Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) receive global attention due to their adverse effects on human health and the environment. Fish consumption is a major source of human PFAS exposure. The aim of this work was to address the lack of harmonization within legislations (in the EU and the USA) and highlight the level of PFAS in fish exposed to pollution from diffuse sources in the context of current safety thresholds. A non-exhaustive literature review was carried out to obtain PFAS concentrations in wild fish from the Norwegian mainland, Svalbard, the Netherlands, the USA, as well as sea regions (North Sea, English Channel, Atlantic Ocean), and farmed fish on the Dutch market. Median sum wet weight concentrations of PFOA, PFNA, PFHxS, and PFOS ranged between 0.1 µg kg-1 (farmed fish) and 22 µg kg-1 (Netherlands eel). Most concentrations fell below the EU environmental quality standard (EQSbiota) for PFOS (9.1 µg kg-1) and would not be defined as polluted in the EU. However, using recent tolerable intake or reference dose values in the EU and the USA revealed that even limited fish consumption would lead to exceedance of these thresholds - possibly posing a challenge for risk communication.

UNASSIGNED: Ticks and pathogens they carry seriously impact human and animal health, with some diseases like Lyme and Alpha-gal syndrome posing risks. Searching for health information online can change people\'s health and preventive behaviors, allowing them to face the tick risks. This study aimed to predict the potential risks of tickborne diseases by examining individuals\' online search behavior.
UNASSIGNED: By scrutinizing the search trends across various geographical areas and timeframes within the United States, we determined outdoor activities associated with potential risks of tick-related diseases. Google Trends was used as the data collection and analysis tool due to its accessibility to big data on people\'s online searching behaviors. We interact with vast amounts of population search data and provide inferences between population behavior and health-related phenomena. Data were collected in the United States from April 2022 to March 2023, with some terms about outdoor activities and tick risks.
UNASSIGNED: Results highlighted the public\'s risk susceptibility and severity when participating in activities. Our results found that searches for terms related to tick risk were associated with the five-year average Lyme Disease incidence rates by state, reflecting the predictability of online health searching for tickborne disease risks. Geographically, the results revealed that the states with the highest relative search volumes for tick-related terms were predominantly located in the Eastern region. Periodically, terms can be found to have higher search records during summer. In addition, the results showed that terms related to outdoor activities, such as \"corn maze,\" \"hunting,\" \"u-pick,\" and \"park,\" have moderate associations with tick-related terms. This study provided recommendations for effective communication strategies to encourage the public\'s adoption of health-promoting behaviors. Displaying warnings in the online search results of individuals who are at high risk for tick exposure or collaborating with outdoor activity locations to disseminate physical preventive messages may help mitigate the risks associated with tickborne diseases.

Risk assessments are common in multiple domains, from finance to medicine. They require evaluating an event\'s potential severity and likelihood. We investigate the possible dependence of likelihood and severity within the domain of impact-based weather forecasting (IBF), following predictions derived from considering asymmetric loss functions. In a collaboration between UK psychologists and partners from four meteorological organisations in Southeast Asia, we conducted two studies (N = 363) eliciting weather warnings from forecasters. Forecasters provided warnings denoting higher likelihoods for high severity impacts than low severity impacts, despite these impacts being described as having the same explicit numerical likelihood of occurrence. This \'Severity effect\' is pervasive, and we find it can have a continued influence even for an updated forecast. It is additionally observed when translating warnings made on a risk matrix to numerical probabilities.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to analyze interactive visualizations and animations of health probability data (such as chances of disease or side effects) that have been studied in head-to-head comparisons with either static graphics or numerical communications.
METHODS: Secondary analysis of a large systematic review on ways to communicate numbers in health.
RESULTS: We group the research to show that 4 types of animated or interactive visualizations have been studied by multiple researchers: those that simulate experience of probabilistic events; those that demonstrate the randomness of those events; those that reduce information overload by directing attention sequentially to different items of information; and those that promote elaborative thinking. Overall, these 4 types of visualizations do not show strong evidence of improving comprehension, risk perception, or health behaviors over static graphics.
CONCLUSIONS: Evidence is not yet strong that interactivity or animation is more effective than static graphics for communicating probabilities in health. We discuss 2 possibilities: that the most effective visualizations haven\'t been studied, and that the visualizations aren\'t effective.
CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should rigorously compare participant performance with novel interactive or animated visualizations against their performance with static visualizations. Such evidence would help determine whether health communicators should emphasize novel interactive visualizations or rely on older forms of visual communication, which may be accessible to broader audiences, including those with limited digital access.

