Adopting ‘Value Focused’ Risk Communication to Aid Decision Making. J. L. Arvai, U.B.C. EcoRisk Research Unit, Institute for Resources & Environment, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Eliciting preferences from stakeholders about management alternatives has become standard practice in many risk communication processes. As a result, a significant amount of research in risk communication has been devoted to determining what constitutes ‘good’ risk communication process. In coming up with sensible criteria, researchers and practitioners have come to recognize that even the ‘best’ risk communication processes may not always lead to informed decision making. This is due, in part, to the fact that this approach (eliciting preferences about alternatives) asks participants to evaluate a set of alternatives without clearly understanding how their values apply. I argue that the fundamental objective of informing policy decisions through stakeholder involvement often cannot be met in the context of ‘alternative focused’ risk communication (AFRC). Experiments recently conducted at U.B.C. have shown that participants involved in an AFRC process about environmental issues initially indicate low levels of satisfaction regarding their participation and low response rates when disclosing their preferences about policy alternatives. This is likely due to the fact that the AFRC design failed to accommodate a meaningful inclusion of participants’ values to aid decision making. In order to overcome this, Keeney’s ‘value focused’ approach can be applied to risk communication. Value focused risk communication processes can be designed where participants are encouraged to reflect upon their values when processing risk information so as to better evaluate existing alternatives and assist in the creation of new ones. By doing so, we can expect that response rates and degrees of satisfaction on the part of the affected parties involved in the process will increase.
Work supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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