Communicating Risks and Benefits

Effective risk communication is essential to the well-being of any organization and those people who depend on it. Ineffective communication can cost lives, money and reputations.Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User’s Guide provides the scientific foundations for effective communications. The book authoritatively summarizes the relevant research, draws out its implications for communication design, and provides practical ways to evaluate and improve communications for any decision involving risks and benefits. Topics include the communication of quantitative information and warnings, the roles of emotion and the news media, the effects of age and literacy, and tests of how well communications meet the organization’s goals. The guide will help users in any organization, with any budget, to make the science of their communications as sound as the science that they are communicating. Table of Contents Introduction to Evidence-Based Communication Chapter 1: Introduction – (Editors) Chapter 2: Goals – Noel Brewer Chapter 3: Evaluation – Julie Downs Chapter 4: Duty to Inform – Baruch Fischoff Chapter 5: Language –Musa Mayer Evidence-Based Best Guesses at Best Practices Basic Processes Chapter 6: Definitions – Baruch Fischoff Chapter 7: Quantitative Information – Angie Fagerlin, Ellen Peters Chapter 8: Qualitative Information – Julie Downs, Baruch Fischoff Chapter 9: Health Literacy –Michael Wolf Chapter 10: Affect and Emotion – Ellen Peters Chapter 11: Information and Persuasion- Mary Brown, Christine Bruhn Chapter 12: Across the Life Span – Valerie Reyna Chapter 13: Health Care Professionals –Betsy Sleath, Michael Goldstein Communication Design Chapter 14: Readability, Comprehension and Usability- Linda Neuhauser, Kala Paul Chapter 15: Warnings and Disclosures – J. Craig Andrews Chapter 16: Human Factors- Gavin Huntley-Fenner Chapter 17: Shared Decision Making – Nanando Col Chapter 18: News Coverage – Gary Schwitzer Chapter 19: Inside the Organization –Caron Chess Implementing Evidence-Based Communication Chapter 20: Practitioner Perspectives-Lee Zwanziger Chapter 21: An Agency Perspective –Nancy Ostrove Chapter 22: Strategic Planning (Editors)