Evaluating chemical risks: results of a survey of the British Toxicology Society

Abstract

<jats:p> 1 Members of the British Toxicology Society partici pated in a survey to determine their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions regarding risks from chemicals. Similar surveys had previously been conducted with toxicologists and members of the general public in the United States and Canada. Data from 312 completed questionnaires were analyzed. </jats:p><jats:p> 2 In general, the British toxicologists judged risks to be quite low for most hazards, with the exception of cigarette smoking and asbestos. They tended to have quite favorable attitudes toward the use of chemicals and were confident about the adequacy of chemical regulations. </jats:p><jats:p> 3 As in previous studies of toxicologists, women expressed higher perceptions of risk than did men and had consistently stronger anti-chemical attitudes. </jats:p><jats:p> 4 Toxicologists working in industry had more favorable attitudes towards chemicals and their use than did those working in academic settings. </jats:p><jats:p> 5 When asked to evaluate technical summaries of various animal studies there was considerable dis agreement among the respondents about the toxicity of the chemicals involved. </jats:p><jats:p> 6 In general, British toxicologists were equivocal about the reliability of animal studies in predicting human effects (particularly carcinogenicity) probably be cause of the belief that animal studies overestimate risk. However, they were rather confident that human health risks could be assessed reasonably accurately. </jats:p>

The Psychology of risk

“…However, Barke et al, (1997) have found that female physical scientists judge risks from nuclear technologies to be higher than do male physical scientists. Similar results with scientists were obtained by Slovic et al, (1997) who found that female members of the British Toxicological Society were far more likely than male toxicologists to judge societal risks as moderate or high. Certainly the female scientists in these studies cannot be accused of lacking knowledge and technological literacy.…”

Climate change: a profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives

“…Sociopolitical factors, such as gender and employment, have been found to affect the risk perception of scientists, and research has demonstrated that attitudinal differences exist between scientists working in industry and those in academic settings (Slovic et al 1997;Slovic 1999). Key variables for this study included whether climate scientists working for federal agencies had a different perspective than those in a university setting and whether academic training, research orientation, age, or political views affected their views about policy initiatives to reduce GHGs.…”

Pesticide risk valuation in empirical economics: a comparative approach

“…The effect of a number of explanatory factors on risk perception is thus studied: typically, these include socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the involved population, popular attitudes about uncertain events, and concerns about the ongoing risk scenario. [Slovic et al, 1990;Alhakam and Slovic, 1994;Slovic et al,1997;Slovic, 1999;Sjoberg, 1998Sjoberg, , 2000 In our comparative analysis, we looked into differences between studies in the way they model popular risk perception, with the aim of investigating their causality direction with respect to WTPs. This information is captured by the RISKPERC variable (Table 5).…”