Abstract
In studying communities dealing with groundwater contamination, we find that perceptions of the health risk are affected by collective perception of the risk management. Both perception of the risk and perception of the risk management, we find, are shaped by factors in the local context. This paper identifies ten context factors that affect community response and may explain why different communities respond differently. It is suggested that long-range benefits for protection of health and environment could be achieved if these local context factors were taken into account in planning and carrying out risk management.
This paper is part of a series of five related papers entitled “Enhancing Risk Management by Focusing on the Local Level.” Research for this paper was funded by the National Science Foundation — Ethics and Values in Sciences and Technology (RII-8409912). All views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Science Foundation.
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© 1987 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Fitchen, J.M. (1987). The Importance of Community Context in Effective Risk Management. In: Lave, L.B. (eds) Risk Assessment and Management. Advances in Risk Analysis, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6443-7_65
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6443-7_65
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