tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/risk-2818/articlesRisk – The Conversation2024-03-07T13:28:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170552024-03-07T13:28:59Z2024-03-07T13:28:59ZHow Florida’s home insurance market became so dysfunctional, so fast<p>Imagine saving for years to buy your dream house, only to have <a href="https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/property/homeowners-to-face-huge-premium-jump-as-insurers-seek-50-premium-hike-476805.aspx">surging property insurance costs</a> keep homeownership forever out of reach. </p>
<p>This is a common problem in Florida, where average insurance premiums cost homeowners an eye-watering <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/florida-home-insurance-prices">US$6,000 a year</a>. That’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/26/1208590263/florida-homeowners-insurance-soaring-expensive">more than triple</a> the national average and about three times what Floridians paid on average for insurance premiums in 2018. </p>
<p>What’s more, several major insurance carriers have <a href="https://www.pnj.com/story/money/2023/07/12/florida-insurance-crisis-farmers-insurance-home-insurance-what-to-know/70407302007/">left the state</a> over the past year, leaving residents with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-10/hurricane-season-2023-florida-s-biggest-property-insurer-is-nonprofit-citizens?sref=Hjm5biAW">limited alternatives</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.ju.edu/directory/latisha-nixon-jones.php">a law professor</a> who specializes in disaster preparedness and resilience, I think it’s important to understand what’s driving costs higher – not least because other states could soon face a similar predicament. </p>
<p>Three primary factors are driving the insurance challenge. First, natural disasters are becoming more common and costly. Second, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reinsurance.asp">the price of reinsurance</a> is skyrocketing. And finally, Florida’s litigation-friendly environment compounds the issue by making it easy for customers to sue their insurers.</p>
<h2>Disasters, like sea levels, are on the rise</h2>
<p>With its location on the beautiful-yet-hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico, Florida has long been vulnerable to the elements. Natural disasters cost the state <a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE1075">$5 billion to $10 billion</a> every year, the federal government estimated in 2018, the last year for which data was available.</p>
<p>Yet that likely understates the case today, since disasters have only become bigger, more common and more expensive since then. For example, climate change has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/climate-change-making-atlantic-hurricanes-strengthen-weak-major/story.">made oceans warmer</a>, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-42669-y">research suggests</a> fuels stronger, more intense hurricanes. </p>
<p>As a result, Florida has experienced billion-dollar disasters an average of <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/state-summary/FL">four times annually</a> over the past five years – up from about one each year in the 1980s.</p>
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<p>This surge in disasters doesn’t just put lives at risk; it also wreaks havoc with the insurance market, as carriers are inundated with claims from one catastrophe after another. This makes it harder for them to turn a profit or obtain reinsurance to protect their stakeholders.</p>
<h2>Why reinsurance matters</h2>
<p>Insurance companies, in essence, make money two ways. First, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01121-9">pool risk</a> among policyholders. Risk-pooling is the practice of taking similarly situated individuals or properties, grouping them together, and charging similar prices for insurance since they face the same risk.</p>
<p>Second, they reduce risk by acquiring reinsurance. Reinsurance acts as a safeguard for insurance companies – it’s essentially insurance for the insurers. Reinsurers pledge to cover a specified portion or type of insurance claim – for instance, catastrophic hurricanes – which provides a layer of financial protection.</p>
<p>The new era of climate disasters has thrown a wrench into the process. Reinsurance companies, grappling with a surge in claims due to more frequent and severe disasters, have found themselves forced to <a href="https://www.law.com/dailybusinessreview/2023/07/12/floridas-critical-reinsurance-market-improves-but-at-a-price/?slreturn=20231012224549">raise their premiums</a> for insurance carriers. Carriers, in turn, have passed the burden to policyholders.</p>
<p>To try to navigate these challenges, some companies have chosen to limit coverage for specific types of damage. For example, some insurance companies in Florida will no longer offer hurricane or flood coverage. And in extreme cases, insurance companies have withdrawn entirely from the state. </p>
<p>Understanding this complex relationship between insurers, reinsurers and policyholders is key to understanding the broader implications of the <a href="https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-home-insurance-crisis-cost-price-premium-institute-rates">Florida insurance crisis</a>. It underscores the urgent need for comprehensive solutions and collaborative efforts to address evolving challenges in the insurance ecosystem.</p>
<h2>Learning from Florida … one way or another</h2>
<p>Florida isn’t taking all this sitting down. In December 2022, state lawmakers responded to growing property market instability by passing <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022A/2A">Senate Bill 2A</a>, a package of insurance reforms. </p>
<p>One major part was a rule change designed to discourage policyholders from suing their insurers. Previously, Florida law let insured individuals recover attorney fees if they secured any amount through litigation against their insurer. </p>
<p>The idea is that making this change will discourage needless lawsuits. However, my research as an <a href="https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol71/iss3/5/">environmental justice professor</a> shows that attempts to exclude attorneys from the negotiation process often lead to more expensive litigation and less access to justice.</p>
<p>The bill also restricts <a href="https://www.myfloridacfo.com/docs-sf/insurance-consumer-advocate-libraries/ica-documents/aob-consumer-protection-tips-brochure.pdf?sfvrsn=690bdde6_5">assignment of benefits</a>, a mechanism that permits third-party entities like roofing companies to negotiate with insurance companies on behalf of Florida residents. While assignment of benefits <a href="https://www.myfloridacfo.com/division/consumers/consumerprotections/assignmentofbenefits">increased advocacy</a>, it was also linked to skyrocketing claims costs.</p>
<p>The balancing act between providing ample opportunities and containing costs has <a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/10/13/advocates-hailed-a-new-law-to-help-stabilize-fls-housing-crisis-but-implementation-has-been-rocky/">sparked debate</a> among justice advocates. Florida’s legislative response reflects an ongoing effort to strike an equilibrium, ensuring fairness and accessibility while addressing the challenges faced by both insurers and policyholders.</p>
<p>Florida’s actions to address the property insurance crisis raise a critical question: Will the state serve as a blueprint for disaster-prone regions, or act as a cautionary tale? After all, states such as California and Louisiana have also seen insurance companies withdrawing from their markets. Will their legislatures draw inspiration from Florida’s? </p>
<p>For now, it’s too early to tell: The policies have only been in place since the latest round of hurricanes. But in the meantime, the rest of the U.S. will be watching – especially policymakers who care about resilience, and those who want to make sure vulnerable populations don’t get the short end of the stick.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Latisha Nixon-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Florida home insurance premiums have shot up threefold in just five years.Latisha Nixon-Jones, Associate Professor of Law, Jacksonville UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2204592024-01-29T23:20:17Z2024-01-29T23:20:17ZWhat’s unsettling about Catan: How board games uphold colonial narratives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567624/original/file-20240102-19-2tzi0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C254%2C5121%2C3165&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catan experienced a revival over the pandemic. However, the most potent and painful relationship between Catan and our world today remains largely unexamined.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/whats-unsettling-about-catan-how-board-games-uphold-colonial-narratives" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The death of <a href="https://www.catan.com/catan-fans/news/we-mourn-passing-klaus-teuber">Klaus Teuber, creator of popular board game Catan</a>, marked the passing of a board game giant. </p>
<p>Teuber died on April 1, 2023, after a brief illness. The German-born <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65194096">dental technician-turned-game designer</a> invented the game, originally called Settlers of Catan, in 1995 while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/business/klaus-teuber-dead.html">managing a dental lab</a>. That same year <a href="https://www.polygon.com/23669496/settlers-of-catan-creator-klaus-teuber-dead-70-obituary">Catan won</a> one of board gaming’s most prestigious awards, the German <a href="https://www.polygon.com/22583960/spiel-des-jahres-2020-winner-micromacro-crime-city-in-stock">Spiel des Jahres</a>.</p>
<p>He once recalled in an interview <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/07/897271885/families-stuck-at-home-turn-to-board-game-catan-sending-sales-skyrocketing">how the idea began to percolate in 1963 as an 11-year-old in post-war Germany</a>. According to Teuber, Catan was <a href="https://www.polygon.com/23669496/settlers-of-catan-creator-klaus-teuber-dead-70-obituary">inspired by tales of Viking exploration</a>, and it places players together on a remote island, where they must competitively collect and cultivate territory through resource extraction, trade and expansion by building roads and settlement.</p>
<p>Since 1995, the game has sold <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65194096">more than 40 million copies and has been translated into more than 40 languages</a>. It fundamentally changed the board game industry, with dozens of spinoffs and new editions, including electronic versions.</p>
<p>In 2010, <em>The Washington Post</em> named Settlers of Catan the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/24/AR2010112404140.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_13">“board game of our time,”</a> and this is true in many regards. For example, during the early months of the pandemic, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898853332/sales-of-settlers-of-catan-skyrocket-during-coronavirus-crisis">Catan experienced a revival as sales skyrocketed</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, however, the most potent and painful relationship between Catan and our world today remains largely unexamined.</p>
<h2>Settler colonialism</h2>
<p>In interviews, Teuber said he started creating games in the 1980s to help deal with the stress of his dental career. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-man-who-built-catan">“I developed games to escape,” he said. “This was my own world I created.”</a> The Settlers of Catan — <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2015/6/23/8661435/the-settlers-of-catan-has-a-new-name-new-look-for-5th-edition">renamed Catan</a> in 2015 — wasn’t really Teuber’s own world, it was a <a href="https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/bgs-2020-0004">playable version of the American dream</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a suit holds the Settlers of Catan board game. The game map is on a table in front of him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567612/original/file-20240102-25-uqfy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Klaus Teuber presents his game The Settlers of Catan in September 1995, in Frankfurt, Germany. Teuber created of the hugely popular board game in which players compete to build settlements on a fictional island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, through a set of game mechanics that motivates resource extraction in the name of settling a supposed empty land, the connection between the in-game narrative and the political histories of North America and other parts of the world is clear. As historian Lorenzo Veracini says, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18380743.2013.761941">“the Settlers of Catan is really about settler colonialism.”</a></p>
<p>The success of Catan also codified a certain kind of game play that has similarly proliferated worldwide, one that’s invested in the specific historical, economic and political factors of settler colonialism.</p>
<p>This gaming rhetoric quickly began to shape the game mechanics and narrative strategies of not only European games but also <a href="https://edspace.american.edu/davidsonwilbourne/colonial-discourse-and-cultural-memory-in-eurogames/">global tabletop gaming culture</a>.</p>
<p>The Settlers of Catan was not the first time a board game touched on colonial or imperialist discourses. Risk, invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse and originally released in 1957, is an early example of how <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/material-game-studies-9781350202719/">discourses of conquest emerged in tabletop games</a>.</p>
