Effective risk communication is essential in the field of health to ensure patients understand the information being presented to them by medical professionals and appreciate the level of risk involved in treatments. Cardiovascular disease, being the leading cause of death worldwide, is relevant to consider when examining risk communication in a health setting. Those afflicted with cardiovascular ailments are both high in number and exposed to information communicating risk. This research aims to identify presentation formats that are more effective communicating risk information to recovering cardiovascular patients at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. The formats’ effectiveness is measured by gauging the population’s understanding of the material and perception of the information as it relates to risk and motivation. The research draws on Max Weber’s concept of rationality and subsequent scholars who developed social judgment theory, the heuristic-systematic model, expected utility theory, protection motivation theory, and the extended parallel process model. Utilizing an experimental research design, risk information handouts and questionnaires are distributed to, and completed by, a stratified sample of cardiovascular disease patients. Effective presentation formats are examined, and the results identify comparatively effective presentation formats for minimizing and maximizing risk perception. The results also identify presentation formats’ impact on a patient’s level of motivation to avoid / indulge in behaviours that may maximize or minimize risk. The results, synthesized herein, suggest a model (communicative cardiovascular physician-patient model of message preparation-perception), which may contribute to the effectiveness of risk communication between physicians and cardiovascular disease patients.

Thesis (D.P.H.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-305). / Microfiche. / xix, 305 leaves, bound ill., maps 29 cm

The thesis Risk Denial and Neglect: Studies in Risk Perception examines societal and individual attention to risks and focuses especially on the issue of neglect. Why do some risks get more attention than other risks and how is this difference in attention related to experts’ roles in society? What can explain people’s tendency to perceive risks as more pertinent to other people? These are some of the issues that are discussed in the thesis. The topics are of interest for, e.g., risk policies, risk management, and for designing campaigns aimed at minimizing risk-related behaviors. The dissertation is written within the field of economic psychology. The research questions are addressed in four separate papers based on three empirical studies. The Papers I and II focus on societal attention to risks. They address the issues of what risks are neglected and overemphasized in society and how the identification of risk is related to experts’ domain of expertise. Papers III and IV narrow down the discussion to individual processes of risk denial – why people tend to believe that risks are more pertinent to other people. The results show that experts in the present study tended to rate risks within their own domain as lower than other risks. They were more prone to act as promoters than protectors. In addition, the robust tendency of optimistic bias was shown to exist also for technological risks (related to the use of computers) and economic risks. Most people seem to hang on to their beliefs that risks are other people’s concerns – it simply won’t happen to them. The results of the present thesis suggest that the relevance of prior experience and the commonplaceness of the risk sources is an area that merits further investigation with respect to risk denial.

Safety culture has risen to prominence over the past two decades as a means by which organisations may enhance their safety performance. Safety culture may be conceptualised as an interpretive device that mediates between organisational safety rhetoric and safety programs on the one hand, and local workplace cultures on the other. More recently, risk-awareness has emerged as a cultural approach to safety. Front line workers are encouraged to become risk-aware through programs designed to prompt them to undertake mental or informal risk assessments before commencing work. The problem is that risk-awareness programs have not been the subject of systematic research and the impact of these programs on the culture of safety and the resultant level of risk is unknown. Therefore, this ethnographic study of two sites within a large contract maintenance organisation in Australia explored what impact risk-awareness programs have upon the culture of safety and the resultant level of risk. The researcher spent two months in the field and data was collected through participant observation, semistructured interviews and through a review of organisational documents. This study found that managers focused upon collecting the paperwork associated with the program as proof that workers had a safer workplace, whereas workers preferred to rely upon their common sense rather than the paperwork to keep them safe. As a consequence, the riskawareness program resulted in a culture of paperwork and varying levels of risk reduction because the paperwork associated with the program created an illusion of safety for managers as much as common sense did for workers. The results of this study have implications for safety culture, risk-awareness programs and for organisational learning. They also have implications for organisations wishing to improve their safety culture by encouraging risk-awareness in front-line workers. / Doctor of Philosophy

Safety culture has risen to prominence over the past two decades as a means by which organisations may enhance their safety performance. Safety culture may be conceptualised as an interpretive device that mediates between organisational safety rhetoric and safety programs on the one hand, and local workplace cultures on the other. More recently, risk-awareness has emerged as a cultural approach to safety. Front line workers are encouraged to become risk-aware through programs designed to prompt them to undertake mental or informal risk assessments before commencing work. The problem is that risk-awareness programs have not been the subject of systematic research and the impact of these programs on the culture of safety and the resultant level of risk is unknown. Therefore, this ethnographic study of two sites within a large contract maintenance organisation in Australia explored what impact risk-awareness programs have upon the culture of safety and the resultant level of risk. The researcher spent two months in the field and data was collected through participant observation, semistructured interviews and through a review of organisational documents. This study found that managers focused upon collecting the paperwork associated with the program as proof that workers had a safer workplace, whereas workers preferred to rely upon their common sense rather than the paperwork to keep them safe. As a consequence, the riskawareness program resulted in a culture of paperwork and varying levels of risk reduction because the paperwork associated with the program created an illusion of safety for managers as much as common sense did for workers. The results of this study have implications for safety culture, risk-awareness programs and for organisational learning. They also have implications for organisations wishing to improve their safety culture by encouraging risk-awareness in front-line workers. / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Family and Child Ecology, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-152). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--London School of Economics and Political Sciences, 2000. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 21, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-278).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1980.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-94). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.