Introduction and lessons learned from discipline experts, practitioners, and risk communication experts about risk communication during crises and chronic exposures

Risk communication is an ever-evolving field in which academics, governmental officials, health professionals, industrialists, scientists, activists, and others are faced with a public demanding answers or involvement in research and decisions. Communication is a multi-way street, a collaborative process in which information and data can be generated and shared by any one individual, group, or the media, and different groups of people have their own “truths” or models informed by values. The objectives of this special issue are to provide a multi-disciplinary approach that addresses risk communication strategies and information needed to respond clearly and appropriately to chemical, radiological, biological, technological, and natural disasters, provide best practices, and address some recent risk communication research.

The volume has three parts: (1) papers that describe risk communication from the viewpoint of communicators, the viewpoint from stakeholders, and the basic technical information needed by risk communicators about human and ecological health, and health and safety, (2) essays that highlight practitioners’ experiences communicating with government, public, private sector, and the media, and (3) articles by experts on specific and timely risk communication issues.

A key theme that emerged from our Part 2 essays, that is, the interviews with regulators, environmental health professionals, risk assessors, environmental scientists, conservationists, environmental lawyers, and climate change scientists, was the need to base effective risk communication on up-to-date risk-science-based information because new information, models, case studies, and degradation of human structures and ecosystems (as well as global warming) have been evolving. Our interviewees agreed that the most recent credible science was essential, along with developing trust, addressing the needs of the audiences, and collaborating among Federal and Tribal governmental agencies, nongovernmental groups, and all interested and affected parties. Individual insights varied considerably including designing a coordinated message and consistent science information, developing long-term friendships to build trust, respecting Tribal and indigenous knowledge and culture, communicating risk to the converted so they can spread science-based information to others. The importance of consulting discipline-based scientists, as well as professionals in the field of risk communication and media relations, is a consistent theme as was the need to be aware of social and environmental justice issues. The papers from the risk communication professionals address emerging issues, including sensemaking in risk communication, using theories about behavioral change and trust-building to foster more strategic risk communication, fake news and public perceptions toward nuclear energy, use of social norms messages to motivate community members to action during climate change disasters, and risk-benefit perceptions for solutions to environmental problems around ports. Each provides theoretical and practical insights for improving risk communication.

1 |. INTRODUCTION

The world is increasingly facing crisis situations in which trained risk communicators, scientists, practitioners, and agency officials, not formally trained in risk communication, are thrust into positions where they must communicate risk to different types of stakeholders. Often communicators have little or no time to prepare for events. Nuclear weapons, nuclear wastes, and energy are some of the most important environmental issues of our time. While nuclear weapons have not been used in war since 1945, many people associate nuclear technology with a mushroom cloud. In 1994, 8 years after Chernobyl, for example, Goleman wrote an article in the New York Times with the title “Hidden Rules Often Distort Ideas of Risk.” He explained factors that influence risk perception. The article compared the risk perceptions of a group of scientists with members of the League of Women Voters across 30 activities provided by Paul Slovic’s Decision Research Group. Both groups ranked motor vehicles, handguns, smoking, motorcycles, and pesticides among the top 10 risks, and vaccinations, home appliances, prescription antibiotics, and power mowers were among the lowest perceived risks. The biggest difference in ranks by far was nuclear power, ranking number 20 of 30 among the experts and number one among the League of Women Voters group. Nuclear materials in power plants, bombs and in waste sites have attracted a great deal of attention, especially when there is a major release or possible release. Today, vaccinations and epidemics are prominent concerns. Whatever the current chronic or acute crises, risk communicators face the public and other stakeholders.

Even with preparation, appropriate “risk communication” is a difficult task. Furthermore, an environmental problem or exposure can be chronic until there is some catalyst that thrusts it into a crisis situation. For example, lead in drinking water pipes has been a problem in many cities, but it took the egregious situation in Flint, Michigan (2017) to garner enormous public and governmental attention. Similarly, there are continuous discharges of oil into the Gulf of Mexico because of natural seeps and chronic small level oil spills. However, oil spill hazards became a major problem when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred (2010). With each new crisis, risk, or hazard facing our communities, our knowledge base is continually shifting, and information from different experts and agencies can differ and sometimes conflict. The disciplines, training, expertise, and perspectives of both the communicators and the “listeners” differ. The public rarely gets a unified and consistent response about risk assessment and management.

