1. Edifying Presentation of Risk Estimates: Not as Easy as It Seems
- Author
-
Adam M. Finkel
- Subjects
Actuarial science ,Public Administration ,Sociology and Political Science ,Cost–benefit analysis ,Computer science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Ignorance ,General Business, Management and Accounting ,Surprise ,Death toll ,Air pollutants ,Portfolio ,Cancer risk ,media_common - Abstract
In the preceding "Insight" piece, Gray and Graham (GG Finkel, 1990]. Recommendations made in ignorance of uncertainty are vulnerable to four common pitfalls: (1) they do not allow for the weighing of the probabilities and the consequences of error; (2) they do not permit a reliable comparison of the costs and benefits of a portfolio of decisions, so that priorities can be established; (3) they fail to communicate to decision makers and the public the range of control options that would be compatible with different assessments of the true state-of-nature; and (4) they preclude the opportunity for identifying research initiatives that might reduce uncertainty and thereby reduce the probability or the impact of being caught by surprise. In selecting for analysis EPA's estimate of the annual excess death toll from carcinogenic air pollutants, G&G reveal the flaws in a particularly important "risk number" that EPA presents in a particularly clumsy fashion. As they indicate, it is easy for the reader of Cancer Risk from Outdoor Exposure to Air Toxics to infer that the interval 1734-2597 is meant to subsume the total
- Published
- 1991
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