Effective communication of information about chemical hazards

Given that the best available means have been used to assess the risks arising from a chemical process or product, it is a crucial aspect of management to inform the employees and the public. This task of communicating may fall to industry, government, regulating authority, professional association or an environmental protection group. It requires some understanding of the public's perceptions of the risks involved and an ethical duty to try to modify attitudes judged to be either over-anxious or complacent. There is as yet no structured knowledge on communication about chemical hazards as such. Also, circumstances vary enormously. Hence, this paper deploys the general analytic framework constructed within social psychology and reviews the extensive experimental research (and some field studies) with the aim of providing understanding and some guidance. It considers the basic modelling of attitude change as induced by printed or verbal communications. The variables influencing the effectiveness of communications are divided into: the source (e.g. his/her credibility, power or attractiveness); the message (e.g. emotional versus logical; one-sided versus both-sided arguments); and modality or media effects (e.g. spoken versus written; the mass media; campaigns).