Our approach to the immense breadth of the discipline and practice of risk communication was to bring together academics, heads of government and non-profit organizations, and practitioners to discuss risk communication, focusing on their experiences and their research. The objectives of this special issue on risk communication in crisis situations were to provide:

1. a multi-disciplinary approach that addresses risk communication strategies and information needed to respond clearly and appropriately to chemical, radiological, biological, technological, and natural disasters;

2. background information on risk communication, and human and ecological risks necessary for developing communication strategies;

3. information on risk communication challenges and approaches from practitioners and disciplinary experts.

Although an initial objective was to provide specific information for chemical and nuclear risk communication, it quickly became clear that our objectives were better served with consideration of a broad range of crises, and that there is a continuum of chronic, low-level hazards that can become crises with an initiating event (natural or anthropogenic), and that small crises can grow into large ones quickly (witness COVID-19). It became equally clear that the field of risk communication is comprised of people with a wide range of interests in the field, from those who need to communicate information for an immediate crisis, to those for whom understanding and communicating risk involves many different perspectives and approaches, to practitioners who are engaged in the process regularly, to those who want to study risk communication as a discipline to improve its effectiveness. We have tried to capture this diversity in this special issue. For all, there are commonalities and differences, as well as social and environmental justice considerations that we discuss below.

Several federal agencies (Departments of Energy and Defense, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency), Tribal Nations, non-governmental agencies, and others need consistent strategies for responding to unusual or catastrophic events, as well as chronic exposures. However, providing such advice requires having information on factors needed to protect human health and safety, environmental and ecological systems, cultural systems, and environmental and social justice. The flip side is that catastrophes have aftermaths, and the risks may linger for weeks, months, or years—in this way a crisis becomes chronic, just as a chronic hazard can become a crisis if not addressed.

With this in mind, the issue was divided into three parts: (1) background information on risk communication, human health risk and ecological health risk, (2) interviews with practitioners spanning a range of chronic events and acute crises, and (3) academic approaches to risk communication. In all three sections, we aimed to have a diversity of crisis types, chronic risk issues and exposures, viewpoints, and people. Part 1 has six papers on basic information needed to face environmental communication challenges. Part 2 consists of 19 essays that summarize interviews with a diverse group of officials, representatives and practitioners from government, universities, and non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations who discuss communication challenges primarily in the United States but also in Asia and Europe. Part 3 has five articles about emergency risk communication, preparation for environmental crises, strategic communication as planned behavior, real risks and fake news, and finally, perceptions, solutions, and trust. Together, this volume offers governmental agencies, the private sector, workers, and the public information and tools to develop a viable, open and available, risk-information strategy for responding to both chronic situations and acute emergencies. The term risk communicator describes many relationships, including unidirectional, two-way, multiple-way communications, and participatory and collaborative communication; we will use the term to be all encompassing until the field can think of a better descriptor.

We note the non-traditional nature of this special issue. The papers in Part 1 were reviewed by experts identified by Burger, Greenberg and Lowrie. Part 2 essays were written by the editors, followed by a review and concurrence by the subject interviewee and a review by the Risk Analysis Area Editor for risk communication. The disciplinary research articles in Part 3 underwent the normal Risk Analysis peer review process.

The remainder of this introduction summarizes and synthesizes the contributions in this special issue.

