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OCR for page 47
RESEARCH ON RISK Al DECISION MAKING
People in a large number of professions and disciplines
are currently engaged in research related to risk and
decision making:
Toxicologists devise laboratory experiments to
identify potential carcinogens, mutagens, and
other toxic substances;
Climatologists build models to predict the
effects of atmospheric CON concentrations on
global weather patterns;
Epidemiologists use large data bases to isolate
statistical associations between various risk
factors (e.g., pollution and diet) and various
indices of morbidity and mortality;
Physicists, chemists, and biologists study fun-
damental physical processes to facilitate the
identification and assessment of risks;
Ecologists investigate the tensions between the
needs of humans and the needs of other organisms
in an ecosystem;
Economists explore the effects of regulation on
inflation, employment, innovation, competition,
and productivity;
47
OCR for page 48
48
Legal scholars assess how various liability doc-
trines affect both the compensation of victims
and the incentives for injurers to engage in
risk-generating conduct;
Psychologists develop and test theories about
how people form perceptions about risks and
about how people make personal decisions about
risks in their daily lives;
Communication specialists examine the potential
effects of educational media campaigns on self-
hazardous life-styles;
Market researchers assess the consequences of
advertising on the consumption of hazardous
products and substances;
Sociologists study the influences of peer pres-
sure on teenage smoking and drinking habits;
Political scientists describe and evaluate how
different political and economic systems gener-
ate and cope with risks;
Philosophers and political theorists study the
value trade-offs and ethical considerations in
risk and decision making;
Demographers and biostatisticians compile and
analyze risk indices to identify crucial trends
in risks over time;
Defense analysts weigh the deterrent effects of
weapon systems against the risks of escalation
in armed conflict;
Classical and Bayesian statisticians study how
inferences about uncertainties should be made,
how new information about risks should be in-
corporated into old beliefs, and how information
about risks from disparate sources should be
combined in a formal decision analysis;
Organizational theorists study how the incen-
tives and rewards faced by employees in business
firms and public agencies cause people to gener-
ate and cope with risks;
Engineers design safer consumer products and
cleaner production processes; they worry about
the cost and complexity of safety devices verse
the risks of accidents;
Geographers study techniques for managing
natural hazards and natural disasters; and
IS
OCR for page 49
49
· Decision and management scientists develop
methods for formalizing value trade-offs in
decisions about risks.
This list, although incomplete, conveys the range
and diversity of expertise now involved in research
involving consideration of risk and resulting deci-
sions. It also makes plain the near impossibility of
establishing priorities for research. Accordingly, the
agenda for research offered below is not a ranking but
rather a sampling of research that is generally appli-
cable to the improvement of risk analyses in individual
disciplines.
A message also carried by the agenda is that per-
formance of risk analysis calls not only for knowledge
of its methods but also for disciplinary understanding
of the particular problems at issue, be they certifying
airplanes or assessing the mutagenic effects of a new
chemical; it also demands an awareness of economic and
social implications of a given risk and various options
for dealing with it. The practice of risk analyses re-
quires the knowledge of many fields; it is in fact an
undertaking of multiple disciplines melded together in
an interdisciplinary analysis.
Obviously, with the diversity of research actors,
coordination of research and communication of its re-
sults is a necessity if risk analyses are to have avail-
able the best tools and expertise. To be more specific,
research on particular issues in risk analysis that
coordinates, suggests, and links insights from different
disciplines may be especially effective. Research that
coordinates the techniques of one field with the issues
facing another does not now have a home within univer
Consequently this
work, falling at the interface between disciplines, is
often neglected; yet it is the essence of risk analy-
sis. Moreover, the coordinating function, to be truly
effective, must be supported by effective communication
of results to the involved parties.
