This book chapter discusses how risk communication should be used to improve public health. Segments of this chapter include: Risk Communication Defined, The Biology of Fear, Risk Perception Psychology, Recommendations, and Conclusions. 

Recent research indicates that social trust of those who manage a hazard is strongly correlated to judgments about the hazard's risk and benefits. The present study investigates the more specific question of “For which hazards is this?” It was postulated that when an individual lacks knowledge about a hazard, social trust of authorities managing the hazard determines perceived risks and benefits. 

The researchers developed and applied a model of consumer risk perceptions of beef food safety to better understand the underlying drivers of consumer demand for food safety. This shows how consumer demographics, country-of-residence, as well as reliance on, and trust in, alternative food safety information sources affect risk perceptions of consumers in Canada, Japan and the United States.

This paper describes the role of risk perceptions in public health including sections on quantitative and qualitative assessments.

The section on quantitative assessment treats the most obvious question about laypeople's risk perceptions: Do they understand how big risks are? It begins with representative results regarding the quality of these judgments, along with some psychological theory regarding reasons for error. It continues with issues in survey design, which focus on how design choices can affect respondents' apparent competence. Some of these meth­odological issues reveal substantive aspects of lay risk perceptions. 

The next section, qualitative assessment, shifts the focus  from summary judgments  to  qualitative  features of the events to which they are attached.  It begins with the barriers to communication created when experts and laypeople unwittingly use terms differently. The section continues  by  asking  how  people believe  that  risks "work," on the  basis of which they might generate or evaluate control options.

In addition, there is a section that provides a general process for developing communications about health risks. This process is illustrated with examples taken from several case studies. 

Risk analysis has been recognized and validated in World Trade Organization (WTO) decision processes. However, a WTO decision on asbestos containing language suggests that the precautionary principle, in the form of taking into account public perception, may be acceptable as a basis for a trade barrier. This article illustrates that food safety risk perceptions may play a key role in the future based on this WTO decision and explores the types of actions that may be advocated under the precautionary principle. This paper also provides a summary of WTO decisions and discusses the role of risk perception as part of the field of risk communication.

The researchers present two experiments investigating the role of emotions concerning technological and natural hazards and perceived risk. In the first experiment, emotions aroused by technological hazards and natural hazards were compared. The second experiment adopted real-world materials from webpages and TV. 

This resource includes an introduction of consumer perceptions of risks, barriers to communication and recommendations for effective communication such as: know your audience, practice democracy, define problems openly, deal with uncertainty more explicitly, separate values and science, build trust, etc.

This article examines the heuristic value of a model of risk communication outlined by Peter Sandman. It tests and expands the proposed constructs and seeks to establish a measurement model. Implications for the use of the model are discussed.

This article provides a basis for understanding and anticipating public responses to hazards and examines the judgments people make when they are asked to characterize and evaluate hazardous activities and technologies.

This work assumes that those who promote and regulate health and safety need to understand how people think about and respond to risk. Without such understanding, well-intended policies may be ineffective.

This research aims to improve the communication of risk information among lay people, technical experts and decision-makers.

This study was an in-depth exploration of public health inspectors' perceptions of the key food safety issues in public health, and their opinions and needs with regards to food safety information resources.

The objective of this study was to analyze the significance of socioeconomic determinants of risk perceptions concerning health and food safety. A multivariate approach was used and the results were compared with earlier bivariate results to determine which socioeconomic predictors were robust across methods.

To study the psychological determinants of the reaction to food risk messages, a survey was conducted in the Netherlands. Subjects had to imagine two situations involving chicken contamination and report how they would react behaviorally if this situation occurred. Risk perception, affective response, perceived susceptibility to foodborne disease, self-efficacy, outcome expectation, trust, experience with foodborne disease, and need for information were also assessed.