2 |. BASIC KNOWLEDGE

The first two papers in the issue provide basic information on risk communication methods and approaches—Greenberg from the viewpoint of the communicator, and Burger from the perspective of the listener, stakeholder, or community. Greenberg describes conditions when it is essential to communicate information to an audience in open sessions with risk scenarios that make the situation real to the audience. The paper offers a multi-step process for the communicator and makes clear the importance of having good, science-based information, and where possible, high-quality risk assessments that accurately reflect exposures that are relatable. Clearly, the best risk communicator cannot make up for poor information or inadequate risk evaluations or assessments. Where information is lacking or confusing, good communication requires clarifying the limits of current knowledge and listening to stakeholders. Burger, in the second essay, considers risk communication from the standpoint of the receiver of communications, either a person or a community, and provides examples of how communities respond. She suggests that it is equally important for both the communicator and the audience (community or individual) to be informed, informative, and to develop trust and respect for each other. Thus, the audience or community has a responsibility to communicate back, not just listen.

While it is infeasible to provide in a few papers all the information that a communicator needs as background for effective communication, we include papers in Part 1 that address human health risk, ecological health risk, and a historical perspective on stakeholders and risk communication using the Department of Energy as a case study. With all hazards, whether acute or chronic, protecting human health is paramount. In rare cases, wrong information can lead to injury and death. A paper by Gochfeld presents two different perspectives. Gochfeld, a long-time physician and occupational health professional, uses case studies to illustrate the wide range of crises communities face, from a small mercury spill in an indigenous Peruvian village to the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant “meltdown.” He makes it clear that communicating about human health and safety risks is case related. A communicator needs to know the hazard, the potential human health risks, and also understand the job of the communicator in the situation, especially audience needs and desires. Audiences include heads of public health agencies, parents whose children might be exposed to asbestos in school, and indigenous people. Gochfeld notes that the health concerns, knowledge, and audience composition may quickly change, and communicators need to be agile in their response.

Harkema et al. use Department of Energy facilities to show that risk assessments must be dynamic and updated because while cleanup of nuclear facilities takes decades, the physical conditions of buildings and facilities may change and degrade, changing the risks and safety hazards. Not only may risks to people vary as facilities deteriorate but also there may be unexpected events or new discoveries that could change risk, and communicators need an open dialogue with individuals and organizations, as well as administration and regulators to understand changing on-site realities. Some radionuclides from nuclear facilities are long-lasting, and facility cleanup is taking decades. Harkema et al. present a taxonomy for risk communicators to use in informing dialogues that can be applied to other situations where the hazards and risks continue for decades. Together, these two papers on human health make the point that flexibility, updating hazard and risk information, and continuous dialogue among knowledgeable, interested, and affected parties are essential.

Ecological systems are complex because of the hundreds of species, as well as fragile and unique ecosystems, that can be affected, making the basic information needed for risk communication voluminous. Some species are endangered or threatened, and some ecosystems are rare or unique; both need to be protected. Burger’s Part 1 article provides basic types of information needed to assess risk to species and ecosystems in a crisis or for chronic hazard conditions. These should be reviewed by managers and communicators so they are familiar with the important ecological indicators of chemical, biological, and natural stressors. Without knowing specific ecological information, risk assessors can use the ecological template described to build a base of information before any meetings with regulatory or resource agencies, or with the public. This will help identify what regulators, conservationists, and the public will be interested in protecting during a chronic exposure or acute event.

Finally, Krahn presents a historical perspective on stakeholders and communication with respect to the Department of Energy’s defense nuclear facilities. Many of the risk communication and environmental crises in this special issue are on-going chronic issues that flare up occasionally as an acute crisis (e.g., specific chemical exposures) or are of increasing importance (e.g., climate change). The agencies and people involved in these crises have changed over time. However, the DOE example is on-going, illustrating the evolution of stakeholder involvement in the cleanup of nuclear facilities. Krahn’s essay is a reminder that risk communication is often critical within the different parts of a federal agency.

3 |. PRACTITIONERS ARE ON THE FRONT LINE OF RISK COMMUNICATION

Some people communicating risk are academically trained communicators with a strong background in risk analysis. Others are trained in media and communications, and subsequently became interested in risk. Still others are regulators, health professionals, risk analysts, environmental scientists, ecologists, and other trained experts. The last group came to communication because of their technical expertise, strategic position, a commitment to a particular environmental issue, or a combination of these. Many people who regularly communicate may not appreciate the richness of their collective experience and may never write about it.

