[Risk as a concept and challenge in health care]

There has been an epidemic in the use of the word risk since the 1960s. This has happened at a time when the focus of medicine is turning from the diseased to the healthy part of the population. The meaning of the word has changed in the course of this century. As a tool for legitimizing medical interventions in the healthy, it currently serves an important ideological function in the battle for public health. Risk assessment is not a question of knowledge versus belief, as illustrated by present controversies within the medical community. Early conceptions of information on risk as sufficient motive for changing behaviour seem naive in the light of psychological research. Better communication is possible through improved techniques, but these techniques do not, however, provide the answers to what is the best way to deal with the risks. Knowing about risk is not always beneficial, it may also lead to illness. Excessive diagnostics and treatment are other questionable effects. The primary negative focus of risk also raises the question of whether risk represents a blind alley on the road to health.