Our nation needs vigorous and coordinated programs
of research on risk and decision making. Risk in its
many forms is such a pervasive problem, is subject to so
~ _ ~ such a signifi-
th~ a t ton-
.
a _ _
sities or research institutions.
many unknowns and uncertainties. and is
cant source of social concern that it demands
Lion of the nation's research communities and research
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50
sponsors. Research is needed not only on the identifi-
cation, assessment, and quantification of various risks,
but also on improved methods of analysis for decision
making and on improved market, legislative, regulatory,
and judicial decision-making processes. Such research
should draw on experiences within the United States as
well as those in other countries.
There will not be, of course, any scientific resolu-
tion to many of the controversies about risk and deci-
sion making. Scientific research can narrow the range
of disagreement about the magnitudes of certain risks,
but even in those cases the result may trigger more
explicit and heated controversy about value trade-offs
At the 8 ame time. the whole
and ethical considerations.
field of conflict resolution--so integral to risk and
decision making--is a fertile and valuable research
. .
Domain tar oenav~ora', social, and management scien-
tists. Research and experimentation with improved tech-
niques for mediation and bargaining could be especially
useful in resolving disputes about environmental poli-
cies that affect health, safety, and the environment.
There is also a need for expansion of interdiscinli
nary research projects on risk and decision making. The
relative neglect of interdisciplinary research is under-
standable, given the inherent difficulties with such
efforts: differences in problem definition, language
barriers between participants, problems in finding spon
sors who are sympathetic to joint projects, the complex-
ities in establishing appropriate peer review mechanisms
for interdisciplinary work, and the extra time and ex-
pense associated with combating all of these diffi-
culties. Despite these problems, the committee believes
that an expanded interdisciplinary research program on
risk and decision making should be undertaken.
We identify numerous specific research topics that
are both critically important and that require the joint
efforts of multiple disciplines. There are several
general rationales for giving some priority to these
kinds of projects:
The fact that most risk problems require knowl-
edge of specialists from a variety of natural,
social, and management sciences;
The desire of many decision makers to have an
effective synthesis of scientific inputs into
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51
decision making, a difficult yet appropriate
demand that certainly requires multiple talents;
· me ability of research teams with diverse memo
hers to communicate findings to decision makers
who lack scientific training and to the general
public; and
· The tendency of research projects within a
single discipline to become preoccupied with
technical intricacies that may not be central to
the needs of decision makers who are faced with
immediate problems involving risks.
Several billion dollars are spent every year on
research that is related to society's efforts to cope
with health, safety, and environmental risks. Nearly
all of this money is devoted to natural science and
engineering research, especially biomedical research
and, to a lesser extent, safety engineering. Relatively
little attention has been focused on social science
research, on research to develop better analytical
methods for risk assessment, risk evaluation, and deci-
sion making. We list social science and analytical
research topics that might be explored.
Research on risk analysis is not within the scope of
any single agency, but coordination and the communica-
tion of results may be. Alternative mechanisms may be
an interagency committee or a unit separate from the
governmental structure, perhaps hocused within a univer-
sity. Within that framework the committee proposes an
agenda for research, one that is not comprehensive but
rather selective and indicative. The agenda follows in
its outline that of the first section of this report and
takes up in order research on: actual and perceived
risks; risk generating and risk coping processes; and
approaches to and methods of risk analysis.
ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED RISKS
A risk analysis, while asking distinct questions and
applying specific knowledge, still must be provided with
a perspective--the overall health of society as measured
by indicators of the population's health, safety, the
state of the environment, or the economy. This is par-
ticularly true when the analysis must consider not only
OCR for page 52
52
the risk itself but perceptions of it. Whether the sub-
ject of the analysis is the effects of changing the
upper limits on nitrogen oxide emissions from cars, the
effects of low-level radiation from nuclear power
plants, or putting a new airport at a particular loca-
tion, the common need is a yardstick against which to
measure the relative risk. No such yardstick is now
available; even the very extensive data collected by the
committee was incomplete, especially for measures of
morbidity and environmental quality. A source book of
health, safety, and environmental indicators, regularly
revised, would be extremely valuable; it certainly would
have helped the work of the committee. An analogous
volume is Social Indicators. a her of "selected data on
social conditions and trends in the United States" with
some international comparisons, which is assembled and
periodically updated by the social indicators staff of
the Center for Demographic Studies in the Bureau of the
Census in collaboration with the Interagency Committee
on Social Indicators. Many of the indices in this
compilation of statistics are relevant to concerns about
risk, but many more appropriate indices about risks are
missing. A compilation of risk indicators could include
data about public perceptions of risks as well as data
on actual risk indices.
