Why (Cancer) Risk Communication Can Be Hard

Effective risk communication uses audience members' time well by providing them with the information that they most need, in a form that they can easily comprehend. Accomplishing this task can be hard because of problems with both the transmitter and the receiver. The former must determine what is most worth saying. The latter must integrate that message with their often fragmentary mental models of the processes creating and controlling the risks. One strategy for improving communication is to use analytic methods for selecting the information to transmit, based on its criticality to recipients' decision making. A second strategy for improving communications is adapting the message to the cognitive processes of its recipients. Together, these strategies can reveal the limits to communication and how best to work within them.