A Cross-Cultural View of Japanese Perceived Health Risks Towards the Public and the Private Among Other Two Countries--U.S. and France. H. Hirose, Tokyo Woman's Christian University, 2-6-1, Zempukuji, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, 167
The present paper compares Japanese national samples' (18 to 64 years old) perceived six health risks in terms of public sufferings and private damages to U.S. and French counterparts. Respondents of the three countries were asked to evaluated six health risk agents such as nuclear power plants, high voltage power lines, nuclear waste, AIDS, street drugs, and coal burning and oil burning power plants. Half of the Japanese perceived health risks to the public are the lowest among the three countries. All of the Japanese perceived health risks to the private are the lowest, too. Furthermore, Japanese people tend to evaluate those health risks as somewhat public threats but not as the private ones. French people, on the contrary, evaluate highly their malicious effects on the public and the private in the same way. Americans' way of risk perception is similar to French counterparts, but their risk images are not always differentiate accordingly to different risk agents. In conclusion, Japanese people as individual persons believe they live in a risk-free world even now.