Peter M. Sandman Video and Audio
Risk Communication Materials
This page lists all my video and audio risk communication materials – a convenient resource for people who are looking for something to play for a group, or who would rather watch and listen than read.
I have a big stack of video and audio recordings – mostly of client presentations – that are not currently online. Over time, I plan to sort through these and post the ones that I think add the most value (and that don’t reveal client confidences). I’ll also try to add new ones when I do a presentation or give an interview that covers material not already covered. I have been far too print-focused for far too long.
Topical Sections in
the Video and Audio List
The list is not organized chronologically, as the other content lists on this website are. Instead, it is organized by topic. And within each topic area, it is in order of my best guess at what people are going to want to watch or listen to – with the most valuable selections for each topic area at the top, and the “just in case you’re interested” ones at the bottom.
Introduction and Orientation
Risk=Hazard+Outrage: Some Risk Communication Basics
Keynote presentation via Zoom for the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, Perth, Western Australia, December 3, 2024
On December 3, 2024, I gave this brief keynote presentation (via Zoom) to the annual conference of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, meeting in Perth, Western Australia.
I managed to summarize my basic approach to risk communication in 25 minutes or so (with a bit more emphasis on outrage management). Another 23 minutes of Q&A followed.
The videographer stayed mostly on me in front of a blank screen, with occasional shots of the audience. The audience could see my slides but they’re not on the video. A clock to help me keep to my time limit is on the video.
This is worth posting mostly because it’s short and recent. Except for the Q&A, there’s nothing new here.
Risk=Hazard+Outrage: Some Risk Communication Basics (and some COVID comments) – 2024 Edition
Class presented via Zoom to Prof. Michael Osterholm’s course on “Emerging Infectious Diseases: Current Issues, Policies and Controversies,” University of Minnesota School of Public Health, February 5, 2024
Prof. Mike Osterholm of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy periodically asks me to give a Zoom class on risk communication for his School of Public Health graduate course on “Emerging Infectious Diseases.” I previously posted the March 21, 2022 “edition.” You can access the video, audio, and slide set there.
This is the February 5, 2024 edition. The main difference is this time I got permission to include an audio of the 83-minute Q&A that followed my presentation. This Q&A pretty much ignored my hazard-versus-outrage basics and focused on what went wrong in COVID risk communication. The class reading assignment had included two of my pre-COVID articles on public health dishonesty (here and here), so there was discussion of that topic too. I recorded the Q&A on my phone, so my answers are clear but the students’ questions are barely audible.
Another difference: This time I'm also posting Zoom’s machine transcript of the presentation, for those who’d rather read than watch or listen.
The content of the Q&A is new, of course, but the presentation itself is mostly my trademark explanation of the distinction between hazard and outrage and the resulting paradigms of risk communication: precaution advocacy, outrage management, crisis communication, and public participation. Along the way and at the very end I commented on COVID implications of the various paradigms … a little of which did change between 2022 and 2024.
Risk=Hazard+Outrage: Some Risk Communication Basics (and some COVID and H5N1 comments)
Class presented via Zoom to Prof. Michael Osterholm’s course on “Emerging Infectious Diseases: Current Issues, Policies and Controversies,” University of Minnesota School of Public Health, February 10, 2025.
I give this lecture annually to Mike Osterholm’s University of Minnesota graduate course on emerging infectious diseases. This year’s iteration took place via Zoom on February 10, 2025. It’s mostly my standard shtick on the basics of my approach to risk communication – minus the Q&A at the end, which some students didn’t want recorded.
What’s new? Some comments at the start on public health dishonesty and on how public health professionals might best respond to the challenges of the Trump presidency; and some comments interspersed throughout on the possibility of an H5N1 (bird flu) pandemic.
Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Some Risk Communication Basics (and some COVID comments)
Class presented via Zoom to Prof. Michael Osterholm’s course on “Emerging Infectious Diseases: Current Issues, Policies and Controversies,” University of Minnesota School of Public Health, March 21, 2022.
Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy periodically asks me to give a Zoom class on risk communication for his School of Public Health course on emerging infectious diseases. The most recent one on March 21, 2022 was recorded (except for the wonderful Q&A) – so here it is.
It’s mostly my trademark presentation on the distinction between hazard and outrage and the resulting paradigms of risk communication: precaution advocacy, outrage management, crisis communication, and public participation (stakeholder consultation). Along the way and at the very end I commented briefly on COVID risk communication.
Looking Back: Tracing How I Got to My Approach to Risk Communication
Interview via Zoom with Margaret Harvie and Lewis Michaelson, April 27, 2023
In early March 2023, Australian friend and colleague Margaret Harvie asked me to sit for a Zoom interview on the history of my approach to risk communication. She said she and Lewis Michaelson were doing a series of such interviews for the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) with “creators of some of the IAP2 products,” focusing on “what was happening at the time that led to [their] thinking.” The result was a 66-minute three-way April 27 interview, a chance for me to talk my way through how I got into risk communication, how I came up with “Hazard versus Outrage,” how I think outrage management relates to public participation, and related topics. I also spent some time at the end outlining some of the ways risk communication can be subdivided: precaution advocacy versus outrage management versus crisis communication versus “the sweet spot”; education versus persuasion; stakeholder relations versus public relations versus government relations etc.; and support mobilization versus public relations versus outrage management.
Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Three Paradigms of (Radiation) Risk Communication
Webinar presented via Zoom to the “Web Symposium on Risk Communication in Radiation Disaster,” Fukushima Medical University, February 7, 2022 (presentation prerecorded on December 16, 2021)
This is my basic introduction to risk communication, focusing on the distinction between hazard and outrage and the three paradigms of risk communication resulting from that distinction – plus a fourth paradigm, stakeholder consultation when hazard and outrage are both intermediate. The occasional references to radiation-specific issues are brief, as is the Q&A at the end. I do like the slides on radiation-related uses for each paradigm. Also, the video is higher-quality technically than the other Zoom videos I have posted. Since the symposium sponsor has posted the video on YouTube, I’m linking to it there instead of uploading it to Vimeo as usual.
Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Three Paradigms of (Wildfire) Risk Communication
Webinar presented via Zoom, hosted by the European Forest Institute, November 15, 2021
In July 2021, the European Forest Institute started putting together a risk communication course, to be offered in November for wildfire management doctoral students throughout Europe (and a few from elsewhere). I agreed to give the November 15 keynote (via Zoom). At EFI’s request, I kept the keynote generic. Applying my principles to wildfire risk communication challenges would be the students’ task, I was told, not mine. So only the last minute or two of my 45-minute presentation has anything to do with wildfires, plus the 25-minute Q&A that followed.
The presentation itself focuses on the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three risk communication paradigms that follow from that distinction – plus a fourth paradigm I don’t always talk about, public consultation when both hazard and outrage are intermediate. I didn’t break any new ground here, but this is a pretty good, pretty short introduction to the basics of my approach. And I think the 25-minute Q&A is excellent.
Pesticide Outrage Management – Part 1
Webinar presented via Zoom to the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February 23, 2021
I came out of retirement in January 2020 to try to help with the COVID pandemic. I wasn’t interested in any other work. But in early 2021, I was asked to do a two-hour Zoom training seminar for pesticide managers on how to cope with pesticide safety controversies. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the pandemic, so I said yes.
This is Part 1, 56 minutes long, devoted mostly to the basics of risk communication: the distinction between hazard and outrage and the three paradigms of risk communication resulting from that distinction. Toward the end I focus on the paradigm most relevant to pesticide controversies, outrage management – beginning with some thoughts on how to stay empathetic in high-stress situations. Part 2 (65 minutes) is listed here, including more on outrage management and some Q&A on pesticide outrage management in particular.
The training was sponsored by the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was organized and hosted by the Pesticide Management Program of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Introduction to Risk Communication
Presented to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority, Sydney
Australia, February 2, 2016
This three-hour video (and audio) is the entire first morning of a 1–1/2-day risk communication seminar I presented in February 2016 for the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority. GHD, an Australia-based engineering and environmental consulting firm, brought me to Australia for this and other events.
The video covers the same ground as the first half-day of my September 2010 risk communication seminar for the Rio Tinto mining company, listed below under the title “Outrage Management Course.” There are differences, but they’re very minor given that a half-decade had passed and this time I was talking to a regulatory agency instead of a mining company. Watch whichever one you prefer.
Other environmental regulators from throughout Australia were also invited to attend the EPA seminar, courtesy of the Australasian Environmental Law Enforcement and Regulators Network (AELERT), which videotaped the first morning. AELERT also made three edited segments based on the raw footage. Two are available in video and audio, and one just in audio. Choose either the unedited tape (inaudible questions and all) or the three edited segments. (There is no edited segment covering the last part of the morning on the three risk communication “games.”)
1. The Unedited Tape
Here's a rough time breakdown of the unedited tape:
| 0:00 – 0:21 | Various introductions, agenda review, etc. |
| 0:21 – 1:07 | Risk = Hazard + Outrage |
| 1:07 – 1:27 | Sample Outrage Assessment: Genetically Modified Foods |
| 1:27 – 1:39 | Risk = Hazard + Outrage (continued) |
| 1:39 – 2:38 | Three Paradigms of Risk Communication: Precaution Advocacy,
Outrage Management, and Crisis Communication |
| 2:38 – 3:02 | Three Risk Communication “Games”: Follow-the-Leader, Donkey, and Seesaw |
2. Risk = Hazard + Outrage
This material runs 58 minutes in the unedited tape; AELERT edited it down to a 30-minute audio "podcast" on the basics of the hazard-versus-outrage concept.
