Communicating risks

The epidemic this year of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) etched another chapter into the annals of risk science. So do all the major “scares”: bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its potential effect on humans through variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; the scare about third generation oral contraceptives in 1995; and the feared link between autism and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination. On p 725 Bellaby discusses these particular risks and describes how public reactions that on the face of it may seem irrational in fact have understandable origins.1 Most of this theme issue, however, is concerned not with mass communication about risks but with one to one interactions between healthcare professionals and patients about their individual risks. Clinicians want to know how best to communicate risk to their patients, and this issue aims to help.