Risk Redux

Last month, I discussed the influx of killer-foods stories and their relation to actual vs. perceived risk. While researching this, I found some research that helps explain why so many consumers, and perhaps reporters, do a remarkable imitation of Chicken Little and confuse dangers the size of acorns with the sky crashing down.

As scientists and product designers, education and experience train us to think a certain way. Food is not a perfect system and almost always creates trade-offs between price, quality, flavor, convenience, availability and, yes, safety. While some argue a “zero-tolerance rule” should apply to every potentially harmful substance, in reality the industry generally adheres to a policy that finds reasonable certainty that no harm would result from an additive or contaminant. (Some exceptions exist.) A zero-tolerance policy just doesn’t take into consideration several important factors: naturally occurring “harmful” substances in foods, relative risk and riskbenefit scenarios.

Previously, I mentioned “Public Understanding of Food Risk Issues and Food Risk Messages on the Island of Ireland: The Views of Food Safety Experts,” published in the Journal of Food Safety in terms of public perception and media coverage of risk. However, it also looks at barriers to effective food risk communication and how to improve food risk messages and cites previous research on how to assess public perception of risk. One method, the psychometric paradigm (outlined by Paul Slovic, professor of psychology, University of Oregon, in “Perception of Risk,” Science, published Apr. 7, 1987), assumes that “risk is inherently subjective” and “is subjectively defined by individuals who may be influenced by a wide array of psychological, social, institutional and cultural factors.”

Slovic also theorizes that people judge risk on factors including “the degree to which an activity’s risk were voluntary, controllable, known to science, known to those exposed, familiar, dread, certain to be fatal, catastrophic and immediately manifested.” Taking this one step further, Peter M. Sandman, Ph.D., a risk communication expert from Princeton, NJ, developed “Sandman’s Hazard or Outrage Model” which determines how worried and angry people get about a risk. His four categories include: high hazard—low outrage (driving a car), high hazard—high outrage (drunk driving), low hazard—low outrage (aflatoxin in food) and low hazard—high outrage (pesticides in food). In short, the outrage factor can take precedence over a risk’s seriousness. Slovic also points out that “risk concerns may provide a rationale for actions taken on other grounds or they may be a surrogate for other social or ideological concerns. When this is the case, communication about risk is simply irrelevant to the discussion. Hidden agendas need to be brought to the surface for discussion.” 

This type of information might be routine for marketing communication, but it is not mandatory for everyone in the food industry, and certainly not the media. However, given the resources we have to invest in this problem, perhaps it should be.