3. Predicting Outrage: A GM Food Case Study
The 20-minute “Sample Outrage Assessment” segment in the unedited tape was
edited down just a bit to 17 minutes, with some added slides and cutaways.
4. Three Different Types of Risk Communication
The 59-minute segment in the unedited tape runs 37 minutes in AELERT’s edit, with some added slides and cutaways. Based on the “hazard versus outrage” distinction, the segment identifies three key risk communication paradigms:
- Precaution advocacy (high-hazard, low-outrage)
- Outrage management (low-hazard, high-outrage)
- Crisis communication (high-hazard, high-outrage)
- Most of the video focuses on outrage management.
Outrage Management Course
Presented to the Rio Tinto mining company, Brisbane, Australia, September 16–17, 2010
The clips below are from the first half-day of the two-day course, and constitute a broad introduction to risk communication. Later clips focus specifically on outrage management.
1. Risk = Hazard + Outrage
This video clip outlines the fundamental distinction between a risk’s “hazard” (how much harm it’s likely to do) and its “outrage” (how upset it’s likely to make people). The selection emphasizes that both hazard perception and hazard response result more from outrage than from hazard.
Two short excerpts from this clip have been posted on YouTube (more or less as advertisements for the clip, and the course as a whole).
2. Components of Outrage and a Sample Outrage Assessment
This video clip runs through the twelve principal components of outrage (voluntary versus coerced, natural versus industrial, etc.). Then it illustrates these components with a seat-of-the-pants “outrage assessment” of genetically modified food.
3. Three Paradigms of Risk Communication
This video clip outlines the three main paradigms of risk communication: precaution advocacy (when hazard is high and outrage is low); outrage management (when hazard is low and outrage is high); and crisis communication (when hazard and outrage are both high).
4. Three Risk Communication “Games”
This video clip describes three risk communication “games”: follow-the-leader (when you’re talking to an audience with no prior opinion); donkey (when you’re talking to an audience whose prior opinion you’re trying to change); and above all
seesaw (when your audience is ambivalent, torn between the opinion you’re championing and an opposing opinion).
Three Paradigms of Risk Communication – and a critique of COVID-19 Crisis Communication
Webinar presented via Zoom, then posted on YouTube, hosted by the Institute for Risk and Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, July 7, 2021
In April 2021, the University of Liverpool Institute for Risk and Uncertainty asked me to give a presentation in its monthly webinar series. We agreed I would divide my time between my “signature risk communication formula” and my criticisms of the way COVID-19 has been communicated. And on July 7 that’s what I did. The first third of this 94-minute webinar is introductory, my “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula and the three risk communication paradigms I derive from the formula. The second third is my critique of COVID-19 crisis communication, mostly in the U.S. The final third is Q&A and discussion, much of it focusing on COVID-19 risk communication dilemmas in the U.K.
My hosts promptly posted the webinar on YouTube, as they always do. That link is below. Also below is an audio-only recording of the webinar and my slide set, so you’re free to follow along on your own if you prefer.
Communicating Risk: Neglected and Controversial Rules of Thumb
Presented at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, Athens GA, October 16, 2013
In October 2013, I spent three days at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The main agenda was to negotiate a possible “Sandman Archive” of my papers and web materials, an initiative of the new Grady program in health and risk communication. (See “Working Toward a Legacy.”) But while I was there I also gave a number of class presentations and one public presentation, which was videotaped. I offered my hosts a choice of half a dozen presentation topics, and they asked me to combine them all into a potpourri of interesting risk communication pointers. So this video is different from most of the introductory videos I have posted. It’s got a little of everything. There’s a quick summary of “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” and my three paradigms of risk communication (my usual introductory shtick). But there’s also a discussion of why information is rarely life-changing and why cognitive dissonance can make it so; of why it’s important to be willing to speculate and to be willing to scare people; and of the need for public health professionals to tell the whole truth about vaccination. As I said: a potpourri.
Peter Sandman: How Your Ability To Process Risk Can Save Your Life
Interview with Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity, podcast posted July 7,
2020
Chris Martenson’s “Peak Prosperity” YouTube channel currently claims 368,000 subscribers. Chris is best known for his “Crash Course” on how pretty much everything is in rapid decline. In 2020, not surprisingly, he has posted dozens of videos on COVID-19. One of these, posted in March, was devoted entirely to my 2005 article on the adjustment reaction concept. Entitled “Coronavirus: How To Inform Your Friends & Family Without Creating Pushback,” 
it got 330,000 views and 4,428 comments in three months – way out of my league.
So when Chris said he wanted to interview me via Zoom for an hour-long podcast, I said yes. We did it on June 29. Chris wanted to talk (again!) about adjustment reactions. I wanted to talk (again) about the basics of risk communication. We both wanted to talk about the ways the U.S. is mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic. So we did all three. Our COVID-19 discussion focused mostly on a risk communication analysis, but we inevitably veered into risk management and epidemiology as well.
