We Need Better Risk Communication to Combat the Coronavirus

Pictures of crowded bars and restaurants could lead one to conclude that people are terrible at understanding risk. After everything we’ve been confronted with over the last six months — images of overflowing hospitals, dozens of stories in newspapers of young healthy people who either died or came near death from COVID-19 — it’s easy to throw up one’s hands, feeling that the majority simply aren’t capable of making good decisions about risk.

It is true that managing health risk is difficult. A new danger sows fear and uncertainty, and it has been generations since most Americans have experienced a public-health crisis (the AIDS epidemic a notable exception). We must also grapple with what economists call externalities: Risk assessment involves estimating not only the likelihood that you will get infected, but also the likelihood that you will infect loved ones or others in your community.

Yet evidence suggests people can make good decisions about risk. Acting with incomplete information is part of everyday life. There is only one requirement: To make good decisions, we need information to be conveyed in a way that aligns with how we naturally experience and think about risk.

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Πηγή: nationalreview.com