We interviewed a broad selection of individuals. Together, they have experiences with issues such as Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, chemical and nuclear waste management and cleanup, fuel cycles, site closures, chemical exposures, wildfires, fish consumption, fisheries laws, cancer clusters, and global climate change. Many of these issues are intertwined with Native American Treaty rights and exposures, other indigenous peoples, environmental justice, and citizen advisory boards. All contribute to our understanding of what constitutes or what interferes with effective communication (Table 1).

TABLE 1.

Practitioners interviewed, their main issues, and risk communication messages

Practitioner	Risk communication issue	Main take-away	Additional key messages
Monica Regalbuto	Department of Energy and private sector, fuel cycle, environmental cleanup	Respect, sincerity, and being concerned for the workers is essential.	• Be sincere, transparent, available, and treat people equally. • Listen and visit workers in their workplace.
Mark Gilbertson	Department of Energy, environmental cleanup and management	Keep track of the long-term mission.	• Need the right person to deliver the message. • Do not push too hard.
Myrna Espinosa	Department of Energy	Being familiar with all the stakeholders is critical.	• Have a clear message and tailor to audience. • Answering questions that stakeholders need.
Tom Burke	Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental cleanups	Listen to the community.	• Need strong science, not misinformation. • Recognize that real emotional distress is essential to building trust.
Bernard Goldstein	EPA environmental and public health	Risk communication is an essential component of public health practice.	• Sound science is critical, risk communication is situational. • Be prepared for a wide variety of audiences at every meeting.
Andrew Orrell	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Idaho National Laboratory; nuclear waste management	Be the honest broker.	• Engage and empower the public. • Probabilities are incomprehensible to some.
Tim Fields	EPA, National Brownfields	Building networks for success.	• Use approaches and people to communicate that are like the community. • Do not promise more than can be delivered.
Dick Jackson	Centers for Disease Control, birth defects, pesticides	Be empathetic, humble, and clear.	• Be prepared for questions you do not want to answer. • Come to grips with how you appear on the screen
Jennifer Salisbury	Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, nuclear repository legal issues	Be persistent, consistent, and trustworthy.	• Go with a clear science-backed position. • Be persistent and listen.
Neil Weber	DOE, state, Pueblo de San Ildefonso, PCBs and other exposers	Be truthful, proactive, humorous, concerned, and provide solutions.	• Take time to develop friendships that lead to trust. • Allow Tribes the time to provide information on their timeline.
Michelle Lohmann	Citizens Advisory Board Nuclear waste cleanup	Challenge the status quo.	• Always show up. • Emphasize new media and information.
David Kosson	Waste management and remediation	Be trustworthy, transparent, approachable, credible and not an advocate.	• Recognize technical data may not be the only driver. • Provide alternatives.
Kathy Higley	Transport and fate of radionuclides, radioecology; IAEA.	Build trust through repeated engagement as an honest expert.	• Listen and answer questions. • Use multiple ways to communicate.
Michael Greenberg	Chemical weapons, brownfields, cancer clusters, ports.	Talking to media requires clear, concise, relatable messages.	• Always respond quickly to reporters with hard deadlines. • For television, be prepared to answer with short and precise statements.
Jim Johnson	Nuclear legacy, STEM, engineering solutions to environmental problems	Listen and listen again, find commonalities.	• Slow down, take time to listen. • Do not be defensive or judgmental.
Amanda Boyd	Native American and Alaska Native issues; country foods	Respect local knowledge, communications, and traditions.	• Tailor message to each community. • Understand their culture and collaborate.
Melanie Lemiere	Indigenous people of Amazon and N Canada; wild foods, food security, mercury and other contaminants	Be honest, transparent, culturally relevant, and take time, and then more time.	• Trust takes a long time to develop. • Learn how to collaborate, share knowledge.
Carl Safina	Fisheries and marine organism survival	Meet your audience with information they care about.	• Focus on what audience wants to know, not what you know. • Listen and validate their concerns.
Ken Berlin	Climate change	Risk and solutions must be communicated together.	• Provide information and approaches to the converted. • Benefits should be clear.

