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Education

RISK BITES: Why should scientists listen to people who aren’t scientists?

May 20, 2013

Risk Bites is back for another week! In this week’s episode Andrew Maynard talks about the challenges and importance of scientists listening to members of the public as they plan and conduct their research. Listening to people who aren’t experts can be difficult – especially when they don’t know what you know. But when science and technology [...]

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When Risk Communications Are Precise, Accurate and Utterly Meaningless

January 30, 2013

I hope the title of this post got your attention. It’s a statement that seems to violate the fundamental concept of risk communication. How is it possible that risk communications could be accurate yet meaningless? Isn’t the whole point of risk communication to help people to quantify the uncertainty in their lives? Isn’t it better [...]

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Do You Know What Messages Your Patient Stories Are Really Sending?

January 9, 2013

Including patient stories in health education materials and patient decision aids might seem like an obvious choice, for many reasons: They are vivid, engaging readers or viewers with the material. They have inherent credibility when told by people who have “been there.” They can provide useful information about health decisions in less boring ways than [...]

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Announcing Iconarray.com: A Free, Tailorable, and Embeddable Generator of Icon Array Risk Graphics

October 25, 2012

What’s an icon array graphic, you say? Icon arrays (sometimes referred to as “pictographs”) are a type of visual display of risk statistics that use a matrix of icons (usually 100 or 1000) to represent an at-risk population. These displays simultaneously show both the number of expected events (e.g., deaths) and the number of expected [...]

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Open access academics: Experiments with YouTube, the Science of Risk, and Professional Amateurism

October 18, 2012

Cross-posted from 2020 Science YouTube intrigues me. Having been dragged into the YouTube culture by my teenagers over the past two years, I’ve been fascinated by the shift from seemingly banal content to a sophisticated social medium. But what has really grabbed my attention is the growth of YouTube as a unique and powerful platform [...]

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Lead Paint Renovation Risks Part II: Expert Advice

August 3, 2012

This week I’m following up on my blog post weighing the health risks of lead paint renovation.  Thank you to those of you who have provided feedback on my previous post.  Here’s the expert advice I’ve received from Dr. Niladri Basu, RSC Member and Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, and Tracey Easthope, Environmental Health [...]

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Noise: it’s everywhere you want to be (Especially if you live in New York City)

July 30, 2012

Last week, the New York Times ran several articles on noise in New York City.  This is a somewhat momentous occasion for several reasons.  First, although noise is one of the most commonly cited neighborhood nuisances in America, it almost never makes the news.

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Chlorpyrifos in the Spotlight: Usage, Exposure Routes, and Controversy

June 28, 2012

The following post is by Gamola Fortenberry, one of our 2012 Risk Science Fellows, Gamola has an MPH in Environmental Quality and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Health Science. You can read more about her research project here In the U.S., pesticide expenditures in 2007 accounted for 32% of the world’s [...]

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Web 2.0 Means Public Health Can Join the Online Vaccination Discussions… or Risk Being Ignored

May 29, 2012

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post here about the role of stories in vaccination decisions. It was the product of a small group research conference I attended in Erfurt, Germany that brought together a small but diverse group of researchers interested in the interplay between the evolving Internet and patients’ and parents’ [...]

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Risk Science Unplugged: Risk Rage Transcript

November 29, 2011

Earlier this month, the Risk Science Center had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Craig Cormick (who wrote or most recent guest blog on Issues in Public Engagement on Nanotechnology) for our Risk Science Unplugged series, which focuses on engaging leading experts in conversation on key issues that have evolved at the intersection between risk and [...]

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Thinking differently about Risk, Innovation and Sustainability – David Zaruk, September 21, 2011

November 10, 2011

A key focus of the Risk Science Symposium this past September was examining at the concepts and fields of risk, innovation and sustainability.  In our quest to consider them from as many view points as possible, we had the pleasure of having David Zaruk, who writes a blog called The Risk Monger, present a keynote [...]

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Opening Comments Day 2 – David Munson, September 21,2011

November 4, 2011

Day two of last month’s 2011 Risk Science Symposium opened with a brilliant talk  by David Munson, Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering here at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, on the role of Universities in innovation and sustainability. Below is the transcript of his remarks David Munson. Opening Comments – Day 2. [...]

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Innovate or Perish – Ford’s Director of Sustainability on innovation and sustainability

October 31, 2011

Last month, John Viera – Ford Motor Co.’s Director of Sustainability – kicked off the 2011 Risk Science Symposium with a great presentation on why innovation and sustainability are critical to the economic and social growth of the 21st century.  This is the transcript of that talk. Innovate or Perish Why Innovation and Sustainability are [...]

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Governing Novel Technologies – James Wilsdon, September 21, 20011

October 27, 2011

One of this year’s Risk Science Symposium highlights was James Wilsdon’s keynote speech on the UK’s approach to governing novel technologies. Dr. Wilsdon is Director of the Science Policy Center at the Royal Society. The transcript of his talk is below. James Wilsdon. Governing novel technologies – a UK Perspective. 2011 Risk Symposium from UM [...]

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Risk Perception ‘Fallout’ from Tokyo’s Radiation Hotspots

October 15, 2011

Today’s New York Times includes a report that citizens groups in and around Tokyo have been performing radiation testing separate from government efforts. Of concern, these groups are finding hot spots of radiation, including several spots with levels of radioactive cesium comparable to those observed in areas near the Chernobyl reactor in Russia. There is [...]

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Public Health Fairytales

October 5, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I gave my students an exercise in designing a poster presentation.  Rather than focus on the usual stuff of readability, use of logical sections, figures etc, I wanted to start off with narrative, and how you use it to convey your ideas to your audience effectively – telling stories through [...]

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Recommended Reading: FDA Publishes Evidence-Based User's Guide to Risk and Benefit Communication

August 16, 2011

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a new report titled Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User’s Guide, edited by Baruch Fischhoff, Noel Brewer, and Julie Downs. The report is freely downloadable in PDF format. I haven’t had a chance to read it in detail (yet), and I’m sure it will be [...]

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Misunderstanding Momentum in Risk: The Climate Doesn't Stop Warming on the Proverbial Dime

August 12, 2011

Every fall, I teach a graduate seminar in risk communication at the University of Michigan. I’ve been revising the class reading list over the summer, both to add newer material but also to remind myself of the key messages I try to communicate. One of these key messages comes up most cleanly in the class [...]

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John Berry Shares About His Summer Internship At ChemRisk

July 14, 2011

Students at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health complete an internship in the summer between their first and second years in the program.  Students travel far and wide to work on some of the most important issues in public health today.  A few months ago we asked students working in areas related to human health [...]

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Presenting Risky Choices in Small Doses Makes For Better Decisions

April 21, 2011

One of the most difficult lessons I try to teach the students in my health communication course is that providing less information can often be more effective than trying to be “comprehensive.” This fact is I think clearly shown in a paper that I wrote with Professor Peter Ubel and post-doctoral fellow Andrea Angott of [...]

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