“Communicating Risk in the Media”
Aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's “Media Report” radio program and posted on its website, August 28, 2014
“Quick Orientation to Risk Communication“
Interview with Peter Sandman by Richard Aedy, August 11, 2014
Richard Aedy interviewed me for Australian radio via telephone for 20 minutes on August 11. The edited 11:40 interview aired on August 28, a few days before I started a speaking and consulting tour of Australia. There’s nothing special about this interview, except the fact that it’s recent and short. We covered the usual basics: the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, the three paradigms of risk communication, etc. Like many media interviewers, Richard was especially interested in whether risk communication is really just a different label for “spin,” and in what I think about the performance of the media. (In fairness, he asked about social media as well as mainstream media.) As always, I prefer the longer or more idiosyncratic interviews. But this one is a sensible quick orientation.
Quantitative Risk Communication: Explaining the Data
Produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, 1994
In my approach to risk communication, explaining the data is secondary; addressing outrage – raising it, reducing it, or helping people cope with it – is what’s crucial. Nonetheless, the time comes in most risk communication efforts when you’ve got to explain the data. This studio-produced 1994 video focuses on three key aspects of quantitative risk communication:
- Motivation – getting people to want to understand the data
- Simplification – making the data understandable
- Orientation – keeping people from getting lost
There’s also some discussion of how to address uncertainty and how to handle risk comparisons.
(This video was produced in 1994 by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. It went out of print in 2007. With AIHA’s permission, the entire video is now available free of charge online.)
Atomic Show #205 – Peter Sandman teaches nuclear communicators
Podcast for the “Atomic Insights” website, May 31, 2013 (with Rod Adams, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker)
Rod Adams runs a website called “Atomic Insights” that promotes nuclear power. In early May 2013 he discovered my approach to outrage management, and put posts on his own website and on an American Nuclear Society website urging nuclear power proponents to learn outrage management. The responses to his two posts led Rod to invite me to do this podcast.
The podcast itself runs 1 hour and 42 minutes. Most of it is a basic introduction to risk communication and then to outrage management: the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, the components of outrage, the three paradigms of risk communication, the key strategies of outrage management, etc. But I did try to focus especially on what the nuclear power industry and its supporters get wrong – for example, imagining that their core communication mistake is failing to sell their strengths effectively, whereas I believe it is failing to acknowledge their problems candidly. There are recommendations for nuclear communication throughout the podcast, and a Q&A at the end with Rod and fellow proponents Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker. The plan is to follow up with a second podcast, a more narrowly focused roundtable discussion among the five of us on nuclear power outrage management.
Terrorists vs. Bathtubs
(Edited) interview with Peter Sandman by Brooke Gladstone, June 20, 2013
Aired on National Public Radio’s “On the Media” and posted on its website, June 21, 2013
Risk Communication in Practice
(Complete) interview with Peter Sandman by Brooke Gladstone, June 20, 2013
Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media” interviewed me in my home for 49 minutes. We started out talking about claims by opponents of NSA telephone and email surveillance (in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks) that “more people have died from [whatever] than from terrorism” – and why these sorts of risk comparisons are unlikely to be convincing. That soon got me to the distinction between hazard and outrage. But Brooke didn’t let me do my usual hazard-versus-outrage introductory shtick. Instead, she kept asking for specifics – examples of how precaution advocacy and outrage management strategies work in practice. Toward the end of the interview, she pushed me to shoot from the hip about applications I hadn’t thought through: How would I use risk communication to defend government surveillance? To oppose it? To defend shale gas “fracking”? To oppose that? The interview that resulted is a different sort of introduction to risk communication than the one I usually give. The 10-minute broadcast segment is nicely edited; it’s very smooth and covers most of my main points. But I prefer the roughness and detail of the complete interview.
Risk Communication in Healthcare Settings Podcasts
Taped for the British Columbia (Canada) Provincial Health Services Authority and Vancouver Coastal Health, February 15, 2011
This was a 50-minute telephone interview later divided into four podcasts. Although the intended audience was healthcare managers, the first two podcasts barely mention healthcare, and are really generic. The third and fourth podcasts focus more on healthcare examples, and are listed below in the “Infectious Diseases” section.
1. Introduction to Risk Communication
This audio clip distinguishes the terms “risk communication,” “risk assessment,” and “crisis communication”; describes the fundamental risk communication distinction between hazard and outrage; and uses that distinction to define the three paradigms of risk communication. It ends with a discussion of how to measure outrage.
2. Three Paradigms of Risk Communication
This audio clip discusses some key strategies associated with each of the three paradigms of risk communication: precaution advocacy (high hazard, low outrage), outrage management (low hazard, high outrage), and crisis communication (high hazard, high outrage). It emphasizes the need to assess – and continually reassess – which paradigm is called for by the specific communication environment you face.
Interview with Dr. Peter Sandman
by Andrew Findlater
Posted on the National Public Relations website, March 9, 2009
Note: This is the shortest audio introduction to my approach to risk communication. Naturally I prefer the longer ones.
