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and trust in the risk communicator and the risk assessment process. Someone who has already had cancer may have less tolerance for an increased lifetime cancer risk than someone who has never experienced cancer. Someone who has had food poisoning may be more outraged by the sanitation failures in a school or hospital kitchen than some- one who has not. It is critical for a risk communicator to be aware of these types of issues when prepar- ing risk communication messages to avoid creating or fueling outrage. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly taught us lessons about the eects of risk perception on com- pliance with risk mitigations measures, such
as masking or getting vaccinated, even when the risk communication is eective. Risk Management Risk management is the process of weigh- ing policy alternatives and selecting the most appropriate action by integrating the results of risk assessment with engineering data in addition to social, economic, and political concerns to reach a decision. In some cases, and in some situations, environmental health professionals might also be risk managers. Risk management involves evaluating data from the risk assessment and determining the best approach to address a hazard or expo- sure issue, taking into account the physical
and societal environment in which the haz- ard exists. Summary Our job in dealing with any risk to human life, health, or safety comes down to these basic steps: • Recognize and understand the risk • Understand who is at risk • Characterize the risk • Consider the alternatives • Consider protective measures • Communicate the risk • ACT!
Contact: toolkit@sanitarian.com.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES / SPECIAL REPORT
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References
Barrett, E., Barnes, S., & Pogreba-Brown, K. (2018). An experiential learning exercise in food-borne illness outbreak investigations: Bridging education and experience. Pedagogy in Health Promotion, 4 (1), 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/2373379917700440 Burckhardt, F., & Kissling, E. (2020). Training for foodborne outbreak investigations by using structured learning experi- ence. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 26 (1), 162–164. https://doi. org/10.3201/eid2601.190755 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Epidemiologic case studies . https://www.cdc.gov/training/epicasestudies/index. html Cremin, I., Watson, O., Heernan, A., Imai, N., Ahmed, N., Bivegete, S., Kimani, T., Kyriacou, D., Mahadevan, P., Mustafa, R., Pagoni, P., Sophiea, M., Whittaker, C., Beacroft, L., Riley, S., & Fisher, M.C. (2018). An infectious way to teach students about outbreaks. Epi- demics, 23 , 42–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epidem.2017.12.002
Dicker, R.C. (2017). Case studies in applied epidemiology. The Pan African Medical Journal, 27 (Suppl. 1), 1–2. https://doi. org/10.11604/pamj.supp.2017.27.1.12886 Nelson, A.L., Bradley, L., & MacDonald, P.D.M. (2018). Designing an interactive field epidemiology case study training for public health practitioners. Frontiers in Public Health, 6 , Article 275. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00275 University of Otago. (2020). Responding to a mystery epidemic in the Pacific: Public health summer school 2020 symposium session . https://www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/otago730073.pdf White, A.E., Sabourin, K.R., & Scallan, E. (2018). The foodborne outbreak challenge—Using experiential learning to foster inter- disciplinary training among students on foodborne disease out- break investigations. Journal of Food Science Education, 17 (2), 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4329.12132
DIRECT FROM CDC ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES continued from page 29
Get Involved The EJ Dashboard from CDC can be used in various ways to inform decision making, help with education, support studies, and even help change policy. How will you use the EJ Dashboard to help supplement environ-
mental justice stories in your environmental health work? Do you work with national-level data sets that would be good to include on the EJ Dashboard? Let the EJ Dashboard team know at trackingsupport@cdc.gov.
Corresponding Author: Jena Losch, Public Health Advisor, National Center for Environ- mental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Email: jlosch@cdc.gov.
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