<p>Here, players conquer their enemies’ territories by building an army, moving their troops in and engaging in battle. </p>
<p>However, because players in Catan explicitly take on the roles of settlers, this particular board game’s engagement in the rhetoric of settler colonialism set new precedents. And unfortunately, games that incorporate colonial histories and strategies into their narratives or game mechanic normalize these discourses through their status as a popular pastime.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The board game risk with game pieces on a map of the world." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569422/original/file-20240115-25-qshucb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Risk, originally released in 1957, is an early example of how discourses of conquest emerged in tabletop games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Decolonizing gameplay</h2>
<p>Since 1995, board games have continued to include themes of settler colonialism, with several games published globally that even concretely engage Indigenous presence during and after their first contact with colonial powers. </p>
<p>In these games, Indigenous identity, history, culture and sovereignty emerge as essential elements of world-building and game mechanics. In the game <a href="https://www.laboitedejeu.fr/en/neta-tanka/">Neta-Tanka</a>, for example, the Frostrivers tribe dwells along the Great Frozen River in harmony with nature, obeying the laws of the Four Elders and in turn, guided by the most venerable of the Elders, the Neta-Tanka.</p>
<p>However, these features often merge or misrepresent Indigenous cultures and traditions in problematic ways. <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/260201/manitoba">In the board game Manitoba</a>, players become clan leaders of the Cree tribe and try to become the chieftain of them all. But the iconography associated with this already problematic playable version of Indigenous resource management and spiritual guidance are totem poles, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-board-game-controversy-1.4816975">which are not part of the cultures of Indigenous Peoples in Manitoba</a>.</p>
<p>These games seek to create a compelling story at the expense of Indigenous traditional knowledge and contemporary lived experience, ignoring the contribution of Indigenous voices through consultation while missing opportunities to engage concretely with issues that impact global Indigenous Peoples.</p>
<p>At the same time, a small group of Indigenous designers and board game enthusiasts have begun to develop counter-discourses through board game development. Board game designer and <a href="https://www.harrisburgu.edu/about/our-people/faculty-staff/gregory-loring-albright/">Assistant Professor of Interactive Media Greg Loring-Albright</a> has shown with <a href="https://analoggamestudies.org/2015/11/the-first-nations-of-catan-practices-in-critical-modification/">First Nations of Catan</a> that it is possible to modify and decolonize gameplay by drawing attention to issues of Indigenous sovereignty.</p>
<p>Another excellent example of this is <a href="https://radiussfu.com/sinulkhay-and-ladders/">Sínulkhay and Ladders</a> by <a href="https://nahaneecreative.com/bio">Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee</a>, a Squamish decolonizing facilitator, creative director and Indigenous changemaker.</p>
<p>The design is based on Snakes and Ladders, but its goal is to teach players how to decolonize their actions and decision-making processes. </p>
<p>Similarly, the recent successes of the role-playing game <a href="https://coyoteandcrow.net/">Coyote and Crow</a>, by game designer Connor Alexander, and the board game <a href="http://nunamigame.com/index.php/en/">Nunami</a>, by Inuk graphic designer Thomassie Mangiok, demonstrate that board games can make valuable contributions to Indigenous self-representation in popular culture.</p>
<p>Players can also help to support Indigenous voices in the global game industry. For example, <a href="https://shop.pemetawe.com/">Pe Metawe Games</a> is an Indigenous-owned tabletop board game and roleplaying game store located on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton. They are dedicated to creating an inclusive space for anyone to enjoy the hobby.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Biz Nijdam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Settlers of Catan codified a certain kind of game play based on the history of settler colonialism.Biz Nijdam, Assistant Professor, Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181142024-01-25T20:45:23Z2024-01-25T20:45:23ZWhat do I need to know before investing in ETFs and what are the risks?<p>Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are tradeable units that have different types of investments all bundled by a professional fund manager into a single investment. In the “bundle” you might have shares, bonds, property investment and other types of investments. </p>
<p>That means people who hold ETFs are investing in a diverse collection of assets across various sectors, markets, companies and regions. With a single ETF you can own a piece of multiple companies or bonds.</p>
<p>They are issued by financial services companies, such as Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street, and managed by professional fund managers. You can buy and sell units in an ETF fund through a stockbroker; many people use an online broker such as CommSec, CMC Markets, eToro or others.</p>
<p>ETFs can be traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), or another exchange. The market price of an ETF, which is disclosed daily, will typically follow other benchmarks in the market such as the ASX200 or the S&P500.</p>
<p>ETFs have grown very <a href="https://www.investordaily.com.au/markets/54140-how-australia-s-etf-industry-grew-from-100k-to-over-150b">popular</a> over the last two decades, especially among <a href="https://www.asx.com.au/investors/learn-about-our-investment-solutions/etfs-and-other-etps/20-years-of-etfs-on-asx">younger investors</a>. But what are the potential <a href="https://www.asx.com.au/investors/learn-about-our-investment-solutions/etfs-and-other-etps/benefits-and-risks">benefits and risks</a> of ETFs?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-etf-and-why-is-it-driving-bitcoin-back-to-record-high-prices-170095">What is an ETF? And why is it driving Bitcoin back to record high prices?</a>
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<h2>What are the potential benefits?</h2>
<p>In traditional shares investing, you might research one company and if you believe it will do better, you buy shares in it in the hope its share price rises.</p>
<p>With ETFs, you buy a “bundle” (a number of units) of shares and other securities, that is put together and managed by a professional fund manager. If the market goes up, the value of the ETF should too. </p>
<p>This means investing in ETFs can allow you to spread your risk across a lot of different regions and different markets (such as shares, bonds, property, companies and so on). You aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket. And you can let a professional fund manager worry about selecting the various investments and managing them. You don’t need to be an expert on one particular company or industry.</p>
<p>ETFs also offer flexibility to respond to market trends. They are usually easier to sell quickly than many other types of investments, such as property. This offers freedom to adjust your investment portfolio often and as you like.</p>
<p>Many ETFs that distribute dividends allow the investor to reinvest these dividends automatically to benefit from compound growth over time. </p>
<p>ETFs can also be cost-effective, because the administration is handled by the exchange (such as the ASX).</p>
<h2>What are the risks?</h2>
<p>Like any investment, ETFs carry risk.</p>
<p>A lot depends on the type of ETF and underlying assets in the “bundle”.</p>
<p>If you aren’t careful, you can end up buying a higher-risk ETF without realising it. So it pays to know what types of investments and in what proportions are in your “bundle” (which is known as your asset allocation).</p>
<p>Asset allocation should be aligned with your risk tolerance. Investors have different tolerances for risk depending on their age, financial goals, investment time horizon, preferences and personal comfort with market volatility. Knowing your risk tolerance helps you manage your emotional reactions during market downturns. </p>
<p>A retiree with a likely low tolerance to taking risks might choose an asset allocation that exposes them to low-risk assets. Someone saving for retirement might have more riskier share investments as they aim to grow their nest egg.</p>
<p>Just like shares, ETFs are subject to market fluctuations. If the market experiences a downturn, then the value of the ETF may decline too (depending on what’s in your ETF). Much of the risk depends on what type of assets the ETFs hold.</p>
<p>And in times of market stress, ETFs may not be as easy as they normally are to convert into cash. </p>
<p>Some financial products bought and sold every day on the market include debts or derivatives (futures and options investments). If your ETFs contain in the “bundle” some debts or derivatives, there is always the risk the party on the other side of a financial transaction may default on their debt obligations.</p>
<p>Growth in Australian exchange-traded funds under the management of a professional ETF manager has been robust in recent years. Market capitalisation stood at <a href="https://www.asx.com.au/content/dam/asx/issuers/asx-investment-products-reports/2023/pdf/asx-investment-products-oct-2023.pdf">A$145.83 billion</a> in October 2023, up 13.55% since October 2022.</p>
<p>But before you dive in, remember that ETFs come with their own risks.</p>
<p>Carefully research and select ETFs that are aligned with your investment goals, preferences, time horizon and risk tolerance or see a professional for advice.</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angelique Nadia Sweetman McInnes has received funding from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, Central Queensland University. She is a member of Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, the Financial Advice Association of Australia, the Society for Trusts and Estate Planning, the Financial Planning Academic Forum, Cooperative Research Australia, the Association of Computing Machinery, the Health Informatics Knowledge Management Steering Committee, and the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education.</span></em></p>Exchange-traded funds allow you to spread your risk across many different regions and markets (such as shares, bonds, property and companies). You aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket.Angelique Nadia Sweetman McInnes, Academic in Financial Planning, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145592023-11-06T13:34:05Z2023-11-06T13:34:05ZClimate change hits indebted businesses hardest, new research suggests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556689/original/file-20231030-25-gfhibp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=297%2C1154%2C6833%2C3452&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Climate change leads to investment droughts, too. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-with-umbrella-standing-on-cracked-earth-royalty-free-image/685394718">mgstudyo/E+/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change poses the biggest risks to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.565">most vulnerable people</a>, and the same is true for businesses: Highly leveraged companies – those that have accumulated too much debt – are uniquely susceptible to climate shocks. That’s what we found in a forthcoming study in The Review of Corporate Finance that analyzed data from <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4541036">more than 2,500 U.S. publicly listed companies</a> over 16 years. </p>
<p>As professors who study <a href="https://www.bryant.edu/academics/faculty/kuang-huan">climate finance</a> and <a href="https://www.bryant.edu/academics/faculty/zheng-cathy">corporate governance</a>, we wanted to understand how climate change affects businesses, and how <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stakeholder.asp">stakeholders</a> – people who have a stake in a firm’s success, such as consumers, employees and investors – respond to it. </p>
<p>So we and our colleagues <a href="https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/elghoul">Sadok El Ghoul</a> at the University of Alberta and <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/moore/directory/guedhami_omrane.php">Omrane Guedhami</a> at the University of South Carolina conducted a study to examine how climate risk affects indebted companies.</p>
<p>We found that climate change delivers a one-two punch to highly leveraged firms by intensifying the costs that stakeholders impose on them.</p>
<p>Consider consumers. Researchers know that climate change can push people to mix up their purchasing patterns – by buying greener products, for example, or by engaging in boycotts. And while evolving consumer preferences pose a challenge to all businesses, it’s harder for a company that’s deep in debt to adapt.</p>
<p>Our study suggested as much. Two years after facing intense climate change exposure, highly indebted firms saw sales growth fall by about 1.4% on average, we found. In monetary terms, that translates into an average US$59.7 million loss per company. </p>
