Health risk perceptions across time in the USA

Risk research has tended to focus on the elements of a risk that make it of more concern to the public or characteristics of the individual that change their risk perceptions. While these two lines of research have identified a number of important factors they have, for the most part, been isolated in time. This study begins to introduce time as a factor in risk perception research. Urban Americans were the focus of the study. The research was conducted over three years at six-month intervals. A mailed survey was sent to 250 individual household each survey period. Participants were asked about their perceptions of risk for Americans in general and for themselves and their families. They were asked to evaluate the overall risk environment compared to a year earlier and were asked to rank eight risk factors, again both for Americans in general and themselves and their families. Ordinal regression was the primary method of analysis. Participants perceived risk as increasing for each period of the study. The regression results for the general risk perceptions for Americans in general found attitudes to government, TV news viewership, and the January 2008 time period to be significant. For respondents and their families, income, children under 18, and attitude to government involvement were significant. For particular risk factors for Americans in general, the model provided the best fit for infectious diseases and the worst fit for accidents away from home. For respondents and their families, the model provided the best fit for natural disasters and the worst fit for food-related illnesses.