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Overcoming the Many Pitfalls of Communicating Risk

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Handbook of Health Decision Science

Abstract

Health and medical decisions are based, in part, on the extent to which individuals believe that they are likely to experience a health problem. These risk perceptions can be influenced by healthcare providers and public health practitioners who seek to enable people to make informed medical decisions and encourage them to engage in healthy behaviors. However, meaningful comprehension of risk information involves cognitive, intuitive, and affective processes, as well as contextual features that shape one’s perspective. This complexity makes it difficult to communicate risk information effectively. This chapter provides a very brief theoretical orientation to the concepts of risk perception and communication, and then focuses intensively on specific strategies for avoiding common mistakes made by well-meaning risk communicators: Adhering to basic good communication practices, recognizing limitations in numeracy, defining effective risk communication as more than simple recall of likelihood information, providing specific risk reduction recommendations, and using risk communication strategies that increase comprehension and evaluative meaning.

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Acknowlegments

Erika Waters was supported by Mentored Research Scholar Grant MRSG-11-214-01-CPPB and Brian Zikmund-Fisher was supported by Mentored Research Scholar Grant MRSG-06-130-01-CPPB from the American Cancer Society.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Public Health Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA

    Erika A. Waters

  2. Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Angela Fagerlin

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher

  4. Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher

  5. Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher

Authors
  1. Erika A. Waters
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  2. Angela Fagerlin
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  3. Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erika A. Waters .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA

    Michael A. Diefenbach

  2. Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Suzanne Miller-Halegoua

  3. Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Deborah J. Bowen

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Waters, E.A., Fagerlin, A., Zikmund-Fisher, B.J. (2016). Overcoming the Many Pitfalls of Communicating Risk. In: Diefenbach, M., Miller-Halegoua, S., Bowen, D. (eds) Handbook of Health Decision Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3486-7_19

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