Risks Perception of Electromagnetic Fields in Taiwan: The Influence of Psychopathology and the Degree of Sensitivity to Electromagnetic Fields

Little is known about the perceived health risks of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and factors associated with risk perception in non‐Western countries. Psychological conditions and risk perception have been postulated as factors that facilitate the attribution of health complaints to environmental factors. This study investigated people's perceived risks of EMFs and other environmental sources, as well as the relationships between risk perception, psychopathology, and the degree of self‐reported sensitivity to EMFs. A total of 1,251 adults selected from a nationwide telephone interviewing system database responded to a telephone survey about the relationships between environmental sources and human health. The interview included questions assessing participants’ psychiatric conditions and the presence and degree of sensitivity to EMFs. One hundred and seventy participants were self‐identified as having sensitivity to EMFs, and 141 met the criteria for psychiatric conditions without EMF sensitivity. More than half of the survey respondents considered power lines and mobile phone base stations to affect people's health to a big extent. Higher sensitivity to EMFs, psychopathology, being female, being married, more years of education, and having a catastrophic illness had positive associations with perceived risks of EMF‐related environmental sources as well as for all environmental sources combined. We observed no moderating effect of psychopathology on the association between degree of sensitivity to EMF and risk perception. Thus, psychopathology had influence on general people's risk perception without having influence on the relationship between people's degree of sensitivity to EMF and risk perception. The plausible explanations are discussed in the text.     

Risk Assessment and Risk Governance of Liquefied Natural Gas Development in Gladstone,Australia

This article is a retrospective analysis of liquefied natural gas development (LNG) in Gladstone, Australia by using the structure of the risk governance framework developed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC). Since 2010 the port of Gladstone has undergone extensive expansion to facilitate the increasing coal export as well as the new development of three recently completed LNG facilities. Significant environmental and socio‐economic impacts and concerns have occurred as a result of these developments. The overall aim of the article, therefore, is to identify the risk governance deficits that arose and to formulate processes capable of improving similar decision‐making problems in the future. The structure of the IRGC framework is followed because it represents a broad analytical approach for considering risk assessment and risk governance in Gladstone in ways that include, but also go beyond, the risk approach of the ISO 31000:2009 standard that was employed at the time. The IRGC risk framework is argued to be a consistent and comprehensive risk governance framework that integrates scientific, economic, social, and cultural aspects and advocates the notion of inclusive risk governance through stakeholder communication and involvement. Key aspects related to risk preassessment, risk appraisal, risk tolerability and acceptability, risk management, and stakeholder communication and involvement are considered. The results indicate that the risk governance deficits include aspects related to (i) the risk matrix methodology, (ii) reflecting uncertainties, (iii) cumulative risks, (iv) the regulatory process, and (v) stakeholder communication and involvement.     

Communicating Low‐Probability High‐Consequence Risk,Uncertainty and Expert Confidence: Induced Seismicity of Deep Geothermal Energy and Shale Gas

Subsurface energy activities entail the risk of induced seismicity including low‐probability high‐consequence (LPHC) events. For designing respective risk communication, the scientific literature lacks empirical evidence of how the public reacts to different written risk communication formats about such LPHC events and to related uncertainty or expert confidence. This study presents findings from an online experiment (N = 590) that empirically tested the public's responses to risk communication about induced seismicity and to different technology frames, namely deep geothermal energy (DGE) and shale gas (between‐subject design). Three incrementally different formats of written risk communication were tested: (i) qualitative, (ii) qualitative and quantitative, and (iii) qualitative and quantitative with risk comparison. Respondents found the latter two the easiest to understand, the most exact, and liked them the most. Adding uncertainty and expert confidence statements made the risk communication less clear, less easy to understand and increased concern. Above all, the technology for which risks are communicated and its acceptance mattered strongly: respondents in the shale gas condition found the identical risk communication less trustworthy and more concerning than in the DGE conditions. They also liked the risk communication overall less. For practitioners in DGE or shale gas projects, the study shows that the public would appreciate efforts in describing LPHC risks with numbers and optionally risk comparisons. However, there seems to be a trade‐off between aiming for transparency by disclosing uncertainty and limited expert confidence, and thereby decreasing clarity and increasing concern in the view of the public.     

