RISK COMMUNICATION: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT

Chances are, if you asked a group of health physicists to defi ne risk communication, you would get a wide va-riety of answers. Fortunately, there is a commonly ac-cepted defi nition of risk communication: Risk communication is an interactive process of the ex-change of information and opinion among individuals, groups, and institutions. It involves multiple messages about the nature of risk and other messages, not strictly about risk, that express concerns, opinions, or reactions to risk messages or to legal and institutional arrange-ments for risk management.1 Although communication with the public is typically thought to be a public affairs or public relations func-tion, the authors view risk communications as a unique discipline with expertise in communication that com-bines an understanding of science and its limitations with an appreciation of the psychology and sociology of how people, individually and collectively, process, un-derstand, and ultimately come to accept or reject risks to human health. Having provided a commonly accepted defi nition of risk communication, we now attempt to debunk some popular myths about it. First, risk communication is not a “quick fi x ” for dealing with a crisis, nor is it an after-thought in responding to an emergency, or a panacea for handling public concerns. Risk communication is never a one-way dialogue simply “telling ” the public what the risks are, thereby ending the matter. Nor is risk commu-nication public affairs or public information, where the purpose is to convey an organization’s message, story, or agenda.1 And fi nally, risk communication is never, ever “spin. ” In its truest sense, risk communication is a combination of “tools ” to be used when concern is high, and “processes ” that integrate risk communication fac-tors into the overall risk management of an issue. This paper outlines the use of these concepts in actual real-world situations involving radiation risk