The forms of risk communication in Japan changed drastically after the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. While the pre-Earthquake risk communication was based on the myth of zero-risk, the post-Earthquake risk communication has required a much higher level of fair and open information, which is now the main current of this field. At the same time, other theoretical and practical problems have recently been founded. Those problems include (1)the philosophy and value system underlying risk communication, (2)the causal relation between risk communication and credibility, (3)whether the citizen really wants risk information or not, (4)whether citizen’s risk perception is emotional or not, (5)the organizational climate as a factor in successful risk communication, (6)misunderstanding of the meaning of precautionary principle, (7)the skill of the risk communicator, (8)the importance of wording in risk communication, (9)how to construct good relations between risk agent and mass media , etc. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the notion of risk communication with the macro view (in both time and space), which used to be based on the idea of a one-shot and local solution to future disasters.

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The concept of risk communication is becoming very common in Japan. The concept has been applied to various fields, for instance, chemical engineering industries, nuclear industries, medical radiation exposure to patients, and transmission lines EMF exposure to the public. In this paper, some difficulties in making a risk communication with the members of public are introduced in these fields. The most troublesome is that resident people is totally indifferent to relevant risk to chemicals and nuclear in normal operation. As another difficulties, it turned out that patients are very concerned about medical radiation risk after finding no problems in health using diagnostic radiation and many electric engineers on site are hard to educate as EMF risk communicators.

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Risk assessment of technologies and social activities involves subjective judgment as one of its components, which depends on the perception of risk by individuals. In the present study, we undertook a survey of public perceptions regarding the social issues and risks, the images of radiation, and acceptance of its application and health risk.
The majority identified global warming as highly risky among social issues related to technology, and smoking among health-damaging issues, but not radiation-related items such as natural radiation, artificial radiation, and X-ray/CT examinations. In general, a sexual distinction was observed regarding perceptions of sick house and food safety. Forty percent of the public inaccurately believed that the main source of daily exposure was nuclear facilities. Many citizens associated the word of radiation with medical exposure, death/damage/disease and nuclear weapon including A.bomb, and connected the health effects of radiation with cancer and leukemia. However, majority did not bring up any image from the terms of “radiation” and “health effects of radiation”

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This paper empirically investigates the influence of the ambiguity on the decision to buy hypothetical earthquake insurance and the relationship with individual characteristics based on MEU model. For that purpose, we develop the econometric model consistent with theoretical model derived from axioms. The main results of this paper are summarized as follows. First, respondent's preferences to the insurance with 1, 5, and 10% adjust risk are generally inconsistent with expected utility theory. Second, respondents demanded more than 10% reductions in premium to offset each adjust risk. Third, the ambiguity premium is larger in men who purchase earthquake insurance, have never received insurance payment, and distrust insurance companies than each correspondents, and increases with age, education level.

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This study examines the information effect on easing consumer’s fears for BSE, assuming that the fears come from their distrust of risk management. The distrust can be defined in following two ways. One is the distrust of the ability to reduce BSE risk, and the other is the distrust of management’s thoroughness. To mitigate these distrusts, I conducted a questionnaire survey and empirically offered some information. For example, for the former distrust, I offered the information on BSE risk level and risk reduction effect of SRM removal, i.e. risk assessment information. For the latter distrust, I offered the information on the current system of securing the thoroughness of SRM removal. The main results from this model analysis are following two points. i) The risk assessment information had an effect on easing fear to approximately 60% of respondents. ii) On the other hand, there were only 23.9% respondents whose fear was eased by the current system of securing the thoroughness of SRM removal. Therefore, further expansion of the system may be necessary to calm consumers’ fear significantly.

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We analyze how social characteristics influence people’s change in behavior regarding environmental risks. In Bangladesh, 35 million people drink arsenic contaminated groundwater. These people need to change their drinking water sources to avoid arsenic-related problems.
We used a questionnaire survey to interview 400 households. More than 90% of the respondents had already acquired basic knowledge of arsenic problems, and most recognized that the use of safe drinking water was important. However, though 51% (204) households changed their drinking water sources to safe ones, 48% (191) still drank contaminated water.
The number of people who changed their water sources was related to the number of arsenic-free water sources. Knowledge of the issue alone cannot change people’s behavior; here, the use of safe water was related to the particular social conditions of communities.

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This paper examines the extent of and the reasons for the difference in risk perceptions toward nuclear power generation and genetically modified foods between the general public and experts. Questionnaire surveys were conducted for the general public, biotechnology experts, nuclear power experts, and employees of electric power companies. With respect to genetically modified foods, biotechnology experts harbored the lowest risk perception, while the general public and employees had the highest risk perception. On the other hand, nuclear experts and employees had lower risk perceptions toward nuclear power generation than did the general public and biotechnology experts. This paper shows that such differences in risk perception are related to differences in knowledge, information sources and contents, general attitudes toward science and technology, and important viewpoints that are factored while evaluating the value of a contentious technology.

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