Biomedical subjects

Katherine A McComas

Publications and source records attributed to Katherine A McComas.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Defining moments in risk communication research: 1996-2005.

Ten years ago, scholars suggested that risk communication was embarking on a new phase that would give increased attention to the social contexts that surround and encroach on public responses to risk information. A decade later, many researchers have answered the call, with several defining studies examining the social and psychological influences on risk communication. This article reviews risk communication research appearing in the published literature since 1996. Among studies, social trust, the social amplification of risk framework, and the affect heuristic figured prominently. Also common were studies examining the influence of risk in the mass media. Among these were content analyses of media coverage of risk, as well as investigations of possible effects resulting from coverage. The use of mental models was a dominant method for developing risk message content. Other studies examined the use of risk comparisons, narratives, and visuals in the production of risk messages. Research also examined how providing information about a risk's severity, social norms, and efficacy influenced communication behaviors and intentions to follow risk reduction measures. Methods for conducting public outreach in health risk communication rounded out the literature.

Communication↗

PubMed2003

The function of credibility in information processing for risk perception.

This study examines how credibility affects the way people process information and how they subsequently perceive risk. Three conceptual areas are brought together in this analysis: the psychometric model of risk perception, Eagly and Chaiken's heuristic-systematic information processing model, and Meyer's credibility index. Data come from a study of risk communication in the circumstance of state health department investigations of suspected cancer clusters (five cases, N = 696). Credibility is assessed for three information sources: state health departments, citizen groups, and industries involved in each case. Higher credibility for industry and the state directly predicts lower risk perception, whereas high credibility for citizen groups predicts greater risk perception. A path model shows that perceiving high credibility for industry and state-and perceiving low credibility for citizen groups-promotes heuristic processing, which in turn is a strong predictor of lower risk perception. Alternately, perceiving industry and the state to have low credibility also promotes greater systematic processing, which consistently leads to perception of greater risk. Between a one-fifth and one-third of the effect of credibility on risk perception is shown to be indirectly transmitted through information processing.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2003

Public meetings and risk amplification: a longitudinal study.

This article offers longitudinal data tracking people who did and did not attend a series of public meetings in an upstate New York rural community grappling with the expansion of an existing solid waste landfill and remediation of an adjacent inactive hazardous waste site. Before and after the public meetings, mailed questionnaires measured risk perceptions and perceived credibility of risk managers (here, the state government agencies and the responsible industry) conducting the meetings. Respondents at each measurement point included meeting attendees and nonattendees, with some fluctuation over time when attendees at one measurement point were nonattendees at the next and vice versa. The results from the first survey indicate that following the first two public meetings, attendees perceived greater risks from the waste sites than did nonattendees; attendees also perceived the risk managers as less credible. After the third public meeting, the results showed that attendees' risk perceptions remained steady; however, perceptions of government agency credibility significantly decreased. After the fourth public meeting, the survey found that attendees' risk perceptions were again not significantly different, whereas perceptions of government agency credibility increased significantly. The industry's credibility also increased, though only among attendees who had attended the most recent public meeting, not among attendees who had attended both the third and fourth public meetings. For nonattendees, risk perceptions and credibility ratings did not change. The discussion examines how distinctive characteristics of communication at each public meeting may have resulted in different effects and proposes hypotheses for future research.

Journal Article↗