Analytical Paradigms: The Epistemological Distances between Scientists, Policy Makers, and the Public

The effective use of evidence and its resultant knowledge is increasingly recognized as critical in risk analysis. This, in turn, has led to a growing concern over issues of epistemology in risk communication, and, in particular, interest in how knowledge is constructed and employed by the key players in risk--scientists, policy makers, and the public. This article uses a critical theoretical approach to explore how evidence is recognized and validated, and how limits are placed on knowledge by scientists, policy makers, and the public. It brings together developments in the sociology of science, policy and policy development, public understandings of science, and risk communication and analysis to explicate the differing forms of rationality employed by each group. The work concludes that each group employs different, although equally legitimate, forms of rationality when evaluating evidence and generating knowledge around risky environment and health issues. Scientists, policy makers, and the public employ scientific, political, and social rationality, respectively. These differing forms of rationality reflect underlying epistemological distances from which can develop considerable misunderstandings and misinterpretations.     

Risk Perception,Experience, and Objective Risk: A Cross‐National Study with European Emergency Survivors

Understanding public risk perceptions and their underlying processes is important in order to learn more about the way people interpret and respond to hazardous emergency events. Direct experience with an involuntary hazard has been found to heighten the perceived risk of experiencing the same hazard and its consequences in the future, but it remains unclear if cross‐over effects are possible (i.e., experience with one hazard influencing perceived risk for other hazards also). Furthermore, the impact of objective risk and country of residence on perceived risk is not well understood. As part of the BeSeCu (Behavior, Security, and Culture) Project, a sample of 1,045 survivors of emergencies from seven European countries (i.e., Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, and Italy) was drawn. Results revealed heightened perceived risk for emergency events (i.e., domestic and public fires, earthquakes, floods, and terrorist attacks) when the event had been experienced previously plus some evidence of cross‐over effects, although these effects were not so strong. The largest country differences in perceived risk were observed for earthquakes, but this effect was significantly reduced by taking into account the objective earthquake risk. For fires, floods, terrorist attacks, and traffic accidents, only small country differences in perceived risk were found. Further studies including a larger number of countries are welcomed.     

Experimental Evidence Against the Paradigm of Mortality Risk Aversion

This article deals with the question of how societal impacts of fatal accidents can be integrated into the management of natural or man‐made hazards. Today, many governmental agencies give additional weight to the number of potential fatalities in their risk assessments to reflect society's aversion to large accidents. Although mortality risk aversion has been proposed in numerous risk management guidelines, there has been no evidence that lay people want public decisionmakers to overweight infrequent accidents of large societal consequences against more frequent ones of smaller societal consequences. Furthermore, it is not known whether public decisionmakers actually do such overweighting when they decide upon the mitigation of natural or technical hazards. In this article, we report on two experimental tasks that required participants to evaluate negative prospects involving 1–100 potential fatalities. Our results show that neither lay people nor hazard experts exhibit risk‐averse behavior in decisions on mortality risks.     

The Risk Screening for Indoor Air Pollution Chemicals in Japan

In recent years, public health problems caused by indoor air pollution have been drawing strong public concern in Japan. After conducting extensive exposure assessment, governmental agencies have taken effective measures to solve the problem; for instance, "Guidelines for indoor air quality (IAQ)" of 13 chemicals, for example, formaldehyde, toluene, and xylene, has been established. Thousands of chemicals have been identified in the indoor environment. Priority rating of those chemicals, however, was not based on the health risk level. We developed a risk-screening scheme for indoor air pollution chemicals and analyzed the current status of the risk levels of those chemicals in Japan. We researched scientific knowledge of health hazards and exposure surveys of indoor air pollution chemicals in Japan, and classified those chemicals based on the health risk level estimated from the scheme. The risk levels of 93 chemicals were characterized and six chemicals (formaldehyde, acrolein, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, benzene, tetrachloroethylene, and benzo(a)pyrene) were classified in the highest risk category.     

城市突发公共卫生事件的循证治理机制研究

城市突发公共卫生事件的治理是城市公共管理、城市治理体系和治理能力现代化建设的重要工作之一。在分析我国现有突发公共卫生事件治理体系及存在问题的基础上,构建了循证治理的理论框架,并从循证治理的证据、公共价值和领导力三要素出发,总结突发公共卫生事件的循证治理过程,包括循证防控期、循证预警期、循证控制期和事后循证重建期四个过程,围绕循证治理过程中证据的生产、传播和应用,总结突发公共卫生事件的循证治理机制。以2019年新型冠状病毒肺炎(COVID-19)疫情的早期治理过程为案例,对疫情防控过程中证据的生产、传播和使用过程进行实证研究。研究结果表明,COVID-19疫情的早期证据质量被高估,决策者的公共价值导向和决策者的领导力还有待提升。最后从构建循证治理的证据平台角度出发,提出优化突发公共卫生事件循证治理的若干政策建议。     

Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving,Domain‐Specific Risk Taking,and Personality

Mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD) is an increasingly common form of distracted driving. Given its widespread prevalence, it is important for researchers to identify factors that may predict who is more likely to engage in this risky behavior. The current study investigates associations between MPUWD risk behaviors, domain‐specific risk perceptions, and broad personality dimensions. An Italian community sample (n = 804) completed a survey regarding MPUWD risk perceptions and engagement in MPUWD, in addition to the HEXACO‐PI‐R, a broad six‐factor personality inventory (honesty‐humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience), and the DOSPERT, a six‐factor domain‐specific self‐report risk‐taking measure (health/safety, recreational, social, ethical, gambling, and investment). With respect to domain‐specific risk taking, greater frequency of SMS use while driving most strongly was associated with greater risk taking for the health/safety, gambling, and ethical risk domains. Further, greater honesty‐humility and conscientiousness, two traits related to cognitive control and risk behaviors, and to a lesser extent openness to experience, were associated with less frequent MPUWD, and positively associated with MPUWD risk perceptions. With growing public safety concern surrounding MPUWD, understanding associated personality factors is not only important for identifying psychological mechanisms underlying risk behavior, but also for more effective prevention and intervention programs.     

“These Power Lines Make Me Ill”: A Typology of Residents’ Health Responses to a New High‐Voltage Power Line

Little attention has been devoted to the potential diversity in residents’ health responses when exposed to an uncertain environmental health risk. The present study explores whether subgroups of residents respond differently to a new high‐voltage power line (HVPL) being put into operation. We used a quasi‐experimental prospective field study design with two pretests during the construction of a new HVPL, and two posttests after it was put into operation. Residents living nearby (0–300 m, n = 229) filled out questionnaires about their health and their perception of the environment. We applied latent class growth models to investigate heterogeneity in the belief that health complaints were caused by a power line. Classes were compared on a wide range of variables relating to negative‐oriented personality traits, perceived physical and mental health, and perceptions of the environment. We identified five distinct classes of residents, of which the largest (49%) could be described as emotionally stable and healthy with weak responses to the introduction of a new power line. A considerable minority (9%) responded more strongly to the new line being activated. Residents in this class had heard more about the health effects of power lines beforehand, were more aware of the activation of the new line, and reported a decrease in perceived health afterwards. Based on our findings we can conclude that there is a considerable heterogeneity in health responses to a new HVPL. Health risk perceptions appear to play an important role in this typology, which has implications for risk management.     

The Effects of Precautionary Messages about Electromagnetic Fields from Mobile Phones and Base Stations Revisited: The Role of Recipient Characteristics

Precautionary messages have been shown to increase recipients’ threat perceptions about radio‐frequency electromagnetic fields (RF‐EMFs) emitted by mobile phones and mobile phone base stations. The current study explored the interplay of variables on the side of message recipients with this effect. The individual difference variables of interest were gender, trait anxiety, personal need for structure, and personal fear of invalidity. Furthermore, the study determined whether the increased threat perception is accompanied by emotional distress. A total of 298 university students answered a survey after reading either a basic text about RF‐EMFs or a text including precautionary information. Linear multiple regression with interactions analyses showed that the effect of precautionary messages differed for people with different levels of trait anxiety. How trait anxiety was related to the effect of precautionary messages in turn depended on participants’ gender. Personal need for structure and personal fear of invalidity were mostly unrelated to the effect of precautionary messages. Regarding participants’ emotional distress, we found no difference in state anxiety scores between those participants who received precautionary information and those who did not. The findings show that the effects of precautionary messages on threat perception depend on individual difference variables such as recipients’ trait anxiety and gender. Also, the fact that precautionary communication did not result in heightened state anxiety challenges the assumption that precautionary messages induce fear or anxiety.     

When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.     