In addition to a regularly published comprehensive
collection of existing health, safety, and environmental
indicators, serious thought should be given to how to
collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate additional
information about trends and patterns in mortality,
morbidity, and environmental quality. Deficiencies in
available data should be assessed, including the likeli-
hood of misinterpretations from such data.
As noted above, data on morbidity and on environ-
mental quality are sparse. Furthermore, data on global
conditions and on comparisons of conditions in different
countries are very spotty. A more complete, current,
and accurate data base would be very useful. It is an
ambitious task, but a beginning could be made by outlin-
ing the scope of the volume, the data not now collected
that should be, and the data that are currently incom-
plete or insufficiently validated. The forms in which
current data are now provided should be critically
examined. Are the caveats in the data clearly stated?
Societies are not static and neither is their
health. In looking at existing and prospective risks
OCR for page 53
53
the direction of change must be considered as well as
the current state. For that reason, an effort to
encourage the relevant disciplines, such as epidemi-
ology, demography, actuarial analysis, psychology, and
statistics, to assess likely trends in known data and
their underlying forces would be invaluable in improving
the analysis of risks. A dynamic analysis of this sort
would, among other things, better tell how relevant
current data are to possible future risks. As examples,
the following are important questions for risk analysts
to discuss:
· Why have cardiovascular death rates declined so
dramatically over the last two decades?
· How much are cancer rates likely to increase or
decrease in the future?
What are the causes of higher mortality among
blacks compared with whites, males compared with
females, Americans compared with Swedes, etc.?
Risk Perceptions and Behavior
Two research communities are concerned with perceptions
of risk and choices among them. Behavioral or descrip-
tive decision analysts are concerned with how both lay
people and experts actually perceive risks--how they
learn about risks, how they behave, and how they explain
or rationalize their behavior. This community includes
cognitive psychologists, psychometricians, learning
theorists, and some economists and operations research-
ers. Normative or prescriptive decision analysts are
~r~~-~
concerned with how people should behave or might want to
behave if they were consciously made aware of underlying
desiderata for reasoned behavior. The field has a the-
oretical and an applied side. Theory asserts how ideal-
ized people should behave to satisfy certain rational
desiderata, while the applied side is concerned with
guiding people to behave more "rationally." Prescrip-
tive decision analysis includes in its community many
(but not all) theoretical economists, decision analysts,
operations researchers, and management scientists.
Behavioral decision analysts have demonstrated in
the laboratory and through surveys and clinical studies
not only that individuals do not behave according to the
rationality assumptions of the prescriptive theories,
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54
but also that many individuals continue to behave the
same way even after they are made aware of their so-
called inconsistencies. "Behavior" as used in this
context has three facets: how people perceive risks and
think about uncertainties; how with new information they
modify these perceptions, that is, how they learn; and
how they choose among alternatives when uncertainties
are present.
There is a need to foster a closer link between
these two communities. Prescriptive theories that are
designed to guide behavior should be modified to account
for real psychological concerns. - ~ ~ ~
In dealing with issues
ot risk, many people do not think probabilistically,
even when they know how to, and the heuristics they use
to guide their behavior often are clearly inappropri-
ate. How can some of the insights from prescriptive
decision analysis be introduced into the general con-
sciousness of people in ways that will produce more
reasonable heuristics for behavior? The aim is to teach
people how to think about risks more clearly but not to
indoctrinate them into narrow channels that eliminate
real psychological concerns.
