Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Assessment of Social Transmission of Food Preferences Behaviors
Published on: January 25, 2018
Tolerance for environmental health risks: the influence of knowledge, benefits, voluntariness, and environmental
Abstract:
This study examined factors affecting risk estimates and tolerance among persons directly exposed to environmental health risks. Data were gathered from questionnaires distributed at public hearings regarding proposed air pollution standards for an arsenic emitting copper smelter located in Tacoma, Washington. Approximately 80% of the area residents who attended the hearings completed the questionnaires, and the responses of 347 subjects were analyzed. Results indicated that informal risk estimates and risk tolerance were closely associated with judged benefits of the hazard source, acceptance or denial of vulnerability, judgments of exposure voluntariness, and environmental attitudes. Neither factual knowledge of formal risk estimates and proposed standards nor residential distance from the smelter was found to be closely related to risk tolerance or informal risk estimates. Implications of the results are discussed in relation to past and future studies of reactions to risk, and in relation to risk management policy and practice.
Related Concept Videos
Obedience
Dimensions of Health and Illness
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention II
The agent-host-environment model states that disease results from...
Ethics and Bioethics
Types of Toxins
Air pollutants, primarily gases, pose significant threats to respiratory health, leading to conditions like hypoxia, lung cancer, and in extreme cases, death.
Environmental pollutants like...