Anticipating or Accommodating to Public Concern? Risk Amplification and the Politics of Precaution Reexamined

Regulatory use of the precautionary principle (PP) tends to be broadly characterized either as a responsible approach for safeguarding against health and environmental risks in the face of scientific uncertainties, or as “state mismanagement” driven by undue political bias and public anxiety. However, the “anticipatory” basis upon which governments variably draw a political warrant for adopting precautionary measures often remains ambiguous. Particularly, questions arise concerning whether the PP is employed preemptively by political elites from the “top down,” or follows from more conventional democratic pressures exerted by citizens and other stakeholders from the “bottom up.” This article elucidates the role and impact of citizen involvement in the precautionary politics shaping policy discourse surrounding the U.K. government's “precautionary approach” to mobile telecommunications technology and health. A case study is presented that critically reexamines the basis upon which U.K. government action has been portrayed as an instance of anticipatory policy making. Findings demonstrate that the use of the PP should not be interpreted in the preemptive terms communicated by U.K. government officials alone, but also in relation to the wider social context of risk amplification and images of public concern formed adaptively in antagonistic precautionary discourse between citizens, politicians, industry, and the media, which surrounded cycles of government policy making. The article discusses the sociocultural conditions and political dynamics underpinning public influence on government anticipation and responsiveness exemplified in this case, and concludes with research and policy implications for how society subsequently comes to terms with the emergence and precautionary governance of new technologies under conflict.     

The Contrast Between Risk Assessment and Rules of Evidence in the Context of International Trade Disputes: Can the U.S. Experience Inform the Process?

Risk assessment provides a formalized process to evaluate human, animal, and ecological responses associated with exposure to environmental agents. The purpose of risk assessment is to answer two related questions.

• ? How likely is an (adverse) event to occur?
• ? If it does, how severe will the impact be?

In the United States, the science of risk assessment has evolved out of the necessity to make public health decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty. Its basic propositions have been established over the past three decades and its applications have impacted virtually every aspect of public health and environmental protection in many countries, including the United States. More recently, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) dispute‐settlement process has provided additional incentive for the reliance on risk assessments internationally through the requirement that member countries be able to provide scientific justification, based on a risk assessment, for public health and environmental regulatory measures that are challenged. The purpose of this article is to review the history of risk assessment in the United States, emphasizing the development of both its scientific and policy aspects, as one example of the development of institutional capacity for risk assessment. This article discusses the importance of the social, political, and economic contexts of risk assessment and risk management in shaping the approaches taken while highlighting the reality that the analytic or risk assessment part of the decision‐making process, in the absence of scientific data, can be completed only by inserting inferences, or policy judgments, which may differ among countries. This article recognizes these differences, and the consequent difference between risk assessment that incorporates public health protective assumptions and the rules of evidence that seek to answer questions of causality, and discusses implications for the WTO dispute‐settlement process. It further explores the value of country‐specific risk assessment guidelines to facilitate consistency within a country along with the appropriateness and feasibility of international risk assessment guidelines.     

Communicating with the Public About Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attacks: Results from a Survey Experiment on Factors Influencing Intention to “Run,Hide, Tell” in the United Kingdom and Denmark

Effective risk communication is an integral part of responding to terrorism, but until recently, there has been very little pre‐event communication in a European context to provide advice to the public on how to protect themselves during an attack. Following terrorist attacks involving mass shootings in Paris, France, in November 2015, the U.K. National Police Chiefs’ Council released a Stay Safe film and leaflet that advises the public to “run,” “hide,” and “tell” in the event of a firearms or weapons attack. However, other countries, including Denmark, do not provide preparedness information of this kind, in large part because of concern about scaring the public. In this survey experiment, 3,003 U.K. and Danish participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no information, a leaflet intervention, and a film intervention to examine the impact of “Run, Hide, Tell” advice on perceptions about terrorism, the security services, and intended responses to a hypothetical terrorist firearms attack. Results demonstrate important benefits of pre‐event communication in relation to enhancing trust, encouraging protective health behaviors, and discouraging potentially dangerous actions. However, these findings also suggest that future communications should address perceived response costs and target specific problem behaviors. Cross‐national similarities in response suggest this advice is suitable for adaptation in other countries.     

Health‐care Nonprofits: Enhancing Governance and Public Trust

Nonprofits are a major part of the U.S. economy and they are not immune from corporate malfeasance controversies. Even Congress has expressed concern about the crisis in nonprofit governance. The nonprofit response to Congress has been a historic initiative recognizing critical challenges to nonprofit governance. In contrast to their for‐profit counterparts, nonprofits are committed to missions serving the public benefit and not to shareholder profits. Accordingly, their missions and financial resources are intrinsic to their very existence, which is built upon the public trust. That trust is rooted in fiduciary responsibility and reflected in best practices. This article traces the history of the nonprofit public trust and fiduciary standards and examines principles of Sarbanes–Oxley and other best practices as they apply to nonprofits. The authors sampled 80 health‐care nonprofit corporation web sites from eight asset classes to determine compliance with Sarbanes–Oxley and identification of fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. Among the very largest health‐care nonprofits, many comply with Sarbanes–Oxley and identify fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. However, there are substantial deficiencies in such compliance and identification among all remaining seven asset classes ranging from 99.9 million to less than 100,000. The results appear to corroborate the urgent necessity for reform articulated by the Congress and the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit governance has entered a new era where best practices must be implemented to sustain the public trust.     

