Alerting and Reassuring: The Essence of Communicating Risk
Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter M. Sandman is one of the world's preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants.
A Rutgers University professor from 1977 to 1995, Dr. Sandman founded the Environmental Communication Research Program (ECRP) at Rutgers in 1986, and was its Director until 1992. During that time, ECRP published over 80 articles and books on various aspects of risk communication. In 1995 Dr. Sandman left the university and became a full-time consultant. He received his PhD in Communication from Stanford University in 1971.
“The engine of risk response is outrage,” Dr. Sandman argues. “Sometimes the problem is too little outrage; people are apathetic, and I help my client arouse more outrage so they protect themselves. Other times the problem is too much outrage; people are excessively angry or frightened – usually because of things my client has done wrong – and I help find ways to calm the situation. Still other times, the outrage is rightly high about a genuinely serious risk, and the job is to help people bear it, sustain it, and act on it.”
An AIHA CPAG initiative recently identified key content from Dr. Sandman that will help IH and OEHS professionals better address crisis communications.
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, reflecting a less urgent need, but both poles of risk communication – alerting and reassuring – undoubtedly predate written language.