<p>Climate change also worries investors, we found. Companies exposed to climate risk face the threat of financial and operational disruptions that may drain lenders’ funds, particularly for firms already burdened with high debt. By examining capital issuance within our sample of companies, we found that climate exposure reduced firms’ net debt issuance – meaning new debt minus retired debt – by around $457 million per firm on average. This is an additional hurdle for indebted businesses trying to raise money.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Researchers have long known that indebted companies are at greater risk of product failures and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1994.tb00086.x">losing market share</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-405X(03)00070-9">when economic conditions go south</a>. Having too much debt can even force companies out of business, as some analysts contend <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/analysts-toys-r-us-might-have-survived-if-it-did-not-have-to-deal-with-so-much-debt/2018/03/15/42752326-286a-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html">happened with Toys R Us</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A STORE IS CLOSED sign is affixed to an automatic door at the entrance of a Toys R Us location." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556917/original/file-20231031-25-psqa9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A shuttered Toys R Us store in Orlando, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/toys-r-us-store-that-was-shuttered-in-2018-is-seen-on-june-news-photo/1151373510?adppopup=true">Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research suggests that climate change, which the World Economic Forum predicts will endanger <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_%20Report_2020.pdf">about 2% of global financial assets by 2100</a>, will push already shaky companies to the brink. It underscores the immense and asymmetric effects global warming will have on businesses – and the reality that the most vulnerable firms are set to endure the worst.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Our study highlights the disproportionate impacts of climate change on financially fragile businesses. Moving forward, we plan to explore the influence of climate change on firms’ business behaviors, particularly in terms of their ethical conduct. </p>
<p>Regarding climate solutions, one of us (Huan Kuang) has shown how companies can use innovation to reduce their climate vulnerabilities. In <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4150960">a working paper</a> co-authored with <a href="https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/people/bing-liang">Bing Liang</a> of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, every 1% increase in climate-related innovation – as measured by patent data – was found to reduce firm-level carbon emissions growth by around 100,000 metric tons.</p>
<p>However, indebted firms may not rush to invest in new technologies without some prodding. That means policy incentives will be key to success, and further research is needed to determine what they should look like.</p>
<p>Climate change could also have more complicated economic effects than many people realize. For example, if it forces companies that aren’t viable out of business, that would be a good thing for the economy – at least in theory, as one of us (Ying Zheng) explored <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00309-x">in a recent paper</a> on a related subject.</p>
<p>Many questions remain unanswered, but it’s already clear that climate change will have important and multifaceted effects on the future of business. We encourage other researchers to investigate further.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Global warming plus leverage equals a big mess for companies.Huan Kuang, Assistant Professor of Finance, Bryant UniversityYing (Cathy) Zheng, Associate Professor of Finance, Bryant UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2137612023-11-05T23:16:31Z2023-11-05T23:16:31ZOur minds handle risk strangely – and that’s partly why we delayed climate action so long<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557060/original/file-20231101-21-2vg3lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3512%2C2212&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We now have a very narrow window to significantly and rapidly slash greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change, with just an estimated <a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-budget-for-1-5-c-will-run-out-in-six-years-at-current-emissions-levels-new-research-216459">six years left</a> before we blow our carbon budget to stay below 1.5°C of warming. </p>
<p>We’ve known how gases like carbon dioxide trap heat for <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-understood-physics-of-climate-change-in-the-1800s-thanks-to-a-woman-named-eunice-foote-164687">over 100 years</a> and alarm bells have been ringing loudly for over 35 years, when climate scientist James Hansen testified that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html">global warming had begun</a>. </p>
<p>As extreme weather and temperatures arrive, many of us wonder whether it had to get this bad before we acted. Did we need to see to believe? What role has our own psychology played in our sluggishness? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="james hansen testifying before US senate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557061/original/file-20231101-17-cgom4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many people first took notice of climate change after US scientist James Hansen testified about its effects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How do we respond to threats?</h2>
<p>From a psychology point of view, motivating us to take action on climate is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-failing-to-solve-the-worlds-wicked-problems-heres-a-better-approach-64949">wicked problem</a>. Many factors <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/10/why-people-arent-motivated-to-address-climate-change">combine to make it harder</a> for us to act. </p>
<p>The necessary policies and behaviour changes have been viewed as too hard or costly. Until recently, the consequences of doing nothing have been seen as a distant problem. Given the complexity of climate modelling, it has been difficult for scientists and policymakers to lay out what the specific environmental consequences would be from any given action or when they would manifest. </p>
<p>As if that’s not enough, climate change presents a collective-action problem. It would do little good for Australia to reach net-zero emissions if other countries keep emitting without change. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-mind-of-a-sceptic-the-mental-gymnastics-of-climate-change-denial-189645">Inside the mind of a sceptic: the ‘mental gymnastics’ of climate change denial</a>
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<p>When we write about climate change, we often frame it as an ever more urgent and significant threat to our way of life. We do this thinking that showing the seriousness of the threat will galvanise others into faster action. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. When we’re confronted with big risks – and the need for a painful shift from the status quo – some of us respond unexpectedly. We might find ourselves motivated to seek out evidence to undercut the reality of the threat, and use this uncertainty to justify staying on the same path. </p>
<p>One unfortunate aspect of this is that people motivated to avoid or deny climate risk are actually better able to do so when they have more scientific training. This background equips them better to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1547">counter-argue and rationalise the dissonance</a>, meaning they seek out information to align with their beliefs and justify their passivity. Misinformation and doubt are particularly damaging to climate action. They let us feel OK about inaction. </p>
<p>This tendency to rationalise away risk was also clearly visible among people who <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.837">downplayed the impact or even denied the existence of COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>Is there an antidote?</p>
<p>We’ve found explaining the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/84/1/74/5860243">simple and well-understood way</a> that emissions of specific gases trap the Sun’s heat and warm the planet can be effective, because people can’t rationalise these facts away. The greenhouse effect is a well-accepted phenomenon, even by those most sceptical of global warming. After all, it’s essential to life on Earth – without these gases trapping heat, the world would be too cold for life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a greenhouse with lettuces growing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557063/original/file-20231101-23-pjqp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The greenhouse effect is well known and uncontroversial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Why are we finally acting?</h2>
<p>As climate change has moved out of the computer models and become very much a part of our present, we are seeing stronger efforts to cut emissions.</p>
<p>More and more of us are experiencing tangible events such as forest fires, droughts, sudden floods, rapidly intensifying hurricanes or record-breaking heatwaves. This has removed one barrier to inaction. Until now, the consequences of doing nothing seemed far off and uncertain. Now they are seen as certain and already present. </p>
<p>Better still, technological advancement and economies of scale in production have meant clean energy and clean transport have fallen significantly in price. </p>
<p>At government and individual levels, there are now measures we can take that aren’t too costly and come with immediate gains such as cutting power bills or avoiding petrol price increases. Greater political consensus in many countries is also helping challenge the inertia of the status quo. That’s another barrier to action evaporating. </p>
<p>As climate damage gets worse, we’re likely to see <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/10/30/climate-emergency-scientists-declaration/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjk4NjM4NDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzAwMDI0Mzk5LCJpYXQiOjE2OTg2Mzg0MDAsImp0aSI6IjUxNTg2NGViLWU2ODEtNGRiZS1iNmRiLTU5ZjI0ODZhNjc3ZCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9jbGltYXRlLWVudmlyb25tZW50LzIwMjMvMTAvMzAvY2xpbWF0ZS1lbWVyZ2VuY3ktc2NpZW50aXN0cy1kZWNsYXJhdGlvbi8ifQ.n_OHYGJLLYGR7XJbSSGh8mGOTiqMYBjwOeig4lTX8uc">ever-starker warnings</a>. Does fear motivate us? When faced with threats, we are more <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-48611-002">likely to take action</a>, particularly if we think we can make a difference. </p>
<p>Yes, we now have a very narrow window to avert the worst. But we also have an increased certainty about climate change and the damage it causes, as well as greater confidence in our ability to bring about change. </p>
<p>For years, our own psychology slowed down efforts to make the sweeping changes necessary to quit fossil fuels. Now, at least, some of these psychological barriers are getting smaller. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-already-think-climate-change-is-here-and-now-despite-what-weve-been-told-203425">Most people already think climate change is 'here and now', despite what we've been told</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Rotman has received funding from the Australian Energy Market Operator, Mondo Power, and iMove Australia</span></em></p>One barrier to climate action has been our own psychology and reluctance to take action. But as the crisis intensifies, some of these barriers have evaporated.Jeff Rotman, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Consumer Psychology & Co-Director of the Better Consumption Lab, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083342023-10-04T16:16:30Z2023-10-04T16:16:30ZWomen take fewer risks because they think about losing more than men, research suggests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550997/original/file-20230928-21-wf9uds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3175%2C2080&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fearless-highliner-walking-on-tight-rope-369170321">Roman Tarasevych/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One difference between men and women has been well documented by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111001521">economists</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-13573-004">psychologists</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-014-0020-2">biologists</a> – that women are tend to be more cautious and take fewer risks. Evidence has also been <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.101.2.556">gathered</a> about how this difference affects women’s lives, particularly with regard to careers and earnings. </p>
<p>For instance, men are more likely than women to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/jsbm.12080">start a business</a> or invest in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176502000459?pes=vor">stock market</a>. And in the UK, the <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/characteristics-and-incomes-top-1">top 1%</a> of income tax payers are disproportionately male.</p>
<p>But why does this variation in attitude to risk exist? My <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12668">recent research</a> suggests that the reason women are less willing to take risks than men is because they are more sensitive to the pain of any resulting loss.</p>
<p>I realise of course that when people read about claims regarding sex differences in behaviours or psychological attributes, their immediate reaction is to list people they know – including themselves – who don’t fit this pattern. </p>
<p>But these studies are about averages, and there is a huge amount of overlap between the distributions of male and female risk-taking. And there will indeed be large numbers of women who act more riskily than the average man. </p>
