The DOI matches its Crossref record; 6 of the 6 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Risk and Uncertainty Communication
Abstract
This review briefly examines the vast range of techniques used to communicate risk assessments arising from statistical analysis. After discussing essential psychological and sociological issues, I focus on individual health risks and relevant research on communicating numbers, verbal expressions, graphics, and conveying deeper uncertainty. I then consider practice in a selection of diverse case studies, including gambling, the benefits and risks of pharmaceuticals, weather forecasting, natural hazards, climate change, environmental exposures, security and intelligence, industrial reliability, and catastrophic national and global risks. There are some tentative final conclusions, but the primary message is to acknowledge expert guidance, be clear about objectives, and work closely with intended audiences.
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“research shows that humans in general suffer from a variety of cognitive biases, some of which hinder our understanding of uncertainty [60,107,115].”
From Uncertainty as a Form of Transparency: Measuring, Communicating, and Using Uncertainty (2021) · cites this paper as [115]
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Using Behavioral Science to help fight the Coronavirus
Lunn, P., Belton, C. A., Lavin, C., McGowan, F., Timmons, S., & Robertson, D. A. (2020) · Journal of Behavioral Public Administration · doi:10.30636/jbpa.31.147 · Cited by 316
Presenting machine learning model information to clinical end users with model facts labels
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Uncertainty as a Form of Transparency: Measuring, Communicating, and Using Uncertainty
Bhatt, U., Antorán, J., Zhang, Y., Liao, Q. V., Sattigeri, P., Fogliato, R., Melançon, G., Krishnan, R., Stanley, J., Tickoo, O., et al. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society · doi:10.1145/3461702.3462571 · Cited by 300
Towards operational predictions of the near-term climate
Kushnir, Y., Scaife, A. A., Arritt, R., Balsamo, G., Boer, G., Doblas-Reyes, F., Hawkins, E., Kimoto, M., Kolli, R., Kumar, A., et al. (2019) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0359-7 · Cited by 168
Guidance on Communication of Uncertainty in Scientific Assessments
Hart, A., Maxim, L., Siegrist, M., von Goetz, N., da Cruz, C., Merten, C., Mosbach-Schulz, O., Lahaniatis, M., Smith, A., & Hardy, A. (2019) · EFSA journal. European Food Safety Authority · doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2019.5520 · Cited by 134
“• Online versions of communication documents could provide links between probability terms and optional graphic displays related to the sources of uncertainty and to uncertainty scales (Spiegelhalter et al., 2011; Spiegelhalter, 2017).”
BackgroundMethodInfluential
Metadata
- Authors
- Spiegelhalter, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Spiegelhalter, David
- ORCID
- Spiegelhalter, David
- Venue
- Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2017-03-07
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 31-60
- ISSN
- 2326-8298 (ISSN-L)
- 2326-831X
- OpenAlex
- W2529483981
- Cited by
- 248
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 16
- FWCI
- 4.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Keywords
- risk communication, uncertainty communication, risk assessment, health risks, gambling, weather forecasting, natural hazards, climate change, environmental exposure, production reliability, catastrophic risk, expert guidance, audience understanding
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