What Is Risk? (Report)

1Introduction 2What is adventure? 2. 1Material mankind and guess 2. 2 quality study 1 allotment 2. 3Case study 2 solarizelight exposure 2. 4Risk confederacy and Ulrich Beck (1992) 3Understanding and familiarity 3. 1Geoffrey rosiness (1850) 3. 2Epidemiology 3. 3Uncle Norman and last person 5Conclusion 6References Title Risk and understanding through safe cognition and secular dispute Introduction This report leave alone look at how modern society is a attempt society, how expert association is use to understand happen and how lay nation respond. Case studies will be used to show how expert fellowship on understanding and managing risk is communicated.These will show how the lay person disputes risks and give away decisions without following the expert knowledge. The counterfeit of sociologists of Geoffrey Rose (1850) and Charlie Davison and colleagues (1991) is used to show how the lay person disputes expert knowledge by victimization their own popular knowledge and experience. What is risk? 2. 1 Material world and risk In modern society we live in a material world that now provides us with material goods which previous societies didnt have. However these upstart material goods lavatory bring us benefits but also can bring us risks.Putting yourself, or something, at risk is putting yourself in a possible situation which would have a negative outcome. Thompson et al. did a study in 1989 on cyclists who wanted to try to manage the risk of a head hurt by giveing a helmet magic spell cycling. The results showed an 85% decrease in the risk of a head injury if a helmet was worn. However, search by Walker (2006) concluded that if a railway car was to overtake a cyclist wearing a helmet, they would drive closer. commit this expert knowledge some hoi polloi may chose to not wear a helmet to keep divers at bay even though with a crash the risk of a head injury would be higher. . 2 Case study allotment In 2003 Tim Jordan and his family had an allotment in Hackney in which they thought the lubricating oil was safe. Eighteen months after get the allotment their local authority, sent them a letter telling them the soil was poisoned with arsenic and lead. The screen out used by the council measured the total substance of poison in the soil using soil plugs. These samples were sent to a laboratory where the level of poison was compared to soil guidance values (Exploring social Lives, 2009 p. 54). This was a well established shews scientists used to develop their expert knowledge about soil and poisons.The soil was indeed tested in a different way with a PBET (physiologically based extraction test). The basis of this test was to measure the level of poison in the soil that would enter the humans body. The test tries to create a situation of the soil passing through the human digestive system of a two year old. This test showed that the level of poison in the soil was less then the former test. Both tests gave the usu al information about the level of poison and thus the level of risk in gardening on that soil. But severally test gave the lay person different information making it tall(prenominal) for them to be certain about the risk.This case study shows that expert knowledge if not always consistent. 2. 3 Case study 2 cheerfulness exposure The sun exposure case study concentrates on Glaswegians location towards sun exposure whilst knowing the risks. Simon Carter conducts research on the attitude towards sun exposure drawn from interviews and focus groups of tourists between ages 20 35 who regularly travel abroad. This research prepare that those involved were aware of health advice on how to protect themselves from the dangers of sun exposure and why. Glaswegians find going on pass without a pre-holiday tan as embarrassing.The Glaswegian term peely-wally is used to tell apart people who are pale When youre away and the sunglasses and sinlessness legs come out Im ashamed to be spar ing its like if you see a group of peely-wally people then they are Scottish. (Exploring Social Lives, 2009 p. 75) Even though these people knew about the risks of sun exposure they decided not to follow the advise to decrease the risk of damaging themselves due to the idea of looking healthy with a tan. This is an showcase of expert knowledge being disputed by the lay unexclusive because getting brown and having a tan was more important than the risk of illness in the future. . 4 Risk Society and Ulrich Beck In 1986 nuclear reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear power complex exploded and released beam causing 28 deaths and left 200 people sick with ray of light (Spivak 1992). As radioactive material is invisible to the human eye, it was a altercate for humans to know exactly where had been affected. This meant the public who lived in the fallout govern to the radiation became reliant on the expert knowledge of the risk they were faced, have to a social process of def inition (Beck, 1989, p. 88). Beck be risk society (Exploring Social Lives, 2009, p. 0) to tell apart the social impact of risk and showed how the complex risks in society needed expert knowledge to let off them. Understanding and knowledge of risk 3. 1 Epidemiology Epidemiology is a way of understanding how illness and ailment is transferred across populations by tracing how the infections move across countries. Epidemiology has also been used in understanding risk when experts have used data to work out the probability (chance) of a risk happening. Doll and Hill (1950) showed that a high percentage of people who smoked had lung cancer and so they argued that ingest was a risk.This expert knowledge is based on understanding a pattern rather than the cause of lung cancer. 3. 2 Geoffrey Rose (1850) Epidemiological research is always carried out on a whole group of people but when the risks are communicated they are aimed at the individual. Prevention paradox was defined by Geoffr ey Rose (1850). It describes the situation where the solution to prevent a risk will offer the community benefit that may not apply to each individual. Rose describes it best by saying that the measure that brings double benefits to the community offers little to each participating individual (Rose, 1891, p. 850). Rose uses inoculations to describe prevention paradox. Not every child will suffer from the illnesses prevented by vaccinations however every child will have a vaccination in order to prevent the one child that would need it. 599 work-shy immunisations for the one that was effective (Rose, 1981, p. 1850). 3. 3 Lay dispute of risk Davison et al. found that people in every day life talked about health and illness. They knew people who had followed all the health advice and still became sick and died and other people who had not followed any of the advice and had no negative effects.This results in a oddball of lay epidemiology through which people dispute the expert knowl edge and honor the experience of individuals in their everyday life. 4. Conclusion As society has father more complex and the public have more choices of consumer goods and services that in that respect are risk as well as benefits in these. umteen of these risks are complicated to understand and so need experts to study and explain them. This has led to the risk society where expert knowledge is used to avail the lay public understand the risks facing them everyday.There is evidence that the lay public disputes the expert knowledge and makes decisions not to follow advice, such as using sun protection. This is partly because expert knowledge can be distant with different studies showing different risks but also because the expert knowledge does not always match the individuals experience. 1295 Words Beck, U. (1989) On the way to the industrial risk-society? Outline of an argument, Thesis Eleven, vol. 23, pp. 86-103 Bromley, S. Clarke, J. Hinchliffe, S. Taylor, S (2009) Explor ing Social Lives Carter, S. and Jordan, T. Chapter 2 documentation with risk and risky living, Open University, Milton Keynes. Carter, S. (1997) Who wants to be a peelie wally? Glaswegian tourists attitudes to sun tans and sun exposure in Clift, S. and Grabowski, P. (eds) Tourism and Health Risks, Responses and Research, London, Pinter. Rose, G. (1981) strategy of prevention lessons from cardiovascular disease, British Medical Journal, vol. 282, pp. 1847-53 Walker, I. (2006) Drivers exit bicyclists online, http//drainwalker. com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief. pdf (Accessed 14 April 2009)