<p>So going with the averages, I used psychological data that tracked over 13,000 men and women from the UK for almost two decades, and looked at how they approached risky choices. That is, how they assessed the probability of losing something, and then evaluated how painful that loss would be. </p>
<p>I found that on the whole, women focused more on the possibility of financial loss and anticipated experiencing more pain from those losses. They therefore took fewer risks. </p>
<p>The data I used measured how participants viewed their financial future, as well as their reactions to changes (negative and positive) in household income. </p>
<p>So with something like investing in the stock market, they look at the probability of ending up with a financial loss if the markets fall, and how bad the consequences of this would be. Women were less keen to invest.</p>
<p>And when asked how they saw themselves financially a year from now with expectations about outcomes under the individual’s control, men were significantly more optimistic. (This optimism may be linked to men’s overconfidence about their abilities in the workplace compared to women, which <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300379?via%3Dihub">previous studies</a> have highlighted.)</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sky view behind smashed glass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551199/original/file-20230929-15-b7vwoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broken glass.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sky-background-sunny-blue-seen-through-2209912065">Gergitek Gergi tavan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These differences in attitude to risk could partly explain why women are less likely to be entrepreneurs, and are underrepresented in highly paid jobs and upper management positions. For while sexual discrimination <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jel.20160995">plays a role</a> in maintaining the glass ceiling, it’s also true that if you really want to make the “big time” financially, you’re going to need to take on some risk. </p>
<h2>Changing behaviour</h2>
<p>As a society then, if we are aiming for equality across the sexes, we may want to encourage women to take as many risks as men. But is it possible to change people’s behaviour – and their psychology – to this extent? </p>
<p>The answer to this question largely depends on whether sex differences in behaviour have biological or environmental roots. For instance, <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/06/the-ideological-subversion-of-biology/">one theory</a> is that males and females are born with the propensity to behave in similar ways, meaning any clear differences stem from socialisation and the environment. </p>
<p>And a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1808336116">recent study</a> showed how the environment is extremely important in shaping risk aversion, finding that girls from matrilineal cultures – where women tend to have a higher social status than men – often take more risks than girls from patriarchal societies. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, biologists have compiled a long list of differences that have evolutionary origins. One of the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12507">most prominent</a> theories indicates that some of the attributes associated with risk-taking – aggression and impulsiveness for example – are derived from the sexual competition between males for access to females (or the resources those females desire). </p>
<p>So both biology and the environment matter. And this in turn suggests that while we may be able to narrow some psychological sex differences, it is unlikely that we can fully close the gap. </p>
<p>That said, we may not even want men and women to have the same approach to risk-taking, if the differences that exist are there for biological, genetic or evolutionary reasons. But this of course leads to enormous challenges in the pursuit of equality – and the clear risks in failing to achieve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Dawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a difference which can have a big impact on careers and earnings.Chris Dawson, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Business Economics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129692023-09-12T20:09:54Z2023-09-12T20:09:54ZStand back and avoid saying ‘be careful!’: how to help your child take risks at the park<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546794/original/file-20230907-17-wbfuhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-angle-shot-of-a-woman-and-a-little-boy-sitting-on-a-tree-18053266/">Ryan Fatalla/Pexels </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is ongoing concern about the impact of “<a href="https://www.gottman.com/blog/helicopter-parenting-good-intentions-poor-outcomes/">helicopter parenting</a>” on children’s growth and development. </p>
<p>Keen to ensure the best outcomes for their children, helicopter parents tend to hover over their kids, constantly trying to prevent misadventure or harm. </p>
<p>But child experts say this can lead to a <a href="https://www.healthactionresearch.org.uk/mental-health/helicopter-parenting/">lack of resilience and tenacity</a> in children. Children can also struggle with problem-solving and initiative. </p>
<p>How can we overcome this? </p>
<p>We are educators who study risky environments. Our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42322-023-00132-6">new research</a> looks at parent’s perceptions of an outdoor play park. It shows how outdoor parks provide opportunities for children to engage in risky play and develop independence and problem-solving skills.</p>
<h2>The importance of risk</h2>
<p>Risk taking means engaging in any behaviour or activity with an uncertain physical, social, emotional or financial outcome. </p>
<p>Risk is an everyday part of life, from driving a car to buying a house at auction or climbing a ladder.</p>
<p>We cannot eliminate risk, so we need to learn how to navigate it. This means taking responsibility for assessing potential consequences and taking necessary precautions. For example, crossing the road carries risk, but we learn how to look for cars or cross at traffic lights if the road is very busy. </p>
<p>Recognising and appropriately responding to risk taking is an integral aspect of children’s growth and development. In 1998, US educator and wilderness guide Jeff Liddle <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/105382599802100201">observed risk was instrumental</a> to lifelong learning. </p>
<p>Outdoor experiences are particularly good places to <a href="https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:24236/">develop skills around risk</a> because they are not a controlled environment. For example, no two trees are the same to climb and conditions can vary depending on the weather. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young child climbs on park equipment." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546795/original/file-20230907-27-w9ihqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Outdoor experiences can help children learn about risk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-boy-playing-on-playground-s-wooden-equipment-8535649/">Ksenia Chernaya/Pexels</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-new-risky-playground-is-a-work-of-art-and-a-place-for-kids-to-escape-their-mollycoddling-parents-193218">This new ‘risky' playground is a work of art – and a place for kids to escape their mollycoddling parents</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42322-023-00132-6">new study</a> we surveyed parents and caregivers about children’s risk taking in the Boongaree nature play park in Berry, New South Wales. </p>
<p>The park includes fixed equipment such as slides and climbing ropes as well as natural elements such as water, stone, timber, sand and greenery.</p>
<p>We chose Boongaree after it became the focus of media and social media debate due to a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/3yo-breaks-leg-at-boongaree-nature-play-park-berry/101317636">spate of injuries</a>, including broken bones. The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10694305/Is-Boongaree-Nature-Play-Park-Berry-Australias-dangerous-playground.html">suggested</a> it was Australia’s “most dangerous playground”. Following community concerns, the park’s tunnel slide was <a href="https://www.2st.com.au/local-news/shoalhaven/boongaree-nature-play-park-tunnel-slide-to-go/">replaced</a> in May this year with another slide with less “momentum”. </p>
<p>Over multiple visits to the park in June 2023, we recruited 302 adults to complete a survey about their children’s park use. We then followed up with a closed Facebook group of 56 parents from the same group. </p>
<h2>The benefits of risk</h2>
<p>We asked parents to share their views about the park and they told us risky park play had many benefits. These included allowing children to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>be challenged and solve problems</p></li>
<li><p>connect to the outdoors</p></li>
<li><p>direct their own play</p></li>
<li><p>be physically active</p></li>
<li><p>be creative and curious</p></li>
<li><p>demonstrate confidence and independence and</p></li>
<li><p>build social capacity, by sharing equipment and taking turns.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As one parent told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The look on children’s faces as they reach the top of climbing ropes and start walking across the bridges is fabulous – grit and determination, followed by a big deep breath […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another parent spoke of the importance of giving kids the opportunity to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>make their own decisions about the risk they want to take, how high or how fast they will go. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet another parent described how the park gave children the “freedom to play in any way they feel comfortable”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-parents-can-help-their-kids-take-risks-and-why-its-good-for-them-120576">Five ways parents can help their kids take risks – and why it’s good for them</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How to support your child in outdoor, risky play</h2>
<p>So next time you go to the park, how can you support your child to take appropriate risks? Here are some tips, based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/being-in-nature-is-good-for-learning-heres-how-to-get-kids-off-screens-and-outside-104935">our work</a> on children, risk and outdoor play: </p>
<p><strong>Start with a positive mindset:</strong> playgrounds are designed to develop physical and social skills. So be prepared for your child to try new things at the park (rather than just play it safe with the same old equipment). </p>
<p><strong>Be ready to support – and to stand back:</strong> there are times when it is best to stand back and let children experience the equipment or the area for themselves. There are others where parents are needed. So keep a monitoring eye on things. But don’t assume you will be helping all the time. </p>
<p><strong>Language matters:</strong> try to steer away from language such as “be careful”. This can set children up to be afraid of a situation. Reframe your language to something more supportive, such as “is there a stronger piece of wood to put your foot on?” or “have you seen the hole over there?” </p>
<p>You could also say something like, “look around, do you want to explore left or right?”. This prompts your child to think about the best approach for them and builds self confidence and problem-solving skills. </p>
<p><strong>Give useful advice:</strong> help children with specific guidance on how to use equipment safely. For example, when climbing you could say, “use three points of contact, two hands and one foot on that ladder”. </p>
<p><strong>Let the child decide:</strong> allow your child to decide what pieces of equipment they use and how far they climb. Do not push them to complete activities they are not comfortable with. And by the same token, intervene only when the equipment is clearly above their skill development level.</p>
<p><strong>Have fun:</strong> show excitement, join in the imaginative games and reinforce the message that it is acceptable to say no or yes to challenge – both choices are OK!</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors wish to acknowledge Amanda Lloyd, who contributed to the research on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our research shows outdoor parks offer the ideal place for children to engage in risky play. This may challenge parents who understandably wish to keep their kids ‘safe’ all the time.Tonia Gray, Professor, Centre for Educational Research, Western Sydney UniversityJaydene Barnes, Associate Lecturer , Western Sydney UniversityMarion Sturges, Academic Professional Advisor and Lecturer in Education, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079032023-07-03T15:11:12Z2023-07-03T15:11:12ZHuman exposure to wildfires has more than doubled in two decades – who is at risk might surprise you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535783/original/file-20230705-17-uqgch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C3493%2C2276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke rises from a brush fire near Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles in 2007</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/smoke-rises-from-a-brush-fire-near-the-hollywood-hills-in-news-photo/93050464">Hector Mata/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past two decades, a staggering <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01163-z">21.8 million Americans</a> found themselves living within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of a large wildfire. Most of those residents would have had to evacuate, and many would have been exposed to smoke and emotional trauma from the fire.</p>
