Resource of the Week #21: A New Resource on Risk Communication

Hello again! This week’s Resource of the Week became available at a very convenient time.

This semester, one course that I’m teaching is titled Risk and Crisis Reporting. The first session of this course was today.

By the middle of last month, I had chosen the textbook and some other reading for this course. However, I still was seeking more reading for the students.

Then, in a message on an e-mail discussion list, someone noted that the US Food and Drug Administration had published a new resource. This resource is titled Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User's Guide.

The entire guide—more than 200 pages—is openly available online. And the chapters, by various experts in the field, seem well suited for the course. Therefore I’ve assigned this guide. I hope the students will find it useful.

This guide also might be useful to many in the AuthorAID community. Researchers and others in many fields communicate (or should communicate) with the public and other groups about risks and benefits. This guide, which is based on the available research, can aid in doing so.

May you have many benefits and few risks to communicate!

Until the next post— Barbara