Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

1994

Publisher

Society for Risk Analysis

Source Publication

Society for Risk Analysis Annual Convention

Abstract

In the spring of 1993, about 39% of Milwaukee-area residents suffered through a nationally publicized illness brought about by cryptosporidium, a parasite that had infested the metropolitan drinking water supply and that, potentially, could do so again in Milwaukee and other communities. Our study, based on a telephone sample survey of 610 local adult residents, examines some factors that seem to influence the public's use of, and reliance on, various communication channels for information about this repeatable hazard in the wake of the outbreak. Analysis indicates that the affective variable of personal worry about becoming ill in the future with cryptosporidiosis relates more strongly to one's media reliance and use for crypto information than do personal experience with the hazard (i.e., having had the disease) or various components of risk perception (i.e., one's personal estimate of risk susceptibility, sense of personal control over susceptibility; or one’s estimate of the likelihood that the problem will recur in the water system). In particular, worry seems to motivate audience members to seek cryptosporidium information actively by enhancing their reliance on mass, interpersonal, and especially specialized media (e g., pamphlets, physicians) and by magnifying their attention to Cryptosporidium information they encounter through routine use of mass media (e.g., newspapers, local television news). Worry, however, appears to be intensified by past personal experience with cryptosporidiosis and, directly or indirectly, by risk perception. Other results indicate that residents might not have much confidence in the preventive measures recommended to keep oneself from contracting the disease or, more probably, in the governmental institutions assigned to monitor the drinking water. Under these circumstances in particular, worry might be expected to intensify the amount of confidence one might want to have in preventive measures to be used in case of a future outbreak, and therefore could motivate non-routine information seeking and deeper attention to mediated cryptosporidium information. The results suggest that Eagly & Chaiken's "Heuristic-Systematic" model of information processing could be expanded and adapted to explorations of risk information seeking and processing by audiences.

Comments

Public Reliance on Risk Communication Channels in the Wake of a Cryptosporidium Outbreak. A paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Society for Risk Analysis. Baltimore MD, 1994. Publisher link.

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