Further Descriptive Research on Perceptions
It may be appropriate to extend in several directions
the research being done on the ways in which people
think about risks and about such risk-taking behavior as
choice of insurance coverage, choice of occupation,
life-style habits, life-saving precautions, and choice
of investment. Several general questions are worth
pursuing:
In perceptions about risks and in risk-taking
behavior, what are the differences (if any)
between cultures--between the United States and
other countries; and, within the United States,
between the sexes, races, religious affilia-
tions, rural and city dwellers, socioeconomic
groups, people with different levels of educa-
tion, etc.? What accounts for these differences?
Bow do children think and learn to think about
risks? Do competitive sports have an influence
on risk attitudes? What are the influences of
early education, number of siblings, etc.?
, _ _ _
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55
How do perceptions of risk relate to beliefs in
astrology and how do attitudes toward risk re-
late to other attitudes, e.g., internal versus
external control, fatalism? Is there a rela-
tionship between those beliefs and attitudes and
the perceptions of risks
What kinds of people are more concerned about
what kinds of risks? For example, to what
extent and why do risk perceptions differ, for
example, between business leaders and govern-
mental officials or between technical experts
and lay people?
What are the attributes of a risk that people
are particularly concerned about (e.g., control-
lability, catastrophic potential, etc.~?
What is the role of the media in shaping and
responding to people's perceptions about risks?
To what extent are an individual's attitudes
toward entrepreneurial risks related to his or
her attitudes toward health, safety, and envi-
ronmental risks?
What are the historical trends in people's atti-
tudes toward value trade-offs--between dollars
and health, economic growth and environment, and
so forth?
THE GENERATION OF RISKS
As we have argued, the responses to risks, the coping
mechanisms, depend on the class of risks and in turn on
how a particular risk is generated. In some instances,
such as hang gliding, the policy response is to do noth-
ing; in others, such as child abuse, the response is
vigorous.
The design of coping mechanisms and the selection of
alternatives is aided by an understanding not only of
how risks are generated but also of the milieus in which
people tolerate some risks but not others, deliberately
expose themselves to risks or with vigor or considerable
cost avoid them. Both political and economic milieus
may affect attitudes toward taking risks.
Thus, in understanding responses to risk or to its
avoidance, it would help to more precisely tabulate the
different health, safety, and environmental problems in
nations with different political systems (democracies
1
OCR for page 56
56
versus autocracies), different economic systems (capi-
talist versus socialist), or different national mores
(e.g., West German versus American). The corollary
question is whether some political or economic systems
are better able to cope with certain risks than with
others. If so, which risks and why? The essential
purpose of the research, then, is to clarify the dif-
ferent responses to risks in different political, eco-
nomic, or national systems and also to analyze the
nature of the risks in those countries. What are con-
sidered to be serious risks in the U.S.S.R., for exam-
ple, that are accepted in the United States? Or which
risks that concern policy makers in the United States
are given a gloss in France?
What is the pattern of causal relationships that
link wealth and health? Does "richer mean safer" in
countries as wealthy as the United States? How impor-
tant are the various correlates of high standards of
living, including education levels, leisure, and pat-
terns of employment, in determining levels of health?
To what extent would a change in the rate of economic
growth affect the rate of progress against mortality and
morbidity?
COPING WITH RISKS
There are many ways to cope with risk, of which Figure 2
lists only a few. Some are used routinely, such as in-
suring against a fire or car accident; others, such as
effluent fees, are intensely discussed in the academic
literature but have yet to be used in the United States;
others that are applied to one sort of risk may be ap-
plicable to others. A critical function of research
should be to explore the dimensions of both existing and
untried coping strategies, determining the type of risks
they may best fit, the implications for decision makers,
and associated benefits and costs.
Social Experiments
It is, of course, very difficult to predict with reason-
able accuracy the consequences of innovative coping
strategies, such as the sale of pollution licenses and
changes in tort law. Consequently, research is needed
OCR for page 57
~7
on ways in which new coping strategies can be experi-
mentally tested, especially those for possible new
environmental threats, such as acid precipitation,
changing climates due to rising levels of carbon diox-
ide, the erosion of ozone by manufactured chemicals, or
indoor pollution. The design of a social experiment in
risk-coping should include procedures for monitoring and
evaluating the effects of innovations over time with
adaptive feedback controls.
