Risk: Analysis, Perception and Management - Report of a Royal Society Study Group - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This report from a group of scientists, engineers and social scientists is published by the Royal Society to open up discussion on risk. It re-states the principles by which the risks to human health and life are measured and shows the changes over the last ten years. The object is to provide guides to decisions on priorities for action. Risks from transport, employment, sport, radiation, smoking, food and HIV are compared. Life expectancy in the UK has increased by seven years since 1952, and babies' deaths reduced from 28 per thousand to eight. For industry, techniques to predict are widely used along with those to improve quality. A new area of problems lies in software faults. The importance of individual perception is shown by the social scientists. Public opinion and attitudes are part of decisions. Experience in other countries, especially the USA, shows common factors but different impact. Psychologists' tests agree - anthropologists disagree, defining risk as threat and classifying humans as hierarchists, egalitarians, fatalists and individualists who negotiate in a cultural grid. This area experiences amplification by media reporting and pressure groups. Management of risk is affected. Nine types of institutional players are defined in the last chapter with the conflicts at different levels. They are important in the regulations made in the EC and applied in the UK. Nitrates in drinking water are an example where the limits set have no scientific base but threaten great cost. Risk-benefit analysis is part of the decision-making. Compulsory wearing of seat belts produced an immediate reduction of deaths on the road by 1250 a year. The legislation was opposed in parliament as interfering with the liberty of choice. The change in perception allowing compulsion has reduced not only suffering and loss but public expenditure by 1 billion pounds a year.