Involuntary Risks

Starr, 1969 approached this by investigating the "revealed preferences exhibited in society ls the result of trial and error. (Similar to the "efficient market theory" in the stock market.) Stan-conjectured that the risk of death from disease appears to determine a level of acceptable voluntary risk but that society requires a much lower level for involuntary risk. He noted that individuals seem to accept a much higher risk (by about 1000 times) if it is voluntary, e.g., sky-diving or mountain climbing, than if it is imposed, such as electric power or commercial air travel, by a correlating with the perceived benefit. From this study, a "law" of acceptable risk was found concluding that risk acceptability is proportional cube of the benefits. Figure 1.4.4-1 from Starr, 1972 shows these relationships. One aspect of revealed preferences is that these preferences do not necessarily remain constant (Starr et al., 1976). In Starr et al., 1976, it is shown that while nuclear power has the least risk of those activities compared, it also has the least perceived benefit. Clearly the public thinks that... 

Economic, liability, public image, and opinion considerations are involved. Catastrophic hazards are less acceptable than smaller ones even if the absolute risk is identical. Voluntary risks are a way of life for most people, but there is minimal tolerance for involuntary risks, particularly if they are unknown or not understood. 

Table 1-4 lists the FARs for various common activities. The table is divided into voluntary and involuntary risks. Based on these data, it appears that individuals are willing to take a substantially greater risk if it is voluntary. It is also evident that many common everyday activities are substantially more dangerous than working in a chemical plant. 

The 1986 accident at Chernobyl, in which dozens of people died and thousands more were exposed to radiation that might lead to cancer in the future, caused fear and outrage worldwide and led some people to call for the closing of all nuclear plants. Yet many people choose to smoke cigarettes in spite of the fact that 2 million people die every year from smoking-related diseases. The risks posed by nuclear power plants are involuntary, risks we must all share like it or not,... 

Risk communicators should be aware that risks that people can choose to avoid (e.g., skiing) give a sense of control and that risks that are familiar (e.g., Salmonella from potato salad or disease from smoking) or have been around a long time (e.g., food-borne disease) are easily tolerated and often minimized. Risks that are poorly tolerated are involuntary risks, such as exposure to small amounts of pesticide residues in food and those risks that have unknown effects (e.g., biotechnology-produced tomatoes) or long-delayed effects (which are possible with prion exposure). 

A significant aspect of the responses to chemical events concerns when and how the event is communicated to local officials and the local public. While much of the focus of post-event response is necessarily on the requirements of the formal regulatory process, interactions with the affected local officials and public have important implications as well. From the perspectives of the public and their officials, chemical events are largely involuntary risks that are potentially catastrophic and of technological origin. These characteristics render chemical events and incidents subject to substantial social amplification in which the characteristics of the events interact with individuals perceptions of the risk associated with them and the pattern of communication with the public and their response to both the event and the communication (Kasperson, 1992 Kasperson et al., 1988). 

Voluntary Aspects. People voluntarily accept some risks, such as driving a car, and have others imposed upon them, such as water pollution. The line between voluntary and involuntary risks is often hard to define and is frequently determined by availabilty of resources and social practices, e.g., if one has a filter, one could drink only filtered water. In general, the American public, probably reflecting our individualistic biases, is more tolerant of voluntary risks (8). Americans do not readily accept their government to be the arbiter of personal risk, demonstrated by the brouhaha that developed over governmental attempts to mandate use of seat belts and motorcycle helmets (9). (For a good discussion of the broader concept of risk and consent, see 10). Much more acceptable appears to be government efforts to protect the public from imposed risks. 

The contribution of Chauncey Starr (Starr 1969, 1976) is the most representative ofthis trend. Basically, Starr s strategy consists in evaluating the historical acceptability of risks associated with various activities as a function oftheir benefits. These works are founded on empirical data such as accident records, which are revealing the relationship between the acceptability of a risk and social values hence the revealed preferences method. Starr s conclusions are, for example, that the acceptability of risk is roughly proportional to the third power of the benefits, or that the public is willing to accept voluntary risks approximately one thousand times greater than involuntary risks (Starr 1969). 

For the general public, FAFRs are rare. However, it has been suggested that from an individual risk viewpoint as involuntary risks expose members of the public to a risk of death of about 10 per person per year, then industrial activities should not increase this figure. Hence, a risk criteria of less than 10 is acceptable. 

In considering the understandings of risk held by BR staff it is important to appreciate that the research concentrated on involuntary risks respondents were exposed to through work. It also focused on considering crude understandings rather than precise technical calculations, so deals with uncertainty rather than risk. Moreover, the intention of the research was not to be prescriptive but rather to relate what it was like for them . The objective was to find out how company staff perceived the dangers associated with their work. What were their levels of awareness and how did they respond As Nelkin and Brown cautioned in 1984 (p. ix), the perceptions and concerns of workers is a neglected... 

