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Crisis Communication: A Very Quick Introduction (Article)
By Peter M. Sandman
Audience: Workers
This is the fourth in a series of risk communication columns I have been asked to write for The Synergist, the journal of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. The columns appear both in the journal and on this website. This column appears (more or less identical except for copyediting details) in the April 2004 issue of The Synergist, pp. 26, 28.
Public Health Outrage and Smallpox Vaccination: An Afterthought (Article)
By Peter M. Sandman
Audience: Public
Over-reassurance is a virtually universal problem in risk communication; those in charge tend to dwell too little on what might go wrong. Vaccination has traditionally been a perfect case in point. Public health communicators try to be conscientious about telling prospective vaccinees what might go wrong, perhaps even what some critics allege might go wrong. But their heart isn’t in it. They believe in the vaccine and the vaccination process, and it shows in their tendency to over-reassure (or under-warn) about vaccine side effects.
Risk Communication (Article)
By Peter M. Sandman
Ruth A. Eblen and William R. Eblen (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Environment
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, pp. 620–623
Audience: Public
In the history of language, “Watch out!” was almost certainly an early development. “Stop worrying” probably came on the scene a little later, as it reflects a less urgent need, but both poles of risk communication – alerting and reassuring – undoubtedly predate written language.