be mediated through emotions and a betterunderstanding of the consequences. In this study, we use immersive virtualreality (VR) technology to examine whether a simulated disaster can stimulatepeople to invest in risk reducing measures in the context of flooding, which isone of the deadliest and most damaging natural disasters in the world. Weinvestigate the possibility to boost risk perception, coping appraisal, negativeemotions and damage-reducing behavior through a simulated flooding experience.We find that participants who experienced the virtual flood invest significantlymore in the flood risk investment game than those in the control group. Theinvestments in the VR treatment seem to decrease after four weeks but notsignificantly so.

In two experiments, participants decided on each of several trials whether or notto take a risk. If they chose to take the risk, they had a relatively highprobability (from 75% to 95%) of winning a small number of points and arelatively low probability (5% to 25%) of losing a large number of points. Theloss amounts varied so that the expected value of taking the risk was positiveon some trials, zero on others, and negative on the rest. The main independentvariable was whether the probability of losing was communicated using numericalpercentages or icon arrays. Both experiments included random icon arrays, inwhich the icons representing losses were randomly distributed throughout thearray. Experiment 2 also included grouped icon arrays, in which the iconsrepresenting losses were grouped at the bottom of the array. Neither type oficon array led to better performance in the task. However, the random iconarrays led to less risk taking than the numerical percentages or the groupedicon arrays, especially at the higher loss probabilities. In a third experiment,participants made direct judgments of the percentages and probabilitiesrepresented by the icon arrays from Experiment 2. The results supported the ideathat random arrays lead to less risk taking because they are perceived torepresent greater loss probabilities. These results have several implicationsfor the study of icon arrays and their use in risk communication.

Despite vigorous research on risk communication, little is known about the social forces that drive these choices. Erev, Wallsten, & Neal (1991) showed that forecasters learn to select verbal or numerical probability estimates as a function of which mode yields on average the larger group payoffs. We extend the result by investigating the effect of group size on the speed with which forecasters converge on the better communication mode. On the basis of social facilitation theory we hypothesized that small groups induce less arousal and anxiety among their members than do large groups when performing new tasks, and therefore that forecasters in small groups will learn the better communication mode more quickly. This result obtained in Experiment 1, which compared groups of size 3 to groups of size 5 or 6. To test whether social loafing rather than social facilitation was mediating the effects, Experiment 2 compared social to personal feedback holding group size constant at 3 members. Learning was faster in the personal feedback condition, suggesting that social facilitation rather than loafing underlay the results.

Physicians expect a treatment to be more effective when its clinical outcomes aredescribed as relative rather than as absolute risk reductions. We examinedwhether effects of presentation method (relative vs. absolute risk reduction)remain when physicians are provided the baseline risk information, a vital pieceof statistical information omitted in previous studies. Using a between-subjectsdesign, ninety five physicians were presented the risk reduction associated witha fictitious treatment for hypertension either as an absolute risk reduction oras a relative risk reduction, with or without including baseline riskinformation. Physicians reported that the treatment would be more effective andthat they would be more willing to prescribe it when its risk reduction waspresented to them in relative rather than in absolute terms. The relative riskreduction was perceived as more effective than absolute risk reduction even whenthe baseline risk information was explicitly reported. We recommend thatinformation about absolute risk reduction be made available to physicians in thereporting of clinical outcomes. Moreover, health professionals should becognizant of the potential biasing effects of risk information presented inrelative risk terms.

People often make predictions about the future based on trends they have observed in the past. Revised probabilistic forecasts can be perceived by the public as indicative of such a trend. In five studies, we describe experts who make probabilistic forecasts of various natural events (effects of climate changes, landslide and earthquake risks) at two points in time. Prognoses that have been upgraded or downgraded from T 1 to T 2 were in all studies expected to be updated further, in the same direction, later on (at T 3). Thus, two prognoses were in these studies enough to define a trend, forming the basis for future projections. This “trend effect” implies that non-experts interpret recent forecast in light of what the expert said in the past, and think, for instance, that a “moderate” landslide risk will cause more worry if it has previously been low than if it has been high. By transcending the experts’ most recent forecasts the receivers are far from conservative, and appear to know more about the experts’ next prognoses than the experts themselves.

According to Siegrist, Earle and Gutscher’s (2003) model of risk communication, the effect of advice about risk on an agent’s behavior depends on the agent’s trust in the competence of the advisor and on their trust in the motives of the advisor. Trust in competence depends on how good the advice received from the source has been in the past. Trust in motives depends on how similar the agent assesses the advisor’s values to be to their own. We show that past quality of advice and degree of similarity between advisors’ and judges’ values have separate (non-interacting) effects on two types of agent behavior: the degree of trust expressed in a source (stated trust) and the weight given to the source’s advice (revealed trust). These findings support Siegrist et al.’s model. We also found that revealed trust was affected more than stated trust by differences in advisor quality. It is not clear how this finding should be accommodated within Siegrist et al.’s (2003) model.