By: Dr. Erica Weir
beingwell magazine Winter 2007

Every day we are presented with hundreds of choices to make. Making good decisions requires having all the facts, but that isn’t always possible. Sometimes we need to make a choice based on the best information available at that time. This is what risk communication is all about.

Risk communication involves helping people understand the nature and seriousness of a risk so they can make informed decisions about how to deal with it; such as warning smokers about the dangers of tobacco. Know the risks: make your choice.

More and more, public health practitioners are required to address public concerns about public health risks. Recent examples in Ontario include the concerns about E Coli in spinach and botulism in carrot juice. They prompt the question of whether it is safe to eat spinach or drink carrot juice.

One approach to answering this is to break the risk down into its magnitude and likelihood. Let’s use botulism as an example.

Botulism is a paralytic disease caused by the ingestion of a toxin released by bacterium commonly found in soils and on the produce grown in soil. It poses a risk of high magnitude and low probability in Canada.  

The magnitude of hazard is very high: it causes fatal paralysis and death in about 14 per cent of cases. The likelihood of getting it, however, is very low. Over the past 5 years there have been less than 8 cases a year reported in all of Canada. Considering how wide-spread the bacterium is in soil and how much carrot juice and other root vegetables are consumed in this country without incident, the overall risk to the general population of contracting botulism from drinking carrot juice is very low.

The decision to drink or not drink carrot juice, however, becomes more complex. People’s perception of risk is influenced by factors other than numerical data, magnitude and likelihood. An individual who has been a life-long fan of carrot juice, who values it as an essential source of vitamins and regards the presence of bacterium in soil as a natural condition is likely to be more accepting of the remote risks attached to drinking carrot juice than someone who may be drinking the juice at the bidding of someone else, takes a multivitamin anyway and regards the presence of the spore in the juice as a failing of the food industry.

Effective public health risk communication requires an appreciation of the range of values that underpin perception of risk within a population. As public health professionals, we have the responsibility to offer you the best available information on the public health issues at hand.  And each of us, as individuals, has the responsibility to do our research and understand our own values so that we can make informed decisions about our own health, based on the information offered and the personal values that influence our choices.

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