Canadian PR firm National Public Relations was one of the sponsors that brought me to Vancouver in March 2009 to give a two-day risk communication seminar (jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard), organized by the University of British Columbia. As part of the event, the company taped this seven-minute interview with me on the basics of my “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula. The tape was posted (and labeled a “podcast”) on the National Public Relations website, and the link was emailed to conference participants and National Public Relations clients. It’s no longer on the National Public Relations site, so I have posted it here.
Food Safety Risk Communications
Presented at the Maple Leaf Food Safety Symposium, Mississauga Canada, October 23, 2009
Note: This audio clip covers much the same ground as the Rio Tinto video clips listed above – but of course it’s much, much shorter and less detailed.
In August 2008, Listeria contamination in Maple Leaf packaged deli meats killed 21 elderly consumers, one of the largest food poisoning disasters in Canadian history. As one small part of its recovery efforts, Maple Leaf Foods sponsored a food safety symposium in October 2009, bringing together producers, retailers, and regulators to talk about lessons learned and ways to protect against Listeria. My presentation on “Food Safety Risk Communication” was inserted as respite from the technical material in most of the other speeches. I did my usual introduction to hazard versus outrage and the kinds of risk communication, and then offered a few food-specific examples (until I ran out of time). Audience comments and questions weren’t recorded; that’s what the occasional moments of dead air are.
Fundamentals of risk communication: How to talk to patients and the public about pandemic H1N1
Presented to the European Respiratory Society international conference, Vienna, Austria, September 14, 2009
Note: This audio clip covers much the same ground as the Rio Tinto video clips listed above – but of course it’s much, much shorter and less detailed.
The European Respiratory Society invited me give a 20-minute presentation on pandemic communication at its annual conference, as part of a panel on various aspects of pandemic H1N1. I pleaded for an extra hour right afterwards to go into more detail for those who wanted it. Some 20,000 respiratory disease doctors attended the conference; roughly 2,000 of them were at the panel; about 200 followed me to a smaller room for my extra hour (which I did jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard, an M.D.). Only the panel presentation is posted on the ERS website. It’s mostly an introduction to the basics of risk communication (hazard versus outrage; precaution advocacy versus outrage management versus crisis communication), with some quick comments on the implications for pandemic communication. The meat was in the hour that followed, which unfortunately wasn’t recorded.
Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication: Alerting, Reassuring, Guiding
Presented to the National Public Health Information Coalition, Miami Beach FL, October 21, 2009
Although this six-hour seminar was entitled “Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication,” NPHIC asked me to go easy on the “radiological” part and give participants a broad introduction to my approach to risk communication, mentioning radiation issues from time to time. So that’s what I did.
Fair warning: These are not professional videos. NPHIC member Joe Rebele put a camera in the back of the room and let it run. You won’t lose much listening to the MP3 audio files on this site instead.
- Part One (90 min.)
Despite its poor production values, Part One is a decent introduction to the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three paradigms of risk communication.
- Part Two (155 min.)
If you’re interested, Part Two starts with 20 minutes or so on the seesaw and other risk communication games (thus completing the introductory segment). The rest of Part Two spends a little over an hour each on some key strategies of precaution advocacy and outrage management.
- Part Three (72 min.)
Part Three is devoted to strategies of crisis communication.
Precaution Advocacy
Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication: Alerting, Reassuring, Guiding
Presented to the National Public Health Information Coalition, Miami Beach FL, October 21, 2009
Although this six-hour seminar was entitled “Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication,” NPHIC asked me to go easy on the “radiological” part and give participants a broad introduction to my approach to risk communication, mentioning radiation issues from time to time. So that’s what I did.
Fair warning: These are not professional videos. NPHIC member Joe Rebele put a camera in the back of the room and let it run. You won’t lose much listening to the MP3 audio files on this site instead.
- Part Two (155 min.)
Despite its poor production values, Part Two includes a little over an hour on some key strategies of precaution advocacy. It’s preceded by about 20 minutes on the seesaw and other risk communication games, and followed by an hour or so on outrage management strategies. I have better videos posted on the games and on outrage management, but until I find a better segment to post on precaution advocacy, this one is better than nothing.
- Part One (90 min.)
If you’re interested, Part One is an introduction to the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three paradigms of risk communication.
- Part Three (72 min.)
Part Three is devoted to strategies of crisis communication.
Talking to the Public about Emergency Preparedness
Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Marisa Raphael, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, February 27, 2014
Marisa Raphael is Deputy Commissioner at the Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She is also participating in the National Preparedness Leadership Institute (NPLI) at Harvard University. On February 27, 2014, she interviewed me for an hour by telephone on behalf of an NPLI project on ways to improve emergency preparedness communications with the general public. Although we spent a little time at the end of the interview covering some basics for communicating mid-crisis, we stuck mostly to pre-crisis communication, a kind of precaution advocacy. We covered two main topics. First we talked about why it’s so hard to build citizen support for government emergency preparedness expenditures, and what kind of messaging strategies are likeliest to lead to such support. Then we switched to a more conventional topic: how to motivate people to do their own personal, family, or neighborhood emergency preparedness.
