Abstract
This study investigated public concern about a variety of hazards in Japan. Two thousand two hundred adults were selected from the residents' basic registers using a stratified two-step random sampling method. One thousand three hundred and ninety-three of them rated their concern toward fifty-one kinds of hazards on six-point scales were utilized for their rating. A factor analysis extracted seven factors. A consequent analysis of variance revealed that people were most concerned about hazards that highly loaded on a “global crises of environment” factor, followed by a “major cause of death” hazards. Well-known disasters and accidents were of low concern. The results also revealed that public's concern about hazards reduced when they had guessed the number of deaths by each hazard. Implications and limitations of the present results were discussed.