Interviewees’ on-the-ground experiences ranged from facing an acute crisis where people need to know the risks they face immediately, to long-term, complex chronic problems like fisheries and climate change. The communication challenges vary depending upon whether it is; 1) is a member of the public, government (federal or Tribal), or a worker, 2) an acute or chronic event, 3) a one-time agency or public meeting, 4) a regular periodic meeting (e.g. Citizen’s Advisory Board) or an on-going public health issue (chemical exposures in wild-caught foods, lead in water) and 5) whether the medium is print, social media, or radio/television.

Every interviewee mentioned the importance of providing credible information, developing trust, and tailoring the message to the audience. Insights from the practitioners revolved around the (1) communicator, (2) audience itself, (3) audience needs, (4) information approaches, and (5) different media channels. The qualities of the communicator are critical to the process—are they knowledgeable, relatable, personable, approachable, and trusted? There may be a correct “technical answer,” but the right person is needed to deliver it so that people feel comfortable. Communities tend to trust people who are more like them and reflect the demographics of the affected community. Working with local trusted community members helps when the communicator is an outsider. Affiliations matter; vested interests need to be identified.

Communication advice about the audience itself focused on knowing the audience and the community (demographics, who they trust, languages, internet availability, and reception), understanding that different communities respond differently to the same information and recognizing that there are differences within and among communities. Furthermore, workers face unique risks and communication challenges. Political, economic, and social conditions at a particular time are important context. Finally, it is important to allow American Indian Tribes and Native Alaskans to provide information and perspective in their own time and manner—they are sovereign Nations and should be addressed as such.

Assuming the appropriate communicators are present and that they understand the nature of the problem, it is critical that communicators understand the nature and needs of the audience. Audiences can sense empathy, and they can equally feel disrespect and disregard for their knowledge and experiences. Trust takes a long time to develop and requires humility. There should be no perceived conflict of interest, and any conflict of interest issue that is raised needs to be faced and explained.

Table 2 summarizes suggestions regarding important “do’s and don’ts.” Practitioners had lots of prescriptive and proscriptive advice, and most of these were mentioned by several different interviewees. (The messages in the table are not necessarily paired.)

TABLE 2.

Practitioners’ messages on things to do and to avoid. (These are not necessarily paired)

Messages or things to do	Messages or things to avoid
Always show up.	Do not try to impress the audience with your knowledge or position.
Listen, listen, and listen.	Do not ignore unlikley but difficut questions.
Develop trust through building relationships.	Do not use jargon or acronyms, and briefly explain any jargon and data.
Be relatable, flexible, and respectful.	Do not be judgmental.
Prepare communication for different audiences.	Do not assume risk is the only driver for decisions (or the most important one).
Test your communication tools.	Do not be either defensive or offensive.
Know your science, or acknowledge when you cannot answer a question.	Do not assume all member of a community or Tribe hold the same views.
Recognize political/social issues play a role.	Do not lose patience with an audience member.
Provide solutions with the risks.	Do not ignore local knowledge or views.
Make sure your information is backed by science.	Do not wait too long to talk to the media or communities.
Be prepared for the questions you do not want to answer.	Do not dress inappropriately.
Recognize your own worry and concern over the risk issue.	Do not downplay the importance, stress, or cultural anxiety from the event or stressor.
Spend time with workers; listen and address their concerns.	Do not say “trust me” or “I have many years of experience and I know.”
Give community and Tribal members time to provide science information on their own time.	Do not dismiss the fears or issues of workers, especially those working in hazardous conditions.
Consider how to motivate people to act.	Avoid overreactions.

We highlight that unlike the other interviewees, Lohmann is a citizen communicating not only with other publics, but with Department of Energy officials—the role is different. Her advice included always showing up for Board meetings, asking questions from officials until you get the answer for the community, being ahead of the curve with information to present to the public, and encouraging a diversity of people to be Board members and to attend meetings. While these may seem obvious, they bear repeating.