Scaring People: The Uses and Limitations of Fear Appeals
Part One of a two-part interview with Peter M. Sandman by George Whitney of Complete EM, July 22, 2016.
George Whitney runs an emergency management consulting company called Complete EM. His website features a blog and a podcast series. On July 22, 2016 he interviewed me by phone for nearly two hours. He edited the interview into two podcasts, which he entitled “Dr. Peter Sandman – Risk Communication” and “Dr. Peter Sandman – Crisis Communication.” I have given them new titles.
This interview segment isn’t really about emergency management or crisis communication at all. It’s about pre-crisis communication – a part of what I call precaution advocacy. When he briefed me for the interview, George had told me he wanted to focus on fear appeals. He thought emergency management professionals relied too much on fear in their warnings about earthquakes and other natural disasters, and he wanted to know whether I agreed. So for the first 45 minutes or so we talked about the uses and limitations of fear appeals. At the end of what became Part One of George’s two-part podcast, he asked me to reflect on what had changed in my 40+ years as a risk communication consultant. I cited two big changes: the slow migration from craft to science, and the growing understanding of what it takes to calm people who are more upset about some risk than you think they should be. (Part Two is “Crisis Communication for Emergency Managers.”)
Are E-Cigs a Crisis? It’s Risky to Call Them ‘Unsafe’
by Faye Flam
Posted on the Bloomberg Opinion website, June 3, 2019
The U.S. Public Health Establishment Risks Scaring People into Smoking
Interview with Peter Sandman by Faye Flam, May 28, 2019
I am very nearly retired, but when Bloomberg commentator Faye Flam asked to interview me about e-cigarettes, I couldn’t resist saying yes. I have been highly critical of how the U.S. public health establishment smears e-cigs at least since 2015, when I posted “A Promising Candidate for Most Dangerously Dishonest Public Health News Release of the Year.” Precaution advocacy often exaggerates, and I am used to hyperbolic public health warnings about, say, the dangers of vaccine-preventable diseases. But such warnings can save lives even if they’re less than honest, which some say justifies the dishonesty. Warnings about e-cigs, on the other hand, could convince people that they might just as well smoke instead – a profound disservice if, as seems likely, vaping is an order of magnitude safer than smoking. Faye’s article is based on more than just her interview with me, and the interview has a lot of information she didn’t use in the article. So you might want to check out both.
(In the same interview, Faye also asked me about the failed Dengvaxia vaccine campaign in the Philippines. I’ll post that part of the interview with a link to her Dengvaxia article if she writes one.)
When It’s Okay for Health Officials to Panic, and When It’s Not
by Faye Flam
Posted on the Bloomberg Opinion website, October 6, 2019
Honest versus Dishonest Teachable Moments in Public Health Warnings
Interview with Peter Sandman by Faye Flam, September 24, 2019
Dishonest E-Cig Warnings and the Ethics of Health Scares
Two emails from Peter M. Sandman to Faye Flam, September 11 and September 13, 2019
In May 2019, Bloomberg reporter Faye Flam interviewed me 
for a story on e-cigarette risk communication – and my view that the public health establishment has been dishonestly alarmist about vaping, so much so that it risks scaring people into smoking instead. On September 10, 2019, she emailed me to ask about a follow-up interview. We exchanged a few emails about whether Bloomberg would let her write another “pro-vaping” article, given Michael Bloomberg’s fervent opposition. So we started emailing back and forth about “health scares” more generically. Two of my emails to Faye strike me as worth posting: one on September 11 about the recent spate of lung injuries linked to vaping (especially vaping illegal marijuana); the other on September 13 about when it is or isn’t appropriate for public health officials to try to frighten the public. Our eventual September 24 interview dealt largely with e-cigs but also addressed some other health scares (bird flu, equine encephalitis, red meat, climate change), as did her resulting October 6 article. The interview, of course, is a lot more detailed than the very brief article.
This was a 48-minute telephone interview with Stephen Dubner, for a Freakonomics Radio program (and podcast) on climate change. The interview never made it into the program/podcast, but excerpts were added to the Freakonomics website on November 29, 2011. The first 17 minutes of the interview are generic – Risk Communication 101, basically. The rest is grounded mostly in my 2009 column on “Climate Change Risk Communication: The Problem of Psychological Denial,” though Dubner periodically pushed me to speculate on new aspects of the topic. My main argument: Climate change risk communicators are good at informing and scaring apathetic people, but need an entirely different strategy – something more like outrage management – for people who are in denial about climate change.
