Communicating in Risk, Crisis, and High Stress Situations: Evidence-Based Strategies and Practice. Vincent T. Covello

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СКАЧАТЬ were told the medical waste did not pose a significant health threat. However, the public kept on insisting that it was still disgusting and frightening. Battles erupted.

      In response to public outrage, several states, including Rhode Island, took a different approach. Public health authorities went public and said (in essence): “This is an outrage; this is unacceptable. The people in our communities will not, and should not, tolerate any medical waste or hypodermic syringes washing up on our shores. We are going to do absolutely everything in our power to stop it even though there is a negligible risk to health. We are going to turn our budget priorities upside down if needed.” Many members of the public replied (in essence), “Thank you for your response, for listening, and acknowledging our concerns. Maybe we should wait. If it’s really a negligible risk, how much of our money are you really planning to spend?”

Psychologists call this approach “getting on the other side of the resistance.” When you share, and even exaggerate, people’s concerns and emotions, and acknowledge the legitimacy of their emotions and concerns, it frees them up to feel other things and think the problem through more carefully. Many people came to see that the risk was extremely small and began questioning whether it was worth spending a lot of money to solve the problem.

Revised thinking about risk communication in Stage 3 led many organizations to identify risk communication as a core competency for those involved in risk, high concern, and crisis communications. In a large number of fields, ranging from public health, medicine, and nursing to epidemiology and engineering, a broad consensus developed on the need for risk communication training programs.²⁰ While many professional associations and organizations had long recognized the importance of risk communication skills for high concern situations, they now recognized the need to integrate evidence‐based risk communication principles, strategies, and methods into training and standardized practices.

      4.2.4.4 Stage 4: Empowerment

      Stage 4 comes from a fundamental shift in the communicating organization’s value system and culture. Stage 4 involves treating stakeholders as full partners. Only limited progress has been made toward achieving this goal. Stage 4 risk, high concern, and crisis communications are difficult for several reasons.

      First, it is hard for individuals and organizations to change. Habit and inertia propel people in the direction of old behaviors. A second reason for limited Stage 4 progress is many of those who choose to work in technical, engineering, and scientific professions are, by disposition, people who typically prefer clear boundaries, logical approaches, and unemotional situations. They rarely felt comfortable listening to, engaging in dialog with, and negotiating with nonexperts, especially people who hold beliefs based more on emotion than on reason.

      A third reason involves strongly held convictions of those in an organization. Many of those who choose to work in technical professions chose to do so because they want to make life better and protect people from risks and threats for their well‐being. They are often convinced they have the knowledge to do this and resist what they perceive as competing, nonscience‐based views, especially views they see as irrational. They want to protect people in a scientific, factual way, and do not perceive that dealing with people and their emotions helps them in their mission to protect.

      A fourth reason for limited Stage 4 progress is organizational culture. Engaging in meaningful, respectful, and frank dialog with stakeholders involves changes in basic values and organizational culture. Effective stakeholder engagement also takes time away from other activities. Long‐time employees in organizations, especially bureaucracies, are also often adept at distinguishing actual policies from those that are merely rhetoric. Is the organization’s commitment to stakeholder engagement and dialog sincere? If the dialog process fails, will it harm my career? Will it affect my performance appraisal? Will I be able to get the time, the staff, the training, and the budget to do the job well?

      A fifth and perhaps the most important reason for limited progress is power and comfort level. At the core of Stage 4 is empowerment. Many people and organizations resist attempts to usurp power. Sharing power and control with nonexperts – especially with people who appear to be angry, hostile, and unappreciative of all the work that goes into risk assessment and management – can also feel uncomfortable. Like so many others, risk managers frequently put a premium on protecting their own comfort level.

Except for the first stage (ignoring the public), the various stages of risk communication build on one another; they do not replace one another. New directions for risk communication research include studies on using social media; correcting false information; the impact of personal factors such as gender, ethnicity, race, age, economic status, religion, worldviews, and political orientation; and methods for increasing trust and enhancing transparency. Researchers and practitioners are also exploring the enhanced use of digital public participation and stakeholder engagement tools – such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Facebook groups, Neighborhood, and Nextdoor – prompted in part by the COVID‐19 pandemic and the need for social distancing. With good design and support, these new digital tools have the potential to allow policymakers and practitioners to meaningfully engage and communicate with the public‐at‐large but also with people who have long been left out of stakeholder engagement activities. These groups could include the elderly, citizens reentering public life after incarceration, people currrently with limited access to the Internet or with limited computer literacy, immigrants, homeless people, people with physical and mental disabilities, people with low incomes, people working several jobs or working during nontraditional hours, people who are English‐language learners, and people who have often been left out of stakeholder engagement activities because of racial inequality and income inequality.²¹

4.3 Summary

      Risk communication is a rapidly developing field of interdisciplinary science and research. Risk communication research has gone through several evolutionary stages, with each stage placing greater importance on social and cultural context; stakeholder engagement; the impact of emotions, experiences, and cognitive biases on risk perceptions; two‐way versus one‐way communication; environmental justice, inequality, and risks to vulnerable and minority populations; shared decision‐making and dialog; the role of economic factors in risk decision‐making; the impact of social media; and combatting false information.

      Risk communication research has expanded our understanding of how decisions about risks reflect different processes for valuing and weighing losses and gains and why and how disconnects often occur in the way technical experts and the public view and understand particular risks. Risk communication research has also expanded our understanding that responses by the public to risks and threats are driven more by emotions and experiences than by detailed deliberative evaluation.

4.4 Chapter Resources

      Below are additional resources to expand on the content presented in this chapter.

      1 Abraham T. (2009). “Risk and outbreak communication: Lessons from alternative paradigms.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8):604–607.

      2 Alaszewski, A. (2005). “Risk communication: Identifying the importance of social context.” Health, Risk & Society 7:101–105.

      3 Alexander, C., and Sheedy, E. (2004). The Professional Risk Managers’ Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Current Theory and Best Practices. Wilmington, DE: Professional Risk Managers' International Association.

      4 Allen, F. (1987). "Towards a holistic appreciation of risk: The challenge for communicators and policymakers," Science, Technology & Human Values 12(3):138–143.

      5 Andrews, СКАЧАТЬ