We also note that communication with the media was featured in a few of the essays. For television appearances, Jackson’s suggestions included being prepared for the “hot seat,” using humor if it fits into the flow, never using putdowns of anyone or any agency and looking directly at the camera. Greenberg recommended helping the reporter shape the story to reflect what the public will be most interested in and connect with emotionally. Identifying the one to three communication points or messages you want to make before the interview will allow you to use them effectively. Both emphasized always returning reporters’ calls, providing information quickly and being clear on your message.

4 |. CURRENT ISSUES FOR ACADEMICS TRAINED IN RISK COMMUNICATION

Risk communication is a key component of the risk assessment paradigm—and has thus become an important and fertile field of research. The papers in the final section of the issue provide some theoretical frameworks and studies that can enhance risk communication. Two papers provide interesting and challenging approaches to risk communication that will be useful and stimulating for people discussing risk regardless of the situation or audience. One discusses communication of risk and options during a public health emergency (Thomas et al.), and the other discusses how to use strategic communication to foster clearer communication (Besley and Dudo). Both will help practitioners faced with the realities of risk communication during emergency and chronic health exposures, especially as a stronger theoretical base is built, which requires joining the interests of experts in risk sciences and risk communications in jointly designed studies.

Thomas et al. note that practitioners have little time to make sense of the information available during a health emergency and have to meet the information needs of the community immediately. They used qualitative information from practitioners (interviews) about the risks from wildfires and industrial fires to examine sensemaking in these complex situations. Practitioners have to quickly make sense of the risks within the context of evidence and science, and their role in the management and communication network, as well as the political and social expectations of stakeholders. In the study of Thomas et al., the practitioners interviewed clearly used both their past experiences and those of others involved in the emergency to make sense of the current emergency they faced. The authors report that interviewees felt worried, stressed, and exhausted and found the pursuit of accuracy challenging. The study is particularly relevant as it illustrates points made by practitioners interviewed in Part 2 of this issue (see tables below).

Besley and Dudo provide another perspective on how to view risk communication in a way that will aid people who communicate risk, whether related to an acute or chronic event. They suggest considering communicator’s choices as behaviors that will then allow for using theories about behavioral changes and trust building to foster strategic communication choices. Using behavioral change tactics should lead to engagement with true relevant information, development of new knowledge, evidence-based evaluation of beliefs, feelings and frames, and the identification of situations requiring consideration of justice, equity, and diversity. The framework of viewing communicator’s choices as behaviors should include all communicators, whether communication experts, scientists, governmental or policy personnel, or community members. Within the context of this Risk Analysis special issue, it provides another way to evaluate the behaviors, beliefs, and approaches of the communicators themselves to develop more effective communication.

The last three papers provide data, insights, and discussions about communication for key issues facing public health today: responding to climate change (Lim et al.), effects of fake news and fact checking on perceptions of nuclear energy (Ho et al.), and assessing perceptions about risks and benefits from ports using surveys (Greenberg and Kocakusak). All three used online approaches to illustrate methods of understanding perceptions and provide a basis for changing risk communication strategies. While human health is the focus for these exposures, all three studies also discuss risks to eco-receptors and ecosystems. These papers increase our understanding of the role perceptions can play in governmental and community communications to reduce risk, and in some cases, to save lives.

Lim et al. develop messages using social norms that can be adapted pre-disaster, rather than during a disaster. In other words, what can people do to reduce their risk before a weather-related disaster occurs? They developed a variety of messages that use descriptive norms (e.g., what other people have done before a climate-related disaster), injunctive norms (what other people think should be done), and social disapproval rationale (the social consequences if you do not take a particular action). Then, they tested the efficacy of using these social norms to influence behavioral intentions for personal mitigation. In online experiments with subjects living in hurricane prone states, they found that for two mitigation measures (purchasing flood insurance, installing water barriers), the injunctive norms (weather forecasts, social disapproval, neighbors) significantly influenced behavioral mitigation intentions. In contrast, descriptive social norms were not effective. The paper of Lim et al. thus provides empirical evidence of how risk communicators can encourage community members to reduce the impacts of flood disasters (and can be applied to other risk communication situations).