<p>Nearly 600,000 of them were directly exposed to the fire, with their homes inside the wildfire perimeter. </p>
<p>Those statistics reflect how the number of people directly exposed to wildfires more than doubled from 2000 to 2019, my team’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01163-z">new research</a> shows. </p>
<p>But while commentators often blame the rising risk on homebuilders pushing <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/homes-wildfire-wildland-urban-interface-washington-oregon-california/">deeper into the wildland areas</a>, we found that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fastest-population-growth-in-the-wests-wildland-urban-interface-is-in-areas-most-vulnerable-to-wildfires-173410">population growth in these high-risk areas</a> explained only a small part of the increase in the number of people who were exposed to wildfires.</p>
<p>Instead, three-quarters of this trend was driven by intense fires growing out of control and encroaching on existing communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of a community of small, closely built houses, with half the homes in the photo burned." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=597%2C528%2C5718%2C3809&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533306/original/file-20230621-25-w404ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wildfire in 2017 destroyed more than 3,000 homes in Santa Rosa, Calif., a city of over 180,000 people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/some-houses-burned-and-some-did-not-aerial-view-of-the-news-photo/860304634">Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That knowledge has implications for how communities prepare to fight wildfires in the future, how they respond to population growth and whether policy changes such as increasing insurance premiums to reduce losses will be effective. It’s also a reminder of what’s at risk from human activities, such as fireworks on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617394114">July 4, a day when wildfire ignitions spike</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two charts show wildfire counts by day of the year over 20 years. July 4 stands out as a clear spike, both looking at fires US-wide and just in the US West." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534936/original/file-20230629-22632-r5u3fu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mojtaba Sadegh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where wildfire exposure was highest</h2>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tGGNDyUAAAAJ&hl=en">climate scientist</a> who studies the wildfire-climate relationship and its socioenvironmental impacts. For the new study, colleagues and I analyzed the annual boundaries of more than 15,000 large wildfires across the Lower 48 states and annual population distribution data to estimate the number of people exposed to those fires.</p>
<p>Not every home within a wildfire boundary burns. If you picture wildfire photos taken from a plane, fires generally burn in patches rather than as a wall of flame, and pockets of homes survive.</p>
<p>We found that 80% of the human exposure to wildfires – involving people living within a wildfire boundary from 2000 to 2019 – was in Western states. </p>
<p>California stood out in our analysis. More than 70% of Americans directly exposed to wildfires were in California, but only 15% of the area burned was there. </p>
<p><iframe id="K1mPs" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/K1mPs/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What climate change has to do with wildfires</h2>
<p>Hot, dry weather pulls moisture from plants and soil, leaving dry fuel that can easily burn. On a windy day – <a href="https://wrcc.dri.edu/Climate/narrative_ca.php">such as California often sees</a> during its hottest, driest months – a spark, for example <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/pge-to-pay-55-million-for-two-massive-california-wildfires">from a power line</a>, campfire or lightning, can start a wildfire that quickly spreads.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213815120">Recent research</a> published in June 2023 shows that almost all of the increase in California’s burned area in recent decades has been due to anthropogenic climate change – meaning climate change caused by humans.</p>
<p>Our new research looked beyond just the area burned and asked: Where were people exposed to wildfires, and why?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A landscape view across a neighborhood with gold courses, lakes and hills in the background. In the foreground is burned cul de sac that appears to be at the edge of the city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533308/original/file-20230621-26-gfsndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New homes on the edges of cities have been caught in some fires, like the one in Santa Rosa in 2017. But most of the people exposed were in neighborhoods existing well before 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-aftermath-of-a-firestorm-that-began-in-napa-valleys-news-photo/874477844">George Rose/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found that while the population has grown in the wildland-urban interface, where houses intermingle with forests, shrublands or grasslands, that accounted for only about one-quarter of the increase in the number of humans directly exposed to wildfires across the Lower 48 states from 2000 to 2019.</p>
<p>Three-quarters of that 125% increase in exposure was due to fires’ increasingly encroaching on existing communities. The total burned area increased only 38%, but the locations of intense fires near towns and cities put lives at risk.</p>
<p>In California, which was in drought during much of that period, several wildfire catastrophes hit communities that had existed long before 2000. Almost all these catastrophes occurred during <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abae9e">dry, hot, windy conditions</a> that have become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab83a7">increasingly frequent because of climate change</a>.</p>
<figure><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2728/data_animation_legend-min.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2"><figcaption>The 2018 fire that destroyed Paradise, Calif., began as a small vegetation fire that ignited new fires as the wind blew its embers. NIST</figcaption></figure>
<p>Wildfires <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009717118">in the high mountains</a> in recent decades provide another way to look at the role that rising temperatures play in increasing fire activity.</p>
<p>High mountain forests have few cars, homes and power lines that could spark fires, and humans have historically done little to clear brush there or fight fires that could interfere with natural fire regimes. These regions were long considered too wet and cool to regularly burn. Yet my team’s past research showed <a href="https://theconversation.com/western-fires-are-burning-higher-in-the-mountains-at-unprecedented-rates-its-a-clear-sign-of-climate-change-159699">fires have been burning</a> there at unprecedented rates in recent years, mainly because of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37311-4">warming and drying trends in the Western U.S.</a></p>
<h2>What can communities do to lower the risk?</h2>
<p>Wildfire risk isn’t slowing. Studies have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00299-0">even in conservative scenarios</a>, the amount of area that burns in Western wildfires is projected to grow in the next few decades.</p>
<p>How much these fires grow and how intense they become depends largely on warming trends. Reducing emissions will help slow warming, but the risk is already high. Communities will have to both adapt to more wildfires and take steps to mitigate their impacts.</p>
<p>Developing community-level wildfire response plans, reducing human ignitions of wildfires and improving zoning and building codes can help prevent fires from becoming destructive. Building wildfire shelters in remote communities and ensuring resources are available to the most vulnerable people are also necessary to lessen the adverse societal impacts of wildfires.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mojtaba Sadegh receives funding from the Joint Fire Science Program and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Nearly 22 million people lived within 3 miles of a US wildfire in the past two decades. A new study tracking their locations flips the script on who is at risk.Mojtaba Sadegh, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2071712023-06-08T15:16:05Z2023-06-08T15:16:05ZBeauty procedures from manicures to cosmetic surgery carry risk — and the reward of a better life — podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530387/original/file-20230606-27-d4x6su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UV lights in nail salons may be associated with the risk of skin cancer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Making yourself more beautiful can result in tangible, material rewards. <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/pretty-privilege-at-work/">Pretty privilege</a>, as it is called, can lead to greater access to money and social capital, resulting in a better quality of life.</p>
<p>In Brazil, this understanding that beauty is important to one’s social status and mental and emotional well-being has prompted the state to subsidize cosmetic surgery. But this pursuit of beauty has a dark side and can often mean exposure to harm. </p>
<p>And this isn’t limited to extreme beautification practices, like extensive cosmetic surgery. People are also willing to endure potential risks in more mundane and everyday beauty treatments — like manicures.</p>
<p>In this episode of <em>The Conversation Weekly</em>, we speak to an anthropologist and a cancer researcher about the potential harm inherent in seeking beauty treatments.</p>
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<h2>The illusion of choice</h2>
<p>Carmen Alvaro Jarrín is an associate professor of anthropology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, in the U.S. They research cosmetic surgery in Brazil and looked at how the state came to support access to cosmetic procedures as part of the delivery of health care. The plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy had campaigned for access to cosmetic surgery, arguing that everyone had the right to be beautiful.</p>
<p>“It surprised me how many of them get plastic surgery, and spend a lot of money on beauty because they see it as a way to attain upward mobility,” Jarrín said. Their book, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520293885/the-biopolitics-of-beauty"><em>The Biopolitics of Beauty: Cosmetic Citizenship and Affective Capital in Brazil</em></a>, examined how beauty became a health right. </p>
<p>Many of those who access state-subsidized clinics cannot afford cosmetic procedures privately. And these clinics come with a risk — often they are used as training centres and many patients have experimental procedures tested on them, sometimes with drastic effects.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-brazil-patients-risk-everything-for-the-right-to-beauty-94159">In Brazil, patients risk everything for the 'right to beauty'</a>
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<p>“People believe that beauty gives you wealth. If you’re born poor and you’re beautiful, people think that it will give you upward mobility. Everybody was convinced that they would gain upper mobility,” Jarrín explains. “Anthropologists have noticed that the more unequal a society is, and the less upward mobility there is, the more that people will take to these magical means. In Brazil, beauty has that kind of magical quality to it.”</p>
<p>Access to cosmetic surgery promises better job opportunities and social mobility. In that context, seeking medical intervention to become more beautiful can be a rational choice.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Unreported World’ looks at access to cosmetic surgery for lower income women in Brazil.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The risk of exposure</h2>
<p>It’s not just plastic surgery, or in Brazil, where the pursuit of beauty can carry an extreme price. The growing popularity of gel manicures, with their employ of UV lights, can also place people at risk.</p>
<p>In 2016, Karolina Jasko — the 2018 Miss Illinois — was diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma on her thumb nail. Her cancer had been triggered by exposure to UV lights in nail parlours from getting regular manicures.</p>
<p>Maria Zhivagui is a postdoctoral researcher in environmental toxicology and cancer genomics at the University of California, in the U.S. She recently co-authored a study on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-35876-8">the impacts of using UV light to cure nail polish</a>.</p>
<p>“We started hearing about a lot of cancer cases that developed from artificial UV lamp exposure,” Zhivagui said. “We found this UV nail machine that is used in nail salons and that has been linked to cancer in females, that occurs on the dorsum of the hand or on the nail and the finger. And that was a very rare cancer, we usually don’t observe it.”</p>
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<p>Her team found that UV nail lamps can cause mutations in human and mice cells. Once she saw the effects, Zhivagui — who would often get manicures and would even do them herself at home — stopped using the UV lights.</p>
<p>“After seeing the effects on the mitochondria, on the DNA and cell death, I was like, no, this is very alarming,” she said. “And I stopped immediately getting exposed to these UV radiations in nail salons.”</p>
<p>While UV lights are widely used in nail salons, the devices are easy to acquire for home use. And as they become more widely accessible, it’s likely more people are exposing themselves to risk.</p>
