ABSTRACT
Effective risk communication is critical to effective risk management. It establishes public confidence in the ability of an organization to deal with a risk. It is integral to the larger process of information exchange aimed at eliciting trust and promoting understanding. Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of effective risk communication in enabling people to make informed choices and participate in deciding how risks should be managed. Effective risk communication provides people with timely, accurate, clear, objective, consistent and complete risk information. Effective risk communication is based on several models that describe how risk information is processed, how risk perceptions are formed, and how risk decisions are made. A central theme in the risk communication literature is the importance of trust in effective risk communications. The major challenge to effective risk communication are psychological, sociological, and cultural factors that create risk misperceptions and misunderstandings.