Risk communication involves conveying potential risks to the audience. It\'s crucial for shaping behavior and influencing individual well-being. Previous research predominantly focused on verbal and written aspects of risk communication, with less emphasis on nonverbal cues like vocal tone. Addressing this gap, our study explores the impact of competent and warm vocal tones on risk communication across two risky decision-making paradigms, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in Study 1 and the Gambling Task in Study 2. Results show that competent and warm vocal tones are more persuasive than neutral tones, and their effectiveness varies in different decision-making scenarios. Additionally, participants\' perceived competence and warmth of vocal tones mediate this persuasiveness. This study enhances our theoretical understanding of risk communication by incorporating the impact of vocal tones. Also, it carries practical implications for marketers and practitioners, demonstrating the importance of using voice as a medium to persuade in real-world scenarios.

The coronavirus pandemic increased the role played by scientific advisers in counselling governments and citizens on issues around public health. This raises questions about how citizens evaluate scientists, and in particular the grounds on which they trust them. Previous studies have identified various factors associated with trust in scientists, although few have systematically explored a range of judgements and their relative effects. This study takes advantage of scientific advisers\' heightened public profile during the pandemic to explore how people\'s trust in scientists is shaped by perceptions of their features and traits, along with evaluations of their behaviour and role within the decision-making process. The study also considers people\'s trust in politicians, thereby enabling us to identify whether trust in scientists reflects similar or distinctive considerations to trust in partisan actors. Data are derived from specially designed conjoint experiments and surveys of nationally representative samples in Britain and the United States.

Post-tropical cyclone Fiona made landfall in Nova Scotia, Canada, in September 2022 with the force of a Category 2 hurricane. Using \'risk society\' as an analytical framework, and Thomas A. Birkland\'s \'focusing event\' concept, this paper seeks to understand how publics construct risk in the context of climate change and how institutions engage with those narratives. A qualitative content analysis of 439 newspaper articles from across Canada reveals that most media provide a superficial description of hazard impacts. When media are critical, they connect Fiona to climate change, other extreme events, social vulnerability, and systemic inequality. In response to Fiona and industry trends, insurance representatives indicate a withdraw from covering low-probability, high-consequence events owing to ambiguity in risk analysis and financial interests, complicating hazard relief. Political actors\' rhetoric is strong-delivering relief in unprecedented ways and offering new adaptive policy. However, a history of unfulfilled political promises to act on climate change elicits scepticism from media sources.

For over 12 years since the 2011 East Japan Earthquake, the decontamination of radioactive materials is still incomplete. Although evacuation orders had been lifted in ~15% of Futaba town, the site of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, by August 2022, anxiety regarding the effects of nuclear radiation persists among evacuees, and their intention to return (ITR) remains low. As of August 2023, only 90 residents lived there. As the only town with government functions relocated outside Fukushima Prefecture, Futaba has more residents who evacuated outside the prefecture. Although numerous factors affect risk perception and ITR to the place of previous residence, the impact of evacuation destination on risk perception remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of evacuation destination on radiation risk perception. In 2022, a survey was conducted on 404 evacuees aged >18 years. The responses were compared between groups outside and inside Fukushima using the chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Significant relationships were found between the evacuation destination and risk perception of genetic effects in the next generation (odds ratio [OR] = 1.92, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.15-3.20) and of the health effects of radiation (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.10-2.84), which were both higher in those who had evacuated outside Fukushima. These findings stress the importance of evacuation destination choice and information access for evacuees\' risk perception. Enhanced education and support efforts are necessary to help evacuees not only in Fukushima but also throughout Japan.

Understanding the communication dynamics between vaccine-hesitant parents and healthcare professionals (HCPs) is vital for addressing parent concerns and promoting informed decision-making. This paper focuses on strategies used by HCPs to communicate with vaccine-hesitant parents. It draws on empirical evidence generated as part of the international project VAX-TRUST. More specifically, 60 hours of observations were carried out in three different pediatric practices during vaccination-related visits, and 19 physicians and nurses were interviewed. We focused on the specific context of the Czech Republic, which represents a country with a mandatory vaccination system and in which children\'s immunization is the responsibility of pediatric general practitioners. We demonstrate that the dynamics between parents and HCPs and their willingness to invest time in the vaccination discussion are influenced by how HCPs categorize and label parents. Furthermore, we outline some of the different strategies HCPs employ while addressing concerns regarding vaccination. We identified two different strategies HCPs use to manage the fears of vaccine-hesitant parents. The first strategy focused on the communication of risks associated with vaccination (and lack thereof). HCPs used a variety of discursive practices to familiarize the unfamiliar risks of vaccine-preventable diseases (by mobilizing representations that are part of collective memory, incorporating personal experiences to materialize the presence of risk and the confidence in the safety of vaccines and by situating risk as embedded in everyday processes and integral to the uncertainty of the global world). The second strategy involved the conscious employment of medical procedures that may contribute to reducing vaccination fears.

Disasters can cause great physical and financial damage to pet owners in developing countries. These effects lead to severe psychological side effects on individuals and families. With the tendency of families to keep pets in these countries, many challenges have arisen regarding how to manage these pets before, during, and after disasters. Therefore, mitigation, prevention, and preparedness measures for these families should be prioritized in the disaster management cycle to minimize psychological effects such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after losing pets.