This statement is probably correct however, the point is often lost because comparisons are not made between like objects. Exposure to road traffic accidents is generally considered a matter of free choice. (This is a questionable assrrmption.) Exposrrre to hazards in the workplace is not cortsidered a matter of free choice. (The argrrmerrt of freedom to leave if you don t like it is invalid.) There is an apparent principle in risk-taking that the acceptance of risk varies greatly based on whether the risk taken is volim-tary or involuntary. There is resistance by workers to readily accept even low levels of involuntary risk. 

Much research has been conducted in trying to nnderstand people s concept of risk. What makes one individual (or country) take more risks Why do people feel that the risk of dying in a car crash is lower than the risk of flying in a commercial jetliner Slovic et al. (1979) have defined a nnmber of factors that affect the way people perceive a risk. These factors have already become standard bearers for risk perception. Not everyone may agree with the risk perception factors. For some, involuntary risks are not important for others, they may carry much weight. 

Scenarios, such as sites, usually imply a risk to the same (more or less) groups of individuals (he it on-site or off-site) at any time. Distributed risks, for example, pipelines across wide areas, rail journeys, tunnels, with rapidly changing identities of individuals are the scenarios for which the involuntary risk approach becomes limited. An individual may be exposed for 2 min per annum (traveling through a tunnel) whereas, at any moment, there may be KX) people at risk. The Societal Risk approach (Section 2.4) is then more appropriate. 

The maximum tolerable failure rate is then targeted by taking the Maximum Tolerable Risk and factoring it according to the items assessed. Thus, for the examples given in Table 2.4 (assuming a 10 pa involuntary risk) ... 

As a simple example of selecting an appropriate SIL, assume that the maximum tolerable frequency for an involuntary risk scenario (e.g., customer killed by explosion) is 10 pa (A) (see Table 2.1). Assume that 10 (B) of the hazardous events in question lead to fatality. Thus the maximum tolerable failure rate for the hazardous event will be C = A/B = 10 pa. Assume that a fault tree analysis predicts that the unprotected process is only likely to achieve a failure rate of 2 x 10 pa (D) (i.e., 1/5 years). The FAILURE ON DEMAND of the safety system would need to be E = C/D =10 column of Table 1.1, SIL 2 is applicable. 

The propagation to fatality of an event is ealeulated as for Involuntary Risk, BUT, ignoring the element which addresses what proportion of the time any one is at risk, it having been accounted already in the Societal Risk concept This was illustrated earlier in Section 2.1.1 by reference to the fact that 100% of the time there is someone at risk irrespective of the 2-min exposure of a named individual. 

Furthermore, risks are present in different degrees. For voluntary risks, levels of risk can be well defined and clear smoking three cigarettes versus three packs each day represents an obvious difference in levels of risk. Travel also presents levels of risk. Whatever mode of travel is chosen, the risk of an accident exists, but some modes of travel have higher accident rates than others. Some people consider that the risk of an accident during a trip is an involuntary risk, especially if there is little choice in whether the trip is taken. This leads to the concept of risk acceptance. If the level of risk is perceived to be sufficiently small and the nature of the risk is not unique or does not have spectacular consequences, the majority of people will accept such risks without any deliberate analysis. 

This digression illustrates the difference between voluntary and involuntary risks and the way in which levels of risk may influence risk acceptance. In research, one encounters both voluntary and involuntary risks, and sometimes distinguishing between them is not simple. In biomedical research, where many of the risks are unknown or uncertain, the boundaries between involuntary and voluntary risks can be even more blurred. So it becomes extremely important that the worker examine the potential consequences of any laboratory procedure to identify hidden risks. 

Open File 7312 (Porter and Morgenstern 2013) examines landslide risk evaluation (ftp //ftp2.cits.mcan.gc.ca/pub/ geott/ess pubs/292/292234/of 7312.pdf). It assesses individual vs. societal risk, voluntary and involuntary risk, tolerable vs. acceptable risk, mortality rates, economic risks, qualitative and quantitative risk methods, partial risk and several other related topics. The authors include known regional examples of safety criteria for landslide and earthquake studies from across Canada. 

Evans (1995) reports that it is commonly accepted that the boundary for the intolerable category is that no employee should face an annual fatality risk of more than 1 in 1,000 and no third party should face a risk of more than 1 in 10,000. The former figure is based on the risks accepted in the most hazardous occupations such as deep-sea fishing. The rationale for the risk to third parties is less clear, and I find the 1 in 10,000 figure unconvincing. Starr (1969) found that people were 1,000 times more unwilling to accept an involuntary risk than they were a voluntary risk. This would place the boundary of intolerable risk for true third parties, such... 

These differing perceptions impact what risk management decisions are acceptable in different situations. The perceptions relate to psychological factors such as fear, dread, uncontrollability, and voluntary versus involuntary risks, as well as familiarity with the hazard. Figure 9.1 illustrates the relationship of these factors for various hazards. Hazards in the upper right quadrant of the space are those that are perceived as both relatively unknown and uncontrollable, and include asbestos, mercury, pesticides, and radioactive waste. The hazards in this quadrant are most likely to be considered most dreadful, and are most likely to lead to government regulation based on public concern. 

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