International Comparisons
The same research agenda for comparing the attitudes
toward and generation of risks in nations differing in
their politics, economics, and mores can be applied to
an international survey of coping strategies. Certainly
in developing a richer array of coping strategies, as
suggested above, the United States would benefit from
the experience of other industrialized countries; as
with the generation of risks, however, little effort to
date has been made to compare, contrast, and critically
evaluate the tactics in different countries for coping
with risks.
Some coping strategies that are employed extensively
in other nations, such as effluent fees for pollution
control and legal restrictions on self-hazardous behav-
ior, are not used extensively in the United States.
What factors explain the difference in usage, what can
be learned from foreign experience, and how can the suc-
cessful strategies from abroad be implemented in the
United States?
A Particular Strategy: Monitoring Chemicals
The society is exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals
and each year thousands of new chemicals are intro-
duced. Some of these chemicals are noxious without
important benefits and clearly have been removed or have
not been introduced. Others are clearly benign with
copious benefits. Others present problems: Are their
uncertain risks and costs worth their uncertain bene-
fits? One question is what to do about a given chem-
ical. A larger and more important question in how to
design an entire system to review old and new chemicals
OCR for page 58
58
--a system that must exploit and perhaps modify given
institutional structures to ensure that trivial risks do
not overload the system and that proper attention is
paid to large risks, whether they are historical (often
known risks) or are more uncertain (see Weinstein, 1979,
1981~.
That is simply a recognition of the nature of the
problem: a huge industry is in place, the national
economy depends in part on both the health of the
industry and the availability of its products, and new
chemicals are constantly introduced and others removed.
me issue thus is more than testing a particular chem-
ical; it involves dealing with an industry that is an
economic pillar in a manner that strengthens the economy
and protects the population. The coping tactics applied
to monitoring chemicals are necessarily iterative ones,
a constant seeking of an equilibrium among economic,
health, safety, and environmental concerns.
Such a strategy means setting priorities, accumula
tong more experimental evidence, rearranging prorates,
and so on. Such a strategy must involve a host of
actors, including government agencies, government
research facilites, business firms and their research
facilities, universities, and industry-sponsored re-
search facilities. It must be designed so that the
incentives of the marketplace work, on balance, for the
common good. The problem can be characterized as a
sequential design for the interaction of experimentation
and action in a decentralized environment. Science,
assessment, experimentation, evaluation, action,
monitoring--all must interact within the confines of our
institutional structures.
Is this a researchable topic? Certainly what is now
done can be described. The specific procedures of the
current strategy can be critiqued and ameliorative,
incremental changes can be recommended. What we are
doing can be contrasted with what other countries are
doing. While their institutions differ, ~
epidemiological data are still relevant. One might also
simplify the problem by ignoring institutional con-
straints and investigate how a control system might work
in a more abstract setting--the hope being that some of
the analysis would generate realistic heuristic in-
sights. One might even suggest experimental modifica-
tions of the current strategy and carefully monitor and
evaluate the performance of the modified system.
-
__~e~ en -~ ~ ~ g 1
OCR for page 59
59
Underlying what has been said so far is our ~oci-
ety's capacity to deal with aggregated risk: that is,
an entire industry rather than any one of its products.
New strategies may be needed to deal with that diffi-
culty. Research is needed to consider what these
strategies might be, the suitability of our present
institutional structures for applying them effectively,
their applicability to a particular problem involving
aggregate risks, and their probable costs and benefits.
One might also foreshadow the discussion below on
the assessment and evaluation stages of risk analysis by
noting that the separation of the two stages is quite
natural in considering a single chemical, but not at all
in coping with a risk analysis en bloc for hundreds or
even thousands of chemicals. Also, examination of such
"macro risks" demands extensive interdisciplinary inter-
actions.
