Bad Blood or the Elixir of Life? Perceived Risk of Blood Transfusions. M. L. Finucane, P. Slovic, and C. K. Mertz, Decision Research, Eugene, OR
People’s perceptions of risk depend on many variables. In order to manage risk best in the coming century, we need to understand how social, cultural, and political contexts affect risk-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The present paper reports data on the perceived risk of blood transfusions, an issue that will continue being complex, controversial, and context-dependent in the next century. The data were collected in a national survey of 1,204 people. The survey elicited images associated with blood transfusions and contained questions about the perceived safety and risk of the blood supply, stigma, worldviews, trust, and a range of demographic variables. The results showed that a substantial proportion of people do not consider the U.S. blood supply to be safe and say they would not accept blood if hospitalized. By far the images evoked most frequently by the stimulus "blood transfusions" were related to AIDS or HIV, consistent with the evidence of stigmatization reflected in the perceived risk responses. The people who tended to perceive greatest personal and public risk from blood transfusions were female, non-white, and less educated, and people who had not received a transfusion previously. Our findings also suggest that trust (or lack thereof) and one’s perceived ability to control hazardous activities and technologies are important factors that drive risk perceptions up or down. In addition, fatalistic and egalitarian worldviews tend to be associated with heightened concern about the risk of blood transfusions, suggesting that the social impact of bad blood needs to be assessed and handled with the recognition that people hold different beliefs about what should be considered risky and different goals about how the risk should be managed.
Research supported by grants from the Annenberg Public Policy Center and National Science Foundation.
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