Radio reporter Jason Margolis of “The World” attended a conference of global climate change skeptics, decided they were more deniers than actual skeptics, and ended up with a 10-minute story on climate change denial. I was one of several experts he quoted to explore the reasons why so many people have trouble facing the threat of global warming. In our interview, I focused on some ways activist communications may unwittingly encourage audience denial. Jason used the part on guilt – on why telling people their lifestyle is destroying the earth may not be the best way to inspire them to action. My views are elaborated further in a 2009 column on “Climate Change Risk Communication: The Problem of Psychological Denial.”
Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Marco Werman, aired on “The World” on PRI (Public Radio International) and posted on its website, September 27, 2013
When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its new report – claiming more certainty than ever before that the global warming threat is dire – Marco Werman of PRI’s “The World” interviewed me about why I thought many people might find the report’s conclusions hard to accept, and might go into a kind of psychological denial instead. The interview lasted about ten minutes, but was cut to less than five for airing. I made too many minor points that got used, albeit in abbreviated form. So my main point got almost completely lost – that climate change activists were their own worst enemies because they kept saying things that were likely to provoke or deepen people’s denial instead of things that could help people overcome their denial. For example, I told Marco, too many environmentalists were greeting the IPCC’s bad news triumphantly, almost gleefully – sounding more pleased that they were being proved right than devastated that the world’s in deep trouble. People who like their SUVs and are having a hard time accepting that they may have to give up their SUVs (that’s a kind of denial) may just barely be able to believe it if a fellow SUV fan sadly tells them so. They’re not about to believe it if it’s exultantly announced by someone who has hated the internal combustion engine since before global climate change was even an issue. For several better explanations of my thinking about climate change denial, see any of the other entries with “climate” and/or “denial” in their titles in the “On Environmental Activism” section of my Precaution Advocacy index.
Webinar presented via Zoom to the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February 23, 2021
I came out of retirement in January 2020 to try to help with the COVID pandemic. I wasn’t interested in any other work. But in early 2021, I was asked to do a two-hour Zoom training seminar for pesticide managers on how to cope with pesticide safety controversies. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the pandemic, so I said yes.
Part 1, 56 minutes long, is devoted mostly to the basics of risk communication: the distinction between hazard and outrage and the three paradigms of risk communication resulting from that distinction. Toward the end I focus on the paradigm most relevant to pesticide controversies, outrage management – beginning with some thoughts on how to stay empathetic in high-stress situations. Part 2 (65 minutes) includes more on outrage management and some Q&A on pesticide outrage management in particular.
The training was sponsored by the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was organized and hosted by the Pesticide Management Program of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Presented to the Rio Tinto mining company, Brisbane, Australia, September 16–17, 2010
In September 2010 I did a two-day outrage management seminar in Brisbane, Australia for the Rio Tinto mining company. With the company’s permission, I edited out all references to specific Rio Tinto controversies, and arranged what was left into a coherent sequence of twelve clips, starting with the basic “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula and ending with the organizational barriers to following the outrage management principles. Clips #1, #3, and #4 are listed in the “Introduction and Orientation“ section. All twelve are listed in sequence in my “Peter Sandman on Risk Communication” channel on Vimeo.
This 111-minute video sold briskly for more than 20 years until the American Industrial Hygiene Association stopped distributing it in January 2012. Now it’s available for free on Vimeo (video) and on this site (audio). Unlike many of my videos, this one was professionally produced in a studio, with multiple cameras and an actual set. Although my standard spiel has changed some since 1991, everything here is still true and still useful. The video is especially valuable for its detailed discussion of the 12 principal outrage components 
and how to deal with them. These days I talk more about generic outrage management strategies, and less about these component-specific strategies. (Note that I’m using the original files from the AIHA DVD; some of the “parts” begin and end arbitrarily.)
When people are excessively concerned about a small risk, the biggest problem isn’t figuring out what to do. It’s getting your company or agency to do it. After a six-minute introduction, this video is devoted to three kinds of barriers to implementation … and ways to overcome them:
In 1994 I wasn’t yet routinely using the term “outrage management.” In the terminology I now use, this video is all about overcoming cognitive, organizational, and psychological barriers to outrage management.
Class presented via Zoom to Prof. Joanna Krajewski’s online course on “Risk Communication,” University of Iowa, April 25, 2023
Dr. Joanna Krajewski teaches an online “Risk Communication” course as part of the Master of Arts in Strategic Communication at the University of Iowa – and features my approach in a major segment of the course. So when she asked me to give a guest lecture via Zoom, I couldn’t resist. On April 25, 2023 I spent 97 minutes with her class. She asked me not to focus too much on my hazard-versus-outrage distinction and my three paradigms of risk communication, since the class had already covered that – but I still started with an overview of these basics. The rest of the class covered: the three main ways to manage a controversy (support mobilization versus public relations versus outrage management); my claim that “good reputation” and “bad reputation” are different variables and being less hated is usually more useful than being more loved; and my critique of how public health professionals do risk communication, especially their frequent resort to altruistic dishonesty (“noble lies”). The presentation was wide-ranging and so was the Q&A at the end, but I spent more time talking about outrage management than anything else, so that’s where I’m indexing this video.
