Absolute and comparative risk assessments: evidence for the utility of incorporating internal comparisons into models of risk perception

Dimensional and social comparisons in a health fitness context

Whereas prior research has found that people are influenced by both internal (e.g., dimensional) and external (e.g., social) comparative information in academic contexts, we experimentally examined the influence of such comparisons in a health fitness context. Participants engaged in "physical and mental fitness" tasks (e.g., performing sit-ups, memorizing words) and were randomly assigned to receive (1) social comparative feedback indicating their physical or mental fitness was better or worse than their peers or (2) dimensional comparative feedback indicating their performance in a target domain (e.g., mental fitness) was better or worse than a referent domain (e.g., physical fitness). Results showed that participants who made upward comparisons had lower fitness self-evaluations and more negative (less positive) emotional reactions to the feedback for the target domain, with the effect being nominally stronger for social than dimensional comparisons and for mental than physical fitness. Findings are discussed in the context of comparison-based models and health behavior theories.

Which measures of perceived vulnerability predict protective intentions-and when?

Assessing perceived vulnerability to a health threat is essential to understanding how people conceptualize their risk, and to predicting how likely they are to engage in protective behaviors. However, there is limited consensus about which of many measures of perceived vulnerability predict behavior best. We tested whether the ability of different measures to predict protective intentions varies as a function of the type of information people learn about their risk. Online participants (N = 909) read information about a novel respiratory disease before answering measures of perceived vulnerability and vaccination intentions. Type-of-risk information was varied across three between-participant groups. Participants learned either: (1) only information about their comparative standing on the primary risk factors (comparative-only), (2) their comparative standing as well as the base-rate of the disease in the population (+ base-rate), or (3) their comparative standing as well as more specific estimates of their absolute risk (+ absolute-chart). Experiential and affective measures of perceived vulnerability predicted protective intentions well regardless of how participants learned about their risk, while the predictive ability of deliberative numeric and comparative measures varied based on the type of risk information provided. These results broaden the generalizability of key prior findings (i.e., some prior findings about which measures predict best may apply no matter how people learn about their risk), but the results also reveal boundary conditions and critical points of distinction for determining how to best assess perceived vulnerability.

The characteristics of occupational tuberculosis risk in healthcare workers

BACKGROUND

Tuberculosis (TB) remains to be one of the most common causes of morbidity worldwide, but the discourse of its prevention has disproportionately singled out the occupational risks that affect healthcare workers. In this research, we aimed to: (1) investigate the underlying factor structure of Risk Characteristics (RC), specifically the risk of nosocomial TB transmission in health care facilities; (2) estimate the effects of work-related determinants and RC on risk perception; and (3) compare occupational risk perception of contracting TB with expert risk assessment.

METHOD

A paper-based questionnaire was administered to 179 health care workers (HCWs) working at 10 public health centres and two hospitals in Surabaya, Indonesia. We analysed our data using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to unravel the latent structure of RC and structural equation modelling (SEM) to identify determinants of risk perceptions.

RESULTS

EFA revealed a two-factor solution for nine qualitative RC: controllability of damage and knowledge-evoked dread. Our SEM analysis found evidence that the controllability aspect of the TB risk was a more profound determinant in predicting risk perception than knowledge-evoked dread, implying that HCWs might benefit from training aims to increase their beliefs on the controllability of TB risk despite its severity.

CONCLUSION

Although further research is necessary, our study highlights the importance of addressing occupational risk perceptions in health facilities, encouraging HCWs to become more active in advocating for the necessary allocation of resources for their workplaces, and raising communities' awareness of TB transmissions.