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Communities and Health

how communities respond to environmental health risks and why they do


so in the way they do

Dr Salim Vohra
CIWEM Planning and Building Healthier Communities
Peter Brett Associates 26th April 2007
Why understand community perceptions of risk?

Risk Trust
Percept Gap
ion
Knowledg
Gap
e
The differences
between how Gap
public health
experts view
Values
health risks and
how the general
Gap
public views
them creates a
Democr
gap in the atic Gap
understanding
and perception of
health risks
Three major perspectives on risk perception

 Non-Rationality (Strong and Weak)


 Irrationality & Emotion
 Misperception – ignorance, distortion & mental rules of thumb

 Rationality
 Rational Actor Paradigm – economics & decision theory

 Plural Rationality
 Multiples Values - Multiple Worldviews - Multiple Perspectives
‘Fright’ Factors
So what’s happening at an individual level?

 A reflexive process by which individuals identify, understand and give


meaning to an object, activity, person or group as a threat or danger.

 This involves a process of lay risk assessment, occurring at the levels of


emotion (evoking fear, anxiety and dread), intuition (intuitive cognition
and heuristics), imagination (ability to picture future possibilities) and
reason (high-level cognition and judgement).

 Involves sensory perception and sub-conscious and conscious mental


sub-processes including instinct and habit.

 These sub-processes occur in the context of a person overall


worldview i.e. their current beliefs about their natural, social and cultural
environment, their relationship to others and their place in the world.
The Risk Community Model
technical concerns social concerns cultural concerns

Direct environmental, social Planning and siting process Power, values and identity
and economic concerns concerns concerns
traffic powerful stakeholders
not enough information
are dishonest, selfish,
air pollution more time for
imposing, and
noise consultation
disrespectful of locals
degrade/ blight area inadequate impact
smell assessment utilitarian, libertarian vs.
future operation how site chosen and egalitarian notions of
others considered justice
health
no community benefits breaching of Chaging community
leakage planning rules identify and sense of
house prices conflicts of interest space and place

low emotion CONCERN SPECTRUM high emotion

direct concerns

process concerns

symbolic concerns
How can we deal with this?
Lay people are just experts on their day off !!

Emotion, intuition, imagination and reason are closely intertwined in scientific and
lay understandings of the world

Lay risk assessment is broader and wider taking in social, cultural, economic and
political aspects

Differentials in power, differences in values & different identities are key influences
on lay and expert perceptions of risks

Understanding that we all have a different worldview which means we are


concerned about some risks more than others because of their meaning for us, our
sense of control and how we weigh up the costs and benefits

Stakeholder involvement – early and continuous is key to developing trust, reducing


a community’s sense of being at risk and creating the conditions for successful
developments
Are you coming back next Saturday?

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