Building blocks for risk communication strategies by governmental institutions

Carla Geijskes and Antoon Opperhuizen Office for Risk Assessment and research, Netherlands Food and Consumer product Safety Authority Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology, NUTRIM, Maastricht University Nowadays, almost... [ view full abstract ]

Carla Geijskes and Antoon Opperhuizen
Office for Risk Assessment and research, Netherlands Food and Consumer product Safety Authority
Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology, NUTRIM, Maastricht University

Nowadays, almost all (inter)national authorities such as ministries and governmental control bodies and agencies like the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) communicate about risks using protocols like those of EFSA (When food is cooking up a storm). EFSA describes principles and guidelines for good risk communication, which means risk communication that is independent, on time, open and transparent. However, most risk communication protocols are based on a situation of a simple uniform crisis with a relatively clear chance x effect. During crisis, the need for risk communication is urgent, has a large scale, and usually there is a shared perception of the risk by almost all stakeholders with an overall need for information. In those situations and cases, the EFSA and other crisis derived risk communication protocols may be effective and efficient.
However: most of the time crises and situations with severe incidents are rare, and governmental organisations have to deal with risks that are to some extend uncertain and unclear, of which perceptions by various stakeholders differ. In the past few years, NVWA has developed a strategy for risk communication in non-crisis and crisis situations. This strategy is based on a comprehensive evaluation of the scientific literature about risk, perceptions, trust, awareness, arousal, empowering, behaviour modelling, choice and decision. Based on this evaluation six building blocks have been identified for the risk communication strategy, which are in summary:
1 Risk = chance x effect
2 Receiver of the message: affective wins over cognitive
3 Receiver of the message: the condition for action is arousal
4 There might be a difference between perceptions of experts and layman
5 Risk communication focus on empowering and requires tailoring of information
6 Risk communication means networking

Actual risk communication about a particular issue requires choices for each of the building blocks. A variety of risk communication modus operandi for different risks are the consequence of this strategy, each of which are more effective and efficient that applying a general risk communication protocol for crisis communication.