Peter M. Sandman website update

January 30: Risk = Hazard + Outrage: A Formula for Effective Risk Communication

Produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 1991

This 111-minute video sold briskly for more than 20 years until the American Industrial Hygiene Association stopped distributing it in January 2012. Now it’s available for free on Vimeo (video) and on this site (audio). Unlike many of my videos, this one was professionally produced in a studio, with multiple cameras and an actual set. Although my standard spiel has changed some since 1991, everything here is still true and still useful. The video is especially valuable for its detailed discussion of the 12 principal outrage components and how to deal with them. These days I talk more about generic outrage management strategies, and less about these component-specific strategies. (Note that I am using the original files from the AIHA DVD; some of the “parts” begin and end arbitrarily.)

January 29: Crisis Communication: Guidelines for Action

by Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard
Produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 2004

This 166-minute video, produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association in 2004, covers 25 crisis communication recommendations, focusing chiefly on the most difficult messaging challenges that even experienced crisis communicators may get wrong. AIHA stopped distributing the video in January 2012, so now it᾿s available for free on Vimeo (video) and on this site (audio). Unlike many of my videos, this one was professionally produced in a studio, with multiple cameras and an actual set – and it features not just me but also my wife and colleague Jody Lanard. Although some of the examples may be dated – there᾿s a lot of SARS and bird flu throughout the video – the recommendations themselves haven᾿t changed. A complete set of handouts to accompany this video is available on my website.

January 19: Bird flu risk perception: bioterrorist attack, lab accident, natural pandemic

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January 18: Getting health professionals to take blood-borne disease transmission seriously

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January 17: Flu Vaccination of Healthcare Workers: Two Risk Communication Issues

by Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard
Comments on draft recommendations of the Healthcare Personnel Influenza Vaccination Subgroup, National Vaccine Program Office, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, submitted January 14, 2012

The public health establishment in the U.S. is pushing hard for mandatory flu vaccination of healthcare workers (HCWs), chiefly on the grounds that vaccinated HCWs are less likely to give patients the flu. A committee of the National Vaccine Program Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued draft recommendations that included mandatory vaccination if organizations fail to vaccinate at least 90% of HCWs voluntarily. Comments on the draft were solicited, so on January 14, 2012 my wife and colleague Jody Lanard and I submitted some. We focused on two risk communication issues: the dangers of overstating flu vaccination benefits, and the dangers of requiring reluctant HCWs to get vaccinated.

December 31 (audio file): Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Risk Communication Briefing for IT Security Professionals

Presented at the Oracle Chief Security Officer Summit, San Francisco CA, October 4, 2011

Some Oracle people had heard me speak at a conference on financial information security (for bank IT people, mostly), and asked me to do something similar for its 2011 annual IT security “summit.” The presentation does give occasional IT examples, but mostly it’s an introduction to the basics of risk communication – especially the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three main risk communication paradigms (precaution advocacy, crisis communication, and outrage management). As usual, audience interest focused mostly on outrage management – especially how to calm stakeholders after a breach that turned out minor. They were less interested in how to arouse stakeholder concern about the possibility of a serious breach, a precaution advocacy issue – though arousing CEO concern had some appeal.

December 17: Validating the adjustment reaction: "Of course you're upset...."

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December 17: Finding a Ph.D. research topic that tests one of my risk communication "principles"

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December 8: Over-Reassuring Thai Crisis Communication about the Great Flood: When "Restoring Trust" Is Too Much to Expect

by Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman

The flooding that began in northern Thailand in late July 2011 has been Thailand’s worst flood in at least five decades. This column assesses the Thai government’s crisis communication at the height of the flood, especially its tendency to over-reassure. The column puts this performance into context by reviewing other examples of Thai over-reassurance from our files, and speculates on whether and why over-reassuring the public during emergencies might be more characteristic of Thai crisis communication than of crisis communication in other countries. A final section addresses how the Thai government (or any government or company) might begin to dig itself out from such a history – that is, what to do when your audience has learned to expect dishonest over-reassurance from you.

December 5: Our reply to the the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) response to our August 14 column "Explaining and Proclaiming Uncertainty: Risk Communication Lessons from Germany's Deadly E. coli Outbreak"

by Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard
On August 14, 2011, Jody Lanard and I posted a column entitled “Explaining and Proclaiming Uncertainty: Risk Communication Lessons from Germany’s Deadly E. coli Outbreak.” One of the agencies whose handling of the outbreak we discussed was Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). On November 24, 2011, we received a response from BfR President Andreas Hensel to some aspects of the column. This is our reply to that response. Links to our original column and the BfR’s response to that column can be found at the bottom of that page.

December 5: The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) response to our August 14 column "Explaining and Proclaiming Uncertainty: Risk Communication Lessons from Germany's Deadly E. coli Outbreak"

by Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel
On August 14, 2011, Jody Lanard and I posted a column entitled “Explaining and Proclaiming Uncertainty: Risk Communication Lessons from Germany’s Deadly E. coli Outbreak.” One of the agencies whose handling of the outbreak we discussed was Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). On November 24, 2011, we received a response from BfR President Andreas Hensel to some aspects of the column. This is the BfR response. Links to our original column and our reply to the BfR’s response can be found at the bottom of that page.

November 8: Occupy Wall Street messaging &150; and Wall Street responsiveness

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