SafetyInsights.org

Really interesting pod with Prof Terje Aven discussing risk science.

Some extracts:

·        “there is often a difference between experts’ risk judgments and people’s risk perception. But this difference can be explained also by the fact that people’s judgments could incorporate aspects of uncertainty not covered by the experts’ risk perspectives”

·    “Experts often restrict their assessment to probabilities, expected values and historical data and do not cover all relevant aspects of risk”

·     “restricting risk to probabilities, expected values and historical data is problematic”

·    Moreover “uncertainty should be a main component of risk, and hence people’s risk judgments or perceptions could reflect risk better than the expert’s judgment in some cases”

·    On whether “Risk is a social construction”, for Aven this isn’t controversial if “risk is interpreted as the risk assessment results, the risk characterization results”

·    “The risk measurements etc. … is not objective. For example, when saying that the likelihood for this event to occur, leading to severe consequences … And the knowledge supporting this likelihood judgment is strong. This is a judgment made by the risk analyst. It is subjective or intersubjective”

·    Aven argues that “social sciences have deeply altered our understanding of what risk means, from something real and physical, if hard to measure, and accessible only to experts, to something constructed out of history and experienced by experts and laypeople alike”

·    “Risk in this sense is culturally embedded and has texture and meaning that vary from one social grouping to another. Trying to assess risk is therefore necessarily a social and political exercise, even when the methods employed are the seemingly technical routines of quantitative risk assessment”

·    Hence, “risk assessments and related characterizations are social constructions, but that is not the same as saying that risk as a concept is a social construction”

·    Some see risk as an event, and from that perspective “risk is not to be seen as a social construction at all. It is objective to some extent”

·    “But when we come to the measurement and characterization of the magnitude of this risk, we perform a risk assessment. The result is to be seen as a social construction”

·    For quantification, “We assess risk, but risk does not need to be quantified to be informative”

·    But quantification can be useful. E.g. in aviation “we can conclude that it is safe to fly as the probability of undesirable consequences is low and the supporting knowledge strong”

·    And regarding the strength of knowledge and degree of uncertainty surrounding judgements, “We need to conclude that the data are relevant and that the evidence supporting the probability judgments is strong”

·    “The key message, qualitative judgments always accompany the quantification”

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