Risk Perception of Unwanted Incidents: Comparison of How Lay People and Experts Evaluate Societal Risk

This study explores the connection between lay people's risk perception and experts' risk assessment. To study this, a sample of 562 citizens were asked how worried they are about unwanted incidents identified through the municipality's risk and vulnerability analysis, in addition to interviewing key personnel in risk management in the municipality. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were thus performed. The results show that the citizens have the same perception of risk as that of the risk managers in the municipality. The citizens thus have a satisfactory risk picture of society. More information causes citizens to become more worried, while not having received information leads them to state that they are less concerned about the unwanted incidents. Nevertheless, the municipality does not have knowledge of the citizens' perception of risk, which indicating that they do not practice a two-way risk communication process.

Keywords: Risk perception, Unwanted incidents, Lay people, Experts, Risk communication.