Reasoning by Analogies: A Case-Study in Public Health. Sophie Gaultier-Gaillard, Maître de Conférences, Laboratoire d'Analyse et de Stratégie Industrielle, Université Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne, 26-28 rue de Châtenay, 92160 Antony, France, telephone (home) +33 1.42.37.80.77, e-mail sgaillar@fr.packardbell.org.
This paper deals with the influence of risk perception in risk management in Public Health. It reveals the existence and the nature of several ways of decision-making in the special case of an accidental drinking water pollution and its potential impacts and consequences on Public Health.
The decision-makers taken into account, usually work under time pressure with a lot of missing data. These situations considered do not involve enough alarms to allow decision-makers to set off pre-determined plans; they are potential pollution with unknown impacts and consequences. Most of the time the decision-makers are at a loss and have no references on which they could base their reasoning which leads them to a crisis we want to avoid in future cases. The main conclusions show the importance not only of feedback but also of reasoning by analogies.
A first part gives briefly the theory on which this study is based. From cognitive science, psychology and management we have made a synthesis in order to better understand the process of the decision-making of a decision-maker dealing with hazards and their potential impacts on Public Health.
A second part presents the case-study done with French public decision-makers. It describes the sample of decision-makers considered and the questionnaire and then gives the conclusions. Several appendixes explain the main results based on econometrics.
This case-study is mostly a descriptive study and we are now checking if those results can also become prescriptive.
Go to . . .
1999 SRA-Europe Table of Contents
1999 SRA-Europe Author Index
Main Abstracts Menu Page
RiskWorld Home Page