Biomedical subjects

T L McDaniels

Publications and source records attributed to T L McDaniels.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Testing a structured decision approach: value-focused thinking for deliberative risk communication.

Public participation is now part of many decision making processes for managing environmental and technical risks. This article describes a test of a strategy to improve the quality of public input by combining themes from risk communication with the prescriptive decision process of value-focused thinking. It was hypothesized that participating in a structured, value-focused risk communication approach would lead people to make more thoughtful, better informed, and hence higher quality decisions by helping them to consider and discuss a wider array of decision-relevant issues and address key value trade-offs. It is also anticipated that utilizing a value-focused decision structure would make participants feel more comfortable with their decisions; more satisfied that their selected alternative reflected their key concerns; and, in the end, more satisfied with their decisions. To test these hypotheses, six groups comprised of 7 to 10 people participated in conventional "alternative-focused" risk communication workshops and eight groups participated in similar "value-focused" workshops. All workshops dealt with the management of risks to riverine salmon habitat from hydroelectric electricity generation. The results provided support for the hypotheses: the value-focused decision structure led to more thoughtful and better informed risk management decisions.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Perception of ecological risk to water environments.

This paper examines lay and expert perceptions of the ecological risks associated with a range of human activities that could adversely affect water resource environments. It employs the psychometric paradigm pioneered in characterizing perceptions of human health risks, which involves surveys to obtain judgments from subjects about risk items in terms of several important characteristics of the risks. The paper builds on a previous study that introduced ecological risk perception. This second study employs a larger, more diverse sample, a more focused topic area, and comparisons between lay and expert judgments. The results confirm that a small set of underlying factors explain a great deal of variability in lay judgments about ecological risks. These have been termed Ecological Impact, Human Benefits, Controllability, and Knowledge. The results are useful in explaining subjects' judgments of the general riskiness of, and need for regulation of, various risk items. The results also indicate several differences and areas of agreement among the lay and expert samples that point to potential key issues in future ecological risk management efforts for water resources.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Risk perception and the value of safety.

This paper examines the relationship between perceived risk and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for increased safety from technological hazards in both conceptual and empirical terms. A conceptual model is developed in which a given household's WTP for risk reductions is a function of traditional socioeconomic variables (i.e., income and base level of risk) and perceived characteristics of the hazards (i.e., dread, knowledge, and exposure). Data to estimate the model are obtained through a combined contingent valuation and risk perception survey that considers 10 technological hazards, five of which are well-defined (e.g., death rates are known and the risks are relatively common) and five are less well-defined. Econometric results, using TOBIT estimation procedures, support the importance of both types of variables in explaining WTP across all 10 hazards. When the risks are split into two groups, the results show that WTP for well-defined hazards is most influenced by perceived personal exposure, while WTP for less well-defined risks is most influenced by levels of dread and severity.

Data Collection↗