What to Do at Low Doses: A Bounding Approach for Economic Analysis

To quantify the health benefits of environmental policies, economists generally require estimates of the reduced probability of illness or death. For policies that reduce exposure to carcinogenic substances, these estimates traditionally have been obtained through the linear extrapolation of experimental dose-response data to low-exposure scenarios as described in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (1986). In response to evolving scientific knowledge, EPA proposed revisions to the guidelines in 1996. Under the proposed revisions, dose-response relationships would not be estimated for carcinogens thought to exhibit nonlinear modes of action. Such a change in cancer-risk assessment methods and outputs will likely have serious consequences for how benefit-cost analyses of policies aimed at reducing cancer risks are conducted. Any tendency for reduced quantification of effects in environmental risk assessments, such as those contemplated in the revisions to EPA's cancer-risk assessment guidelines, impedes the ability of economic analysts to respond to increasing calls for benefit-cost analysis. This article examines the implications for benefit-cost analysis of carcinogenic exposures of the proposed changes to the 1986 Guidelines and proposes an approach for bounding dose-response relationships when no biologically based models are available. In spite of the more limited quantitative information provided in a carcinogen risk assessment under the proposed revisions to the guidelines, we argue that reasonable bounds on dose-response relationships can be estimated for low-level exposures to nonlinear carcinogens. This approach yields estimates of reduced illness for use in a benefit-cost analysis while incorporating evidence of nonlinearities in the dose-response relationship. As an illustration, the bounding approach is applied to the case of chloroform exposure.     

Behavioral Economics and Regulatory Analysis

Behavioral economics has captured the interest of scholars and the general public by demonstrating ways in which individuals make decisions that appear irrational. While increasing attention is being focused on the implications of this research for the design of risk‐reducing policies, less attention has been paid to how it affects the economic valuation of policy consequences. This article considers the latter issue, reviewing the behavioral economics literature and discussing its implications for the conduct of benefit‐cost analysis, particularly in the context of environmental, health, and safety regulations. We explore three concerns: using estimates of willingness to pay or willingness to accept compensation for valuation, considering the psychological aspects of risk when valuing mortality‐risk reductions, and discounting future consequences. In each case, we take the perspective that analysts should avoid making judgments about whether values are “rational” or “irrational.” Instead, they should make every effort to rely on well‐designed studies, using ranges, sensitivity analysis, or probabilistic modeling to reflect uncertainty. More generally, behavioral research has led some to argue for a more paternalistic approach to policy analysis. We argue instead for continued focus on describing the preferences of those affected, while working to ensure that these preferences are based on knowledge and careful reflection.     

Integrated Uncertainty Analysis for Ambient Pollutant Health Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Ozone Mortality Risk

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses health risk assessment to help inform its decisions in setting national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). EPA's standard approach is to make epidemiologically‐based risk estimates based on a single statistical model selected from the scientific literature, called the “core” model. The uncertainty presented for “core” risk estimates reflects only the statistical uncertainty associated with that one model's concentration‐response function parameter estimate(s). However, epidemiologically‐based risk estimates are also subject to “model uncertainty,” which is a lack of knowledge about which of many plausible model specifications and data sets best reflects the true relationship between health and ambient pollutant concentrations. In 2002, a National Academies of Sciences (NAS) committee recommended that model uncertainty be integrated into EPA's standard risk analysis approach. This article discusses how model uncertainty can be taken into account with an integrated uncertainty analysis (IUA) of health risk estimates. It provides an illustrative numerical example based on risk of premature death from respiratory mortality due to long‐term exposures to ambient ozone, which is a health risk considered in the 2015 ozone NAAQS decision. This example demonstrates that use of IUA to quantitatively incorporate key model uncertainties into risk estimates produces a substantially altered understanding of the potential public health gain of a NAAQS policy decision, and that IUA can also produce more helpful insights to guide that decision, such as evidence of decreasing incremental health gains from progressive tightening of a NAAQS.