Measuring perceived and acceptable risk: an application of survey approaches

Abstract

A number of different approaches to measuring perceived and acceptable risk have been developed over the past 10 years. This publication describes the pilot testing of three survey techniques each designed to look at different activities involving perceived and acceptable risk. The primary objective was to test the different methods which have been used and to evaluate them according to criteria relevant to practical applications. This part of an ongoing research programme concentrates on the general approach of expressed preferences, where people are questioned directly about their preferences. From this information estimates of perceived and acceptable risk are inferred. Of necessity, the estimates obtained are individual estimates; in order to obtain societal estimates aggregation is required. Three approaches to measuring and analysing perceived and acceptable risk are investigated in this publication: psychometric, and attitude questionnaire approaches, and simple social surveys.