Taxation Strategies
Economists have published research on the theoretical
advantages of tax schemes for coping with various risks
(e.g., effluent charges for pollution control and con-
sumption fees for hazardous products). The issue now is
whether and how this theoretical work will actually be
applicable within political constraints. Can taxation
strategies be used effectively to cope with the emerging
problem of hazardous wastes? What are the political or
institutional impediments to more widespread use of
these approaches in the United States, and how can they
be made more politically feasible?
Mediation and Arbitration
Power plants, refineries, dumps for toxic chemicals,
airports, and incinerators frequently have to be built
despite the fact that increased risks may be imposed on
the nearby residents. Vociferous arguments occur about
the siting of facilities that are deemed on balance
beneficial to the majority but unfair to a minority.
Ultimately such decisions must be made through a politi-
cal and judicial process, but analysis may be of assist-
ance in several ways. In particular, is it possible to
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60
elicit reliable opinions about costs, benefits, equi-
ties, and values from those having a stake in the
result? This is a growing research area among econo-
mists and policy analysts.
The choice of the site and the type and the size of
a facility pose difficult technical problems. If there
were no conflicts between interest groups, then optimi-
zation techniques, such as operations research methods,
could be used. There is a tendency for conflict to
drive out analysis, but a case could be made for the
reverse: Adding conflict to an already technically
difficult choice makes the problem still harder, and
analysis might be useful in designing compromise solu-
tions. mis is ~ however, rarely done in practice. In
recent years, several environmental disputes have been
mediated successfully because the mediator has been
astute enough to suggest a new compromise alternative
that was not on the table in front of the disputants
(see for example Center for Environmental Conflict
Resolution, 1978~. Part of the mediators' task is to
turn a win-lose confrontation mentality into a win-win
joint problem-solving task; very rarely has formal
analysis been used in this type of joint problem
solving.
If towns or regions were monolithic, it might be
possible to compensate a locality that accepts a locally
noxious facility. Auctions for example, could be used
,
~_ ~_ ^ : ~ _ ~ ~-~ ~
to determine the amount or rlnancla' compensation co calm
locality accepting the facility. Compensation can come
in many guises. One of them is to couple alternatives
that raise risks with those that lower them so that the
net effect is lessened risk for the locality that ac-
cepts a noxious facility. Applied research talent is
needed to exploit these ideas, to show the practicality
of such interventions in settling disputes.
Innovation, Productivity, and Competition
Political debates about regulatory reform frequently
contain assertions about the effects of federal regula-
tion on industrial research and development, produc-
tivity, and competition. Reliable economic research
does not currently exist to refute or establish most of
these claims. Since repeal or modification of many
regulations may occur during the tenure of the Reagan
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61
administration, a unique opportunity exists to asses 8
the consequences of regulatory reform. Of course, any
macroeconomic effects of regulatory changes may be lost
in "measurement noise." However, microeconomic studies
of particular firms and industries can bolster cause-
and-effect hypotheses. Some issues deserving special
attention are: the effects of regulatory changes on
small firms and industry market shares; the effects of
regulatory uncertainty on research, development, and
capital investment decisions; and the positive and
negative effects of regulation on measures of economic
productivity.
RISK ANALYS IS
While, as emphasized in the first part of this report,
analysis has a limited role in decision making, it still
can be a powerful tool for categorizing risks, assessing
them, evaluating a given set of alternative coping
strategies, and devising new alternatives. The actual
role of risk analysis in particular situations is
variable, as are the methods used. There is also the
fact that in some decision making on risk, analysis has
no role; in other situations analysis is useful only if
it is designed so that it provides information that the
decision maker cannot obtain. Research that is based
largely on retrospective looks at analyses that have
been done and their uses would be helpful to both
analysts and to decision makers in determining when
formal analyses may be useful, operating under what
criteria, and involving what sort of dialogue between
the analysts and those using their advice.
