Temporal stability and changes in risk perception rankings of hazardous activities and technologies

AbstractResearchers have extensively studied risk perceptions of hazardous activities and technologies to better understand how to analyze risk to inform and improve risk communications and risk management policy-making in various facets of society. Despite the existence of such studies, there is limited research on how stable or different risk perceptions of various activities and technologies are across time. A better understanding of the temporal aspect of risk perceptions can lead to more effective policy responses by ensuring that policies based on risk perceptions continuously reflect current public risk perceptions. Hence, the purpose of this descriptive study is to explore the question: ‘How stable or different are risk perceptions of hazardous activities and technologies over time?’ To answer this question, this study compares the risk rankings for 29 hazardous activities (e.g. smoking cigarettes) and technologies (e.g. driving a motor vehicle) from a risk perception survey of 2008 U.S. employees...