Edited interview with Peter Sandman by Jeremy Story Carter, September 3, 2014, aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Country Hour” radio program and posted on its website, September 9, 2014
Jeremy Story Carter interviewed me on September 3, 2014, halfway through a three-day risk communication seminar I ran in Melbourne, Australia. He let me start with the three paradigms of risk communication, and I got to squeeze in a few minutes halfway through on crisis communication (using the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as an example). But mostly Jeremy was interested in how farmers and farm industries should handle criticism, such as the recent attacks on the Australian wool industry by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). So we focused on outrage management: the importance of listening and validating people’s concerns; why it’s smarter to be responsive to groups like PETA than to counterattack; how to ameliorate the outrage of moderate critics even if more extremist critics are unsatisfiable; picking which concessions to make (which battles to lose); giving credit to critics for those concessions instead of claiming to have improved on your own; and why all that is hard to do when you’re just as outraged at your critics as your critics are at you. The edited interview on the ABC website runs 19:27 minutes. Jeremy also wrote a short text story for the website, which he entitled “Farmers told to stop fighting animal welfare activists and offer PETA an olive branch: risk communication expert.”
Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Jean Scandlyn of the University of Colorado Denver, September 25, 2017.
In the interview I made my usual case about why mistrustful stakeholders rightly don’t rely much on scientific evidence from industry sources. Most of the generic principles I applied to fossil fuel controversies can be found in “Motivating Attention: Why People Learn about Risk – or Anything Else” (2012); “Three Ways to Manage Controversies” (2016); and “Fracking Risk Communication” (2013). My two main contentions: (1) Fossil fuel companies have more to gain by addressing people’s outrage than by trying to sell them on data to show they shouldn’t be outraged in the first place; and (2) Reluctant acknowledgments by expert opponents that the companies are partly right about something carry more weight than enthusiastic endorsements by expert supporters that the companies are entirely right about everything. Along the way I told a few stories from my consulting (without naming the clients, of course).
Podcast for the “Atomic Insights” website, May 31, 2013 (with Rod Adams, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker)
The podcast itself runs 1 hour and 42 minutes. Most of it is a basic introduction to risk communication and then to outrage management: the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, the components of outrage, the three paradigms of risk communication, the key strategies of outrage management, etc. But I did try to focus especially on what the nuclear power industry and its supporters get wrong – for example, imagining that their core communication mistake is failing to sell their strengths effectively, whereas I believe it is failing to acknowledge their problems candidly. There are recommendations for nuclear communication throughout the podcast, and a Q&A at the end with Rod and fellow proponents Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker. The plan is to follow up with a second podcast, a more narrowly focused roundtable discussion among the five of us on nuclear power outrage management.
Panel discussion (with Rob Stokes and Jill Hannaford), Sydney Australia, February 15, 2016
Rob Stokes is the very thoughtful Minister of Planning of New South Wales, Australia. This February 2016 video is a 58-minute wide-ranging dialogue between me and Rob (with audience Q&A), focusing on distinctions and overlaps between traditional stakeholder engagement and my outrage management concept. Among the issues discussed: why should organizations engage their stakeholders; telling legitimate from pro forma engagement; telling legitimate from disruptive participation; dealing with “fanatic” stakeholders and their “attentive” followers; engagement fatigue; consulting early on problems versus late on projects; NIMBY; engagement and outrage management via social media; engaging about locally disruptive development projects; and why Australia is especially receptive to the outrage management concept. Near the end (starting at 46:36; link provided on Vimeo) I was asked about something completely different: risk communication challenges of the Zika epidemic.
The event was sponsored by the GHD consultancy (which had brought me to
Sydney for several weeks of work with its clients); GHD’s Barbara Campany
introduced the panel and GHD’s Jill Hannaford facilitated the discussion.
Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Maura O’Malley, January 31, 2011
Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Scott Van Camp, March 10, 2011
Presented to the National Public Health Information Coalition, Miami Beach FL, October 21, 2009
Although this six-hour seminar was entitled “Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication,” NPHIC asked me to go easy on the “radiological” part and give participants a broad introduction to my approach to risk communication, mentioning radiation issues from time to time. So that’s what I did.
Fair warning: These are not professional videos. NPHIC member Joe Rebele put a camera in the back of the room and let it run. You won’t lose much listening to the MP3 audio files on this site instead.
Link to the offsite Zoom file on Vimeo (48 min.) 
Link launches an onsite file with the PowerPoint slides (141 kB)
Link to an on-site file with a machine transcript of the presentation (60kB) 
Link to the off-site Zoom file on Vimeo (57 min.)
Link off-site to Peak Prosperity site with the video of this interview.