One of the difficult problems risk communicators face, both in acute crises and chronic exposures, is misinformation and disinformation. Ho et al.’s paper examines the influence of online discussions, fact-checking, and sources of fact-checking on the perception of risks associated with nuclear energy. Conducted with participants from Singapore, the experiment exposed all groups to a fake news article about risk from nuclear energy. Half of the subjects then participated in a discussion group (among their study participants), and half did not. Within each study group, one/third were not exposed to fact check, and the other two/third were exposed either to a traditional media outlet or to a fact-checking outlet. They found that perceptions of the risk decreased when subjects participated in online discussion among others in their study group, when fact-checking was unavailable. However, the perception of risk from nuclear energy was higher among those exposed to fact-checking by the media, compared to fact-checking by a fact-checking organization. This study suggests that less fake news will spread if online discussions are available to communities, and the source of the fact-checking is available. It suggests the need for further study of the role of traditional news media in failing to mitigate the effect of fake news.

Finally, Greenberg and Kocakusak examine a more complicated risk communication challenge—What is the relationship between and among risks and benefits, preferences for proposed solutions, and trust, within a context of communication opportunities? They developed a combination of mail and online surveys for people in the port areas of New York City to Newark. Health concerns that were identified, including air quality, noise, fires, port security, and climate change, were associated with a desire for more science information, public health surveillance, and economic assistance for local communities, particularly against major port hazards. Many residents realized the economic benefits of ports, and many trusted port managers (or were neutral). Respondents wanted more information from port managers, as well as from independent scientists who would report to them directly. Perceptions of solutions and trust were connected; the majority did not have strong negative trust-related feeling about port managers, which suggests that proactive, open risk communication would improve relationships within local communities.

Together, these five papers (1) provide theoretical frameworks for shifting the way risk communicators think about their own communication strategies and (2) examine current environmental health issues where data and experimentation can provide insights that can improve risk communication. They directly impact risk communicators’ challenges to change behavior and influence mitigation measures.

5 |. COMMONALITIES AND CONCLUSIONS

Risk communication around hazards and hazard events occurs due to many different issues, in many different communities, over many different time frames. The basic information needed for evaluating the risks to humans and ecosystems faced by these hazards suggests complexities in risk communication. Many factors affect human health risk communication, including the communicators themselves, the audiences, the issues or event, the environmental situation, the culture, the economics, and other aspects. The communities, venues, and issues all inform risk communication approaches, methods, and tools. The practitioners’ interviews provide examples of on-the-ground risk communications during intense crisis moments, as well as for long-term environmental threats. These practitioners have addressed some of the most risky and contentious environmental issues over the last 50 years, and the communication challenges they inherently entail. Similarly, the five academic studies of different aspects of crisis risk communications provide frameworks and examples of how methods of risk communication can be improved, and how data on perceptions can be used to provide more structured, strategic communications to achieve behavioral change in both the communicator and the audiences. In some cases, shifting communication strategies can affect mitigation that saves lives during disasters. They also provide data on complex issues that identify the relationships between risk communication, trust, and changing behaviors.

Risk communication has many different functions, including giving people needed information during a crisis to immediately save lives (e.g., evacuation routes during hurricane), after a crisis (e.g., how to find a shelter, remove mold), and for on-going chronic exposures (e.g., what to do about lead in drinking water pipes). Risk communication is also important for on-going environmental issues, such as climate change and fisheries, where the communicator seeks not only immediate solutions (e.g. reducing greenhouse gases, moratoriums on fishing) but also longer term solutions about the way we use energy or other natural resources. Risk communication can calm exaggerated fears or upset unwarranted complacency. Bad risk communication can make a difficult situation even more difficult. In the end, the risk communication challenges and approaches are specific and situational. The papers and practitioner interview essays clearly indicate that effective risk communication regarding natural and manmade hazards requires trust, patience, listening, flexibility, humility, mutual respect, reliability, and many other qualities the professional risk communicators and others reading this volume will glean for themselves. Our aim with the special issue was to provide views, perceptions, experiences, and empirical analysis from a range of risk communicators and researchers.