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<p>This episode was written and produced by Nehal El-Hadi and Mend Mariwany, who is also the executive producer of The Conversation Weekly. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.</p>
<p>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>. </p>
<p>Listen to <em>The Conversation Weekly</em> via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a> or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carmen Alvaro Jarrín received a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant and Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Zhivagui does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being beautiful can improve a person’s quality of life and emotional wellbeing. But sometimes, there is a risk of harm — from exposure to cancer-causing UV light, to cheap cosmetic procedures.Nehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationDaniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2071722023-06-07T12:24:20Z2023-06-07T12:24:20ZWhy insurance companies are pulling out of California and Florida, and how to fix some of the underlying problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530434/original/file-20230606-17-etpcwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C6%2C2074%2C1367&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wildfires can destroy hundreds of homes within hours.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-29-october-2003-from-a-sea-king-helicopter-assigned-to-news-photo/1249142472">PH2(AW/SW) Michael J. Pusnik, Jr / Navy Visual News Service / AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the nation’s No. 1 and No. 4 property and casualty insurance companies – <a href="https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0102-alerts/2023/Consumer-Alert-on-State-Farm's-Decision.cfm">State Farm</a> and <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/insurance-allstate-fires-18130622.php">Allstate</a> – confirmed that they would stop issuing new home insurance policies in California, it may have been a shock but shouldn’t have been a surprise. It’s a trend Florida and other hurricane- and flood-prone states know well.</p>
<p>Insurers have been retreating from high-risk, high-loss markets for years after catastrophic events. Hurricane Andrew’s unprecedented <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/rmir.12222">US$16 billion in insured losses</a> across Florida in 1992 set off alarm bells. <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/">Multibillion-dollar disasters</a> since then have left several insurers <a href="https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/triple-i_trends_and_insights_louisiana_03282023.pdf">insolvent</a> and pushed many others to reevaluate what they’re willing to insure.</p>
<p>I co-direct the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security at Arizona State University, where <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JYLzOQgAAAAJ&hl=en">I study disaster losses</a> and manage the <a href="https://cemhs.asu.edu/sheldus">Spatial Hazard Events and Losses database (SHELDUS)</a>. As losses from natural hazards <a href="https://cemhs.asu.edu/sheldus/reports">steadily increase</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-006-0171-z">research shows</a> it’s not a question of if insurance will become unavailable or unaffordable in high-risk areas – it’s a question of when. </p>
<h2>Reinsurers are worried</h2>
<p>Insurance is a vehicle to transfer risk. When an individual buys an insurance policy, that person pays to transfer the risk of expensive repairs to the insurer if the home is damaged by a covered event, like a fire or thunderstorm. Most policyholders don’t experience major disasters, so insurance companies make money.</p>
<p>However, disasters are extremely costly when they do occur, so insurers also buy their own insurance, called reinsurance.</p>
<p>Reinsurance <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2023/06/02/723754.htm">costs have been rising fast</a> in response to expensive disasters around the world in recent years. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cddcae5c-2783-4b40-9715-06104774248a">Reinsurers’</a> risk-adjusted property-catastrophe prices rose <a href="https://www.howdengroupholdings.com/news/1st-june-risk-adjusted-property-cat-reinsurance-pricing-index-rises-to-highest-level-since-inception">33% on average</a> at their June 1, 2023, renewal, after a 25% rise in 2022, according to reinsurance broker Howden Tiger’s analysis.</p>
<p>If prices are too high and insurers can no longer transfer excessive risk to the reinsurance market, they are stuck “holding the risk” – meaning the cost of claims when disasters strike. A big enough disaster can put insurance companies out of business, or they can decide to leave the state, as seen in California, <a href="https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/david-hammer/louisianas-insurance-crisis-what-can-fix-it/289-a9fe2f3c-8701-4f75-959f-6ec7b5e7f380">Louisiana</a> and elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Responsible insurers are not in the business of gambling, so they do what State Farm and Allstate did: They reevaluate their portfolios – the various lines of insurance they offer, such as auto, life, property insurance and health insurance – and their prices. Insurance is a highly data-driven business and uses some of the most sophisticated climate and risk modeling in the world to forecast future risks, including the likelihood a property will be damaged by wildfire or other natural hazards.</p>
<p>State Farm cited “catastrophe exposure” as a reason for ending new high-risk personal and commercial property and casualty policies <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530455/original/file-20230606-27-nycs2i.png">in California</a>. That refers to the likelihood that costly claims would exceed the risk State Farm was willing to accept.</p>
<h2>Why drop only California?</h2>
<p>So, why did State Farm and Allstate only stop new policies in California and not in other wildfire-prone states like Colorado or Arizona?</p>
<p>The answer can only be speculative since State Farm or Allstate don’t publicly disclose their exposure. That’s calculated based on how many personal and commercial property and casualty policies the company holds in the state, particularly in the wildland-urban interface where fire risk is higher, and at what value.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Firefighters work on the remains of a high-end home, with its elaborate front entrance and fountain out front being about all the remains from a 2022 fire near Los Angeles that's recognizable." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530459/original/file-20230606-23-aus8yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Expensive home building prices in California have also raised the risk for insurers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/firefighters-puts-out-hot-spots-at-a-house-on-vista-court-news-photo/1397094373?adppopup=true">Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>State Farm did cite California’s increasing wildfire risk and home construction prices, but there are other influences to consider.</p>
<p>One is state insurance regulations that can limit premium increases, prohibit policy cancellations and require certain levels of coverage. Insurer Chubb’s chief executive mentioned restrictions that left it <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wildfire-risk-in-california-drives-insurers-to-pull-policies-for-pricey-homes-11642593601">unable to charge</a> “an adequate price for the risk” as part of the reason for its 2022 decision to not renew policies for expensive homes in high-risk areas of California. California also has a unique “<a href="https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0300-insurers/0200-bulletins/bulletin-notices-commiss-opinion/upload/notice-re-coverage-for-mudslide-and-earth-movement.pdf">efficient proximate cause” rule</a> that forces property insurers to also cover post-fire flooding, such as mudslides. Rainy winters like 2023’s often <a href="https://theconversation.com/atmospheric-rivers-over-californias-wildfire-burn-scars-raise-fears-of-deadly-mudslides-this-is-what-cascading-climate-disasters-look-like-197563">trigger destructive mudslides</a> in wildfire burn areas. </p>
<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p>When insurers pull out of a community, residents and companies without access to property and casualty insurance are left holding their own risk – and paying the price if a disaster strikes. From a societal and political perspective, that’s a problem.</p>
<p>Residents and businesses without insurance <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2019.1608148">tend to recover more slowly</a>. Uninsured residents often depend on donations, loans or federal individual assistance. The latter, however, is only available for catastrophic disasters and covers only immediate needs.</p>
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<img alt="A one-story apartment building on stilts with the roof torn off after Hurricane Sally. Pink beach shoes and folded beach chairs sit on a porch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530430/original/file-20230606-21-8n6hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hurricanes cause so much damage, they can put small insurers out of business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-aerial-view-from-a-drone-shows-jamie-cade-waiting-as-her-news-photo/1273167528?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>To fill the gap and provide access to insurance, states including <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/growing-insurance-crisis-spreads-to-texas/">California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas</a> have created either private or public insurance options of last resort with generally very pricey premiums.</p>
<p>Residents covered by these options transfer their risk to the state, such as in <a href="https://www.lacitizens.com/">Louisiana</a> and <a href="https://www.citizensfla.com/">Florida</a> – meaning state taxpayers, who fund the state insurance programs, hold the risk directly or indirectly. In California, the privately insured FAIR Plan, in existence since 1968, wrote close to <a href="https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/200-wrr/upload/CDI-Fact-Sheet-Residential-Insurance-Market-Policy-Count-Data-December-2022.pdf">270,000 policies in 2021, nearly double the number in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, anyone purchasing flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program since 1968 is transferring their risk to federal taxpayers. The NFIP currently insures <a href="https://www.fema.gov/flood-insurance">almost $1.3 trillion in value</a> across 5 million policies.</p>
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<p>Politicians are not catastrophe risk experts, though, and do not make decisions based on data alone.</p>
<p>In the short term, I expect that insurance pools, as well as federal- and state-run insurers of last resort, will add more policies, and that state legislators will incentivize the return of insurers. But while the <a href="https://www.wdsu.com/article/louisiana-house-insurance-incentive-proposal-passes/42735972">political willingness to support such a trend exists</a>, the financial resources do not.</p>
<p>The National Flood Insurance Program has plenty of lessons to teach about the challenges of balancing exposure and keeping premiums affordable: It is <a href="https://www.fema.gov/case-study/rising-interest-expenses">more than $20 billion in debt</a>. <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2019/12/10/550879.htm">Texas has resorted to charging</a> insurers operating in the state to help cover its program’s costs.</p>
<h2>Fixing insurance starts with the property itself</h2>
<p>Despite the risk of properties becoming uninsurable, communities today continue to permit development in floodplains, along coastlines and in the wildfire-prone wildland urban interface. Inadequate building codes allow developers to build homes that cannot withstand severe weather. These practices have placed millions of residents and the things they value in harm’s way.</p>
<p>As climate change continues to <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">dial up the frequency and severity</a> of natural hazards, there are some steps states and communities can take involving property to lower the risk:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Make smarter land use choices and limit development in high-risk areas to avoid placing people and the things they value in harm’s way.</p></li>
<li><p>Adopt more stringent building codes and safety standards at state and community levels.</p></li>
<li><p>Price risk into home sales, either through an insurance contingency that allows the buyer to withdraw when they cannot secure insurance or lower assessed property values for real estate in high-risk areas, which can dissuade builders and buyers.</p></li>
<li><p>Require comprehensive disclosures of all present and future risks along with historic claims associated with a property to educate potential buyers.</p></li>
<li><p>Make risk information accessible and understandable. My research shows that most people have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/flood-risk-ratings-translating-risk-to-future-costs-helps-homebuyers-and-renters-grasp-the-odds-186798">hard time fully grasping</a> how likely they are to be affected by a catastrophic event. They need better tools that communicate the information in a way that resonates with them.</p></li>