Such research would inform the committee's belief
that formal analyses can often be useful to decision
makers at various stages of interaction, either by
providing critical information or by helping decision
makers to structure their thinking.
As part of learning how to do better risk analyses,
existing studies could be reviewed, compared, evaluated,
and criticized--and then perhaps redone. Comparisons of
studies within a fairly narrow field could be used to
discover and elucidate valuable features elements to be
included, good methods, etc., versus omissions, pit-
falls, inappropriate methods, etc. Comparisons of rela-
tively good studies across fields could be used to
!
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62
discover, elucidate, and illustrate the common features
as well as the reasons for differences in emphasis,
me goal of studies that redo a risk
method, and so on.
analysis would be to exploit improvements in methods,
better data collection and problem formation, the use of
experts, and the communication of results; the purpose
is to show how improvements can be made by explicitly
building on the partial successes and failures of the
past. me studies that have been done of risk analyses
are often regarded, justifiably or not, as tainted by
adversial biases; that is, they were done by those
unhappy with the conclusions of the original work that
triggered the follow-up study.
It may be useful to expend considerable effort on
analyses of a few specific risks to advance the state of
the art of risk analysis. The purpose is to produce
analyses of such high quality that they become models in
the field. Specific problems should be chosen to illus-
trate various important features of analysis and with a
view toward the transferability of approach, technique,
style, organization, and process. There are now very
few calculations of risk in the open literature and
still fewer with detailed commentaries.
Some of these prototypical analyses might concen-
trate on risk assessments (i.e., on estimating the mag-
nitudes of health, safety, and environmental hazards);
other analyses might concentrate on separating and link-
ing assessment with those evaluations that consider
policy alternatives, value trade-offs, political con-
straints, implementation concerns, and so on; other
analyses might concentrate on cases in which the separa-
tion between assessment and evaluation is inappropriate
or not achievable without crippling distortions. Some
"models" might illustrate the usefulness of simple,
back-of-the-envelope quick analysis, whereas others
might focus on more elaborate time-consuming studies.
At the core of risk assessment and evaluation are
experts--generating facts, expressing judgments, influ-
encing values. As expertise becomes more important in
social decision making, research is needed about what it
is, what its systematic biases are, how it interacts
with other sources of knowledge or opinion (such as
intuition, common sense, adversarial presentation,
etc.), how it is acquired and lost, how experts communi-
cate with lay persons and with other experts, and
whether expertise can be isolated from other ingredients
. .
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of opinion so that others can evaluate those ingredients
separately by the different criteria appropriate to
each.
Some of the ethical issues that arise in coping with
risks, alluded to earlier, include:
.
.
.
Distributional equity with respect to the poten-
tial costs and benefits of policies that gener-
ate or mitigate risks or allow risks to remain
unabated;
Distributional equity between the interests of
people living today and members of future gener-
ations with respect to potential costs and bene-
fits of policies that generate or mitigate risks
or allow risks to remain unabated;
· The imposition of risks that will fall on a
statistically chosen few for the good of many;
Proper balancing between incommensurables like
expenditures and the saving of anonymous lives;
and
· The balance between individual freedom of choice
and social interventions.
Surveys have asked Americans how they feel about such
issues, but the questions usually are vague and ineffec-
tive in probing deep ethical values. Can a better job
be done in understanding how people really feel about
these issues? Can simple questions be devised whose
responses correlate well with the results of deeper,
more probing, more time-consuming studies? A specific
research agenda in thin area might include the compari-
son of the results from standard surveys and in-depth
analysis of the same issue. The outcome may aid in
determining the most efficient and economical methods of
probing the distribution of ethical values in society.
If so, will they lead to a better understanding of the
distribution of ethical values in society through survey
techniques or through studies of small groups of indi-
viduals?
SYNTHESIZING RISK ASSESSMENTS
Separating assessment from evaluation in risk analyses
is difficult but also more commonly done than supposed.