<li><p>Help residents in high-risk areas relocate <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-coastal-flooding-worsens-some-cities-are-retreating-from-the-water-164463">through buyouts</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/managed-retreat-done-right-can-reinvent-cities-so-theyre-better-for-everyone-and-avoid-harm-from-flooding-heat-and-fires-163052">managed retreat</a> that returns the land to nature or public uses such as parks.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Gall currently receives research funding from the National Academies' Gulf Research Program, HUD, USAID, DHS, Feeding America, and the Society of Actuaries. She is a member of the National Hazard Mitigation Association, the North American Alliance of Hazards and Disaster Research Institutes, the Association of State Floodplain Managers, and American Association of Geographers. </span></em></p>It’s not a question of if insurance will become unavailable or unaffordable in areas at high risk of wildfires, hurricanes and other damage – it’s a question of when. A disaster risk expert explains.Melanie Gall, Assistant Professor and Co-Director, Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Watts College, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063622023-06-05T15:57:29Z2023-06-05T15:57:29ZWhy saving for a pension has become more risky<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528068/original/file-20230524-33669-p13c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4992%2C2979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-illustration-risk-challenge-business-concept-714831775">inamar/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How much money are you going to have to live on in retirement? Perhaps, just like <a href="https://www.unbiased.co.uk/news/financial-adviser/one-in-three-brits-don-t-know-how-much-pension-to-save">one in five Britons</a>, you do not know. </p>
<p>This is not a surprise since there are so many shifting factors, or risks, to consider when thinking about retirement finances. You need to think about how much you’ll earn during your life, to what your employer will decide to contribute towards your a pension, and how much tax you will have to pay. </p>
<p>And then, even for the (fairly simple) <a href="https://www.gov.uk/browse/working/state-pension">state pension provided by the government</a>, there is “policy risk” to think about. This refers to how big your pension pot will be by the time you retire, not to mention <a href="https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/pensions/state-pension/changes-to-state-pension-age/">when you will able to claim it</a>.</p>
<p>What this uncertainty means is that, almost irrespective of how much you earn, <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/pensions-review">most of us face a lot of risks</a> when it comes to our retirement finances. And unfortunately, you are likely facing more now than perhaps your parents did 25 years ago.</p>
<p>Back then, most of the uncertainty around pension pots came from not knowing how much you would earn over the course of your career. People typically had traditional occupational pensions, known as <a href="https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pensions-basics/defined-benefit-or-final-salary-pensions-schemes-explained#:%7E:text=A%20defined%20benefit%20(DB)%20pension%20scheme%20is%20one%20where%20the,year%20in%20line%20with%20inflation.">defined benefit</a> or final salary pensions. These were basically a promise from an employer that they would invest enough money to ensure their employees were paid a particular amount from retirement at 65 until death. That amount would depend on a person’s earnings and length of service. </p>
<p>Some people did not have occupational pensions, but instead had <a href="https://www.unbiased.co.uk/discover/pensions-retirement/managing-a-pension/what-is-a-serps-pension">state earnings-related pensions</a>. With this type, higher earnings meant paying more in national insurance contributions, resulting in a higher state pension in retirement.</p>
<p>And so, 25 years ago it didn’t really matter how well the stock market did – if an employer’s investments did not cover their pension promise to employees, they had to top it up (and often did so, leading to companies having “<a href="https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2022/05/12/ftse-350-firms-pension-deficits-shrink-to-lowest-level-in-two-years/">pension deficits</a>”). But for employees, it didn’t matter if they lived longer than expected, their company, or the government, would pay their pension for as long as they lived. </p>
<p>These risks – investment risk (how well the stock market and other assets do) and longevity risk (the risk of living much longer than expected and running out of money) – were not a big concern for people with pensions in the past. But the changing nature of UK pensions in recent years has caused these risks to be transferred from the government and companies to anyone saving into a future pension pot.</p>
<h2>New retirement risks</h2>
<p>For a variety of reasons (including the amount of risk employers had to bear in the past) <a href="https://www.pensionspolicyinstitute.org.uk/media/3916/20210923-the-dc-future-book-2021-final.pdf">barely any organisations</a> outside the public sector offer traditional defined benefit pensions these days. Instead, on top of a state pension – which is now a flat-rate, no longer earnings-related – most people saving for retirement do so in a <a href="https://www.pensionbee.com/pensions-explained/pension-types/what-is-a-defined-contribution-pension">defined contribution</a> pension. </p>
<p>At its core, a defined contribution pension is a tax-advantaged savings account that you and your employer contribute to, and which you can only access in your late 50s. When you do access it, you simply have a pot of money. </p>
<p>If you are very lucky in terms of what you have chosen to invest in (Amazon shares in the early 2000s maybe), your pot will have done very well. If you are unlucky (and you owned funds which were invested in companies that went bust, for example), you won’t have done as well as an Amazon-owning colleague – even if you contributed the same amount.</p>
<p><strong>Amazon’s rising share price</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Line chart showing Amazon share price rising since 1990s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528065/original/file-20230524-15-b3n9co.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We’d all like some Amazon in our pension pots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tradingview.com/chart/">TradingView</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Longevity risk is also now a factor to consider. This is the risk that you will live for a very long time and run out of money. </p>
<p>One reason for this is that, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/22/death-compulsory-annuities-pension-revolution">since 2015</a>, retirees no longer have to turn their “pots” of defined contribution pension savings into an “annuity”. This is a stream of income that’s guaranteed until death. </p>
<p>Instead, most people simply spend their pensions pots any way they like now. But this means living much longer than expected increases the risk of completely depleting your private pension savings.</p>
<h2>Pension risk transfer</h2>
<p>One obvious question is: if pensions are now so risky, why don’t people pay to guarantee an income in retirement? That is, why doesn’t the government bring back annuities? When they were required, many people felt they weren’t getting a good <a href="https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/opinion/steve-webb-keep-your-eyes-on-comeback-kid-annuities/">deal out of these products</a> – they were paying a lot upfront for only a small guaranteed annual income. </p>
<p>But while removing compulsory annuitisation is generally thought to be a popular policy – and it certainly gives people the freedom and opportunity to match their income with the way they want to spend in retirement – it also increases the risk of running out of private resources before you die.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman with grey hair, sunglasses and surf board standing at the edge of the sea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528067/original/file-20230524-27-hqgdxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Risk-free retirement living?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/surfer-nice-beach-1212137647">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstocl</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the past 25 years there has been a big transfer of investment and longevity risk from employers (who used to provide occupational pensions), from the state (who used to provide earnings-related state pensions) and from insurance companies (who typically used to sell annuities) on to people saving for retirement. </p>
<p>Managing these risks is now very important, especially as many working-age people may not realise just how much risk they are facing when it comes to ensuring financial security in retirement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Cribb receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and Nuffield Foundation. </span></em></p>Making sure you have enough set aside for a long retirement has become more difficult over the past 25 years.Jonathan Cribb, Senior Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998462023-05-14T11:18:59Z2023-05-14T11:18:59ZWe need to prepare for the public safety hazards posed by artificial intelligence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525641/original/file-20230511-18-3z6quf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C3888%2C2566&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emergency management should account for the risks posed by artificial intelligence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the most part, the focus of contemporary emergency management has been on <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2023-nrp-pnr/index-en.aspx">natural, technological and human-made hazards</a> such as flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, industrial accidents, extreme weather events and cyber attacks. </p>
<p>However, with the increase in the availability and capabilities of artificial intelligence, we may soon see emerging public safety hazards related to these technologies that we will need to mitigate and prepare for.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, my colleagues and I — along with many other researchers — have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-009-5121-2">leveraging AI</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/IJES-03-2012-0001">develop models</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18010268">applications</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1504/IJEM.2020.117201">that can</a> identify, assess, predict, monitor and detect hazards to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04124-3">inform emergency response operations and decision-making</a>.</p>
<p>We are now reaching a turning point where AI is becoming a potential source of risk at a scale that should be incorporated into risk and emergency management phases — mitigation or prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. </p>
<h2>AI and hazard classification</h2>
<p>AI hazards can be classified into two types: intentional and unintentional. Unintentional hazards are those caused by <a href="https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/planning/RISC/Documents/risc-tham-narrative.pdf">human errors or technological failures</a>. </p>
<p>As the use of AI increases, there will be more adverse events caused by human error in AI models or technological failures in AI based technologies. These events can occur in all kinds of industries including transportation (like drones, trains or self-driving cars), electricity, oil and gas, finance and banking, agriculture, health and mining.</p>
<p>Intentional AI hazards are potential threats that are caused by using AI to harm people and properties. AI can also be used to gain unlawful benefits by compromising security and safety systems.</p>
<p>In my view, this simple intentional and unintentional classification may not be sufficient in case of AI. Here, we need to add a new class of emerging threats — the possibility of AI overtaking human control and decision-making. This may be triggered intentionally or unintentionally. </p>
<p>Many AI experts have already warned <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-musk-risks.html">against such potential threats</a>. A recent open letter by researchers, scientists and others involved in the development of AI <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-pause-ai-experiments-open-letter/">called for a moratorium on its further development</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qpoRO378qRY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton is interviewed by CBS about the dangers of the technology.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Public safety risks</h2>
<p>Public safety and emergency management experts use risk matrices to assess and compare risks. Using this method, hazards are qualitatively or quantitatively assessed based on their frequency and consequence, and their impacts are classified as low, medium or high. </p>
<p>Hazards that have low frequency and low consequence or impact are considered low risk and no additional actions are required to manage them. Hazards that have medium consequence and medium frequency are considered medium risk. These risks need to be closely monitored. </p>
<p>Hazards with high frequency or high consequence or high in both consequence and frequency are classified as high risks. These risks need to be reduced by taking additional risk reduction and mitigation measures. Failure to take immediate and proper action may result in sever human and property losses. </p>
<p>Up until now, AI hazards and risks have not been added into the risk assessment matrices much beyond organizational use of AI applications. The time has come when we should quickly start bringing the potential AI risks into local, national and global risk and emergency management. </p>