It may be done poorly. Nevertheless, the effort is
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generally made to separate from evaluation those com-
ponents that are a part of risk assessment, such as the
identification of hazards, the review of scientific
theories and facts, and the compilation of experimental
and epidemiological data. Such separation is attempted
because it aids systematic and rational attempts to deal
with complex issues.
The synthesis of a risk assessment into a form that
is coherent and useful to the evaluator and to the
policy maker is, as also noted earlier, invariably more
difficult than the original separation, given the dis-
puted interpretations, conflicting or incomplete data,
and disparate methodologies that typify many assess-
ments. Accordingly, research into understanding and
ameliorating those difficulties is needed.
A clear presentation of indisputable facts dealing
with a given uncertainty or uncertainties might suffice
tor decision and policy purposes. In some specific cir-
cumstance, it may be clear that a given chemical is
severely carcinogenic and that appropriate, inexpensive
substitutes exist; no profound analysis may be necessary
to conclude that the chemical should not be used. In
other circumstances the evidence may indicate clearly
that the chemical has earned an impeccably clean bill of
health. In some circumstances, however, the evidence
may pull in different directions: theory may pull one
way; in vitro tests another way; animal studies of dif-
ferent qualities and credibilities may pull in several
contradictory ways; human controlled experiments may be
sparse and only indirectly relevant; epidemiological
studies may be marred by a host of extraneous complicat-
ing factors that make cause and effect almost impossible
to sort out. In short, there are cases in which the
facts do not speak for themselves. Policy makers may
want to know how the experts interpret the data; they
may want all the theory and data relating to the uncer-
tainties in question to be synthesized in a way that
will be suitable as an input to the policy-evaluation
process.
Statisticians are trained to work with other scien-
tists to tease out the inferential meaning of exneri
mental evidence. ~
structured problems for which there are
. .
~cat r-
There are even textbook cases of well-
formal ways of
combining evidence from different sources. But there
are a host of real problems that plague risk assessors,
for which a reasoned syntheses of the data is extremely
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difficult, even for the most sophisticated statisti-
cian. Synthesis, if it is to be done at all, must
incorporate the judgments of experts who have studied
the empirical facts and who are knowledgeable about the
science involved. The skills of the scientist, the
statistician, and the detective have to be combined--
creatively and artistically. How can this task be done
better? Can the art, if not the science, of synthesis
be taught? At the very least, there is need for docu-
mentation of case studies of good and bad syntheses.
Can people even recognize or agree on good and bad cases
of synthesis?
Considerable research has been done in the area of
eliciting judgments about uncertainties from a single
individual. Some research has been done in statis-
tically validating individual judgments about uncer-
tainties with reality (e.g., how well do meteorologists
or stock ,..arket analysts calibrate over time); some
research has examined how independent judgments from
-
several experts can be combined and how well these
composite assessments calibrate with reality (e.g.,
pooling betting odds of experts on horse races or other
sporting events); some research examines formal itera-
tive techniques that drive experts toward agreement
(e.g., Delphi techniques); a great deal of sociological
research has examined small group behavior. Despite all
this research on component aspects of the problems faced
by risk-assessment committees, there are very few case
studies of committee processes and deliberations that
can be used as appropriate models. There has been
considerable research on the Delphi technique, but the
reviews are mixed at best and few substitutes have
appeared on the scene. The deliberation of experts in
committees is a pervasive issue in risk assessment, and
much more research should be addressed to the process
itself.
In what form, for example, should substantive dis-
agreements among committee members be reported to the
evaluator? How can the significance of such disagree-
ments to the central policy questions be stated?
Should, in fact, an assessment committee consider the
importance of its disagreements to the resolution of
policy issues?
Research also is needed on techniques for separating
assessment from evaluation, both the effectiveness of
current techniques and the development of alternatives.
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Finally, studies are needed of situations in which sepa
ration is impossible or inappropriate. What are the
most effective ways to conduct analyses for which decom-
position is not done? What are examples of such studies
done well? Or done poorly? How can such studies be
structured to derive optimum gain from peer review?
1-
Representative terms from entire chapter:
coping strategies