<h2>AI risk assessment</h2>
<p>AI technologies are becoming more widely used by institutions, organizations and companies in different sectors, and hazards associated with the AI are starting to emerge.</p>
<p>In 2018, the accounting firm KPMG developed an “<a href="https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/uk/pdf/2018/09/ai-risk-and-controls-matrix.pdf">AI Risk and Controls Matrix</a>.” It highlights the risks of using AI by businesses and urges them to recognize these new emerging risks. The report warned that AI technology is advancing very quickly and that risk control measures must be in place before they overwhelm the systems.</p>
<p>Governments have also started <a href="https://cltc.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/AI_Risk_Impact_Assessments.pdf">developing some risk assessment guidelines</a> for the use of AI-based technologies and solutions. However, these guidelines are limited to risks such as algorithmic bias and violation of individual rights.</p>
<p>At the government level, the Canadian government issued the “<a href="https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=32592">Directive on Automated Decision-Making</a>” to ensure that federal institutions minimize the risks associated with the AI systems and create appropriate governance mechanisms.</p>
<p>The main objective of the directive is to ensure that when AI systems are deployed, risks to clients, federal institutions and Canadian society are reduced. According to this directive, risk assessments must be conducted by each department to make sure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with the <a href="https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=16578">Policy on Government Security</a>.</p>
<p>In 2021, the U.S. Congress tasked the National Institute of Standards and Technology with developing an AI risk management framework for the Department of Defense. The proposed voluntary AI risk assessment framework recommends banning <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6395">the use of AI systems that present unacceptable risks</a>.</p>
<h2>Threats and competition</h2>
<p>Much of the national level policy focus on AI has been from national security and global competition perspectives — the national security and economic risks of falling behind in the AI technology. </p>
<p>The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence highlighted <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Full-Report-Digital-1.pdf">national security risks associated with AI</a>. These were not from the public threats of the technology itself, but from losing out in the global competition for AI development in other countries, including China.</p>
<p>In its 2017 <a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR17_Report_web.pdf"><em>Global Risk Report</em></a>, the World Economic Forum highlighted that AI is only one of emerging technologies that can exacerbate global risk. While assessing the risks posed by the AI, the report concluded that, at that time, super-intelligent AI systems remain a theoretical threat.</p>
<p>However, the latest <a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2023.pdf"><em>Global Risk Report 2023</em></a> does not even mention the AI and AI associated risks which means that the leaders of the global companies that provide inputs to the global risk report had not viewed the AI as an immediate risk.</p>
<h2>Faster than policy</h2>
<p>AI development is progressing much faster than government and corporate policies in understanding, foreseeing and managing the risks. The current global conditions, combined with market competition for AI technologies, make it difficult to think of an opportunity for governments to pause and develop risk governance mechanisms. </p>
<p>While we should collectively and proactively try for such governance mechanisms, we all need to brace for major catastrophic AI’s impacts on our systems and societies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Asgary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Emergency management plans need to address the growing risks emerging from increasing applications of artificial intelligence.Ali Asgary, Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies & Director, CIFAL York, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2011472023-04-18T12:43:34Z2023-04-18T12:43:34ZIf 1% of COVID-19 cases result in death, does that mean you have a 1% chance of dying if you catch it? A mathematician explains the difference between a population statistic and your personal risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521327/original/file-20230417-22-5x3idt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2078%2C1440&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The risk of dying from COVID-19 varies from person to person.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/covid-19-statistics-graph-royalty-free-image/1347040093">Jasmin Merdan/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As of April 2023, <a href="https://covid19.who.int/">about 1% of people</a> who contracted COVID-19 ended up dying. Does that mean you have a 1% chance of dying from COVID-19? </p>
<p>That 1% is what epidemiologists call the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodnet/reports/data/case-fatality.html">case fatality rate</a>, calculated by dividing the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths by the number of confirmed cases. The case fatality rate is a <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Statistic.html">statistic</a>, or something that is calculated from a data set. Specifically, it is a type of statistic called a <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SampleProportion.html">sample proportion</a>, which measures the proportion of data that satisfies some criteria – in this case, the proportion of COVID-19 cases that ended with death.</p>
<p>The goal of calculating a statistic like case fatality rate is normally to estimate an unknown proportion. In this case, if every person in the world were infected with COVID-19, what proportion would die? However, some people also use this statistic as a guide to estimate personal risk as well.</p>
<p>It is natural to think of such a statistic as a <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Probability.html">probability</a>. For example, popular statements that you are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1530662">more likely to get struck by lightning</a> than die in a terrorist attack, or <a href="https://www.cleveland19.com/story/38100144/how-likely-are-you-to-die-on-a-plane-these-statistics-may-ease-your-fears/">die driving to work</a> than get killed in a plane crash, are based on statistics. But is it accurate to take these statements literally?</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qPNQSR5AWokC&hl=en">mathematician who studies probability theory</a>. During the pandemic, I watched health statistics become a national conversation. The public was inundated with ever-changing data as research unfolded in real time, calling attention to specific risk factors such as preexisting conditions or age. However, using these statistics to accurately determine your own personal risk is <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-impossible-to-determine-your-personal-covid-19-risks-and-frustrating-to-try-but-you-can-still-take-action-182287">nearly impossible</a> since it varies so much from person to person and depends on intricate physical and biological processes. </p>
<h2>The mathematics of probability</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/probability-theory">probability theory</a>, a process is considered random if it has an unpredictable outcome. This unpredictability could simply be due to difficulty in getting the necessary information to accurately predict the outcome. Random processes have observable events that can each be assigned a probability, or the tendency for that process to give that particular result.</p>
<p>A typical example of a random process is flipping a coin. A coin flip has two possible outcomes, each assigned a probability of 50%. Even though most people might think of this process as random, knowing the precise force applied to the coin can allow an observer to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYnJv68T3MM">predict the outcome</a>. But a coin flip is still considered random since measuring this force is not practical in real-life settings. A slight change can result in a different outcome for the coin flip.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">You could predict the outcome of a coin toss if you had the right information.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A common way to think about the probability of heads being 50% is that, when a coin is flipped several times, you would expect 50% of those flips to be heads. For a large number of flips, in fact, very close to 50% of the flips will be heads. A mathematical theorem called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/law-of-large-numbers">law of large numbers</a> guarantees this, stating that running proportion of outcomes will get closer and closer to the actual probability when the process is repeated many times. The more you flip the coin, the running percentage of flips that are heads will get closer and closer to 50%, essentially with certainty. This depends on each repeated coin flip happening in essentially identical conditions, though. </p>
<p>The 1% case fatality rate of COVID-19 can be thought of as the running percentage of COVID-19 cases that have resulted in death. It doesn’t represent the true average probability of death, though, since the virus, and the global population’s immunity and behavior, have changed so much over time. The conditions are not constant. </p>
<p>Only if the virus stopped evolving, everyone’s immunity and risk of death were identical and unchanging over time, and there were always people available to become infected, then, by the law of large numbers, would the case fatality rate get closer to the true average probability of death over time.</p>
<h2>A 1% chance of dying?</h2>
<p>The biological process of a disease leading to death is complex and uncertain. It is unpredictable and <a href="https://theconversation.com/cancer-evolution-is-mathematical-how-random-processes-and-epigenetics-can-explain-why-tumor-cells-shape-shift-metastasize-and-resist-treatments-199398">therefore random</a>. Each person has a real physical risk of dying from COVID-19, though this risk varies over time and place and between individuals. So, at best, 1% could be the average probability of death within the population.</p>
<p>Health risks vary among demographic groups, too. For example, elderly individuals have a much <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/30/what-explains-coronavirus-lethality-for-elderly/">higher risk of death</a> than younger individuals. Tracking COVID-19 infections and how they end for a large number of people that are demographically similar to you would give a better estimate of personal risk. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pedestrian crosses street in front of cars" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521375/original/file-20230417-974-45tk2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You have a much smaller chance of dying from a car accident if you aren’t near any roads or cars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/crossing-in-moab-royalty-free-image/1177654681">georgeclerk/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Case fatality rate is a probability, but only when you look at the specific data set it was directly calculated from. If you were to write the outcome of every COVID-19 case in that data set on a strip of paper and randomly select one from a hat, you have a 1% chance of selecting a case that ended in death. Doing this only for cases from a particular group, such as a group of older adults with a higher risk or young children with a lower risk, would cause the percentage to be higher or lower. This is why 1% may not be a great estimate of personal risk for every person across all demographic groups. </p>
<p>We can apply this logic to car accidents. The chance of getting into a car crash on a 1,000-mile road trip is about <a href="https://www.news9.com/story/5e6fca6cf86011d4820c3f2d/what-are-your-chances-of-getting-into-a-car-accident">1 in 366</a>. But if you are never anywhere near roads or cars, then you would have a 0% chance. This is really a probability only in the sense of drawing names from a hat. It also applies unevenly across the population – say, due to differences in driving behavior and local road conditions.</p>
<p>Although a population statistic is not the same thing as a probability, it might be a good estimate of it. But only if everyone in the population is demographically similar enough so that the statistic doesn’t change much when calculated for different subgroups.</p>
<p>The next time you’re confronted with such a population statistic, recognize what it actually is: It’s just the percent of a particular population that satisfies some criteria. Chances are, you’re not average for that population. Your own personal probability could be higher or lower.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Stover does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not entirely accurate to say that you’re more likely to die in a car accident than in a plane crash. Chances are, you’re not the average person.Joseph Stover, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Gonzaga UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1905272023-01-10T13:30:30Z2023-01-10T13:30:30ZThe safer you feel, the less safely you might behave – but research suggests ways to counteract this tendency<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501595/original/file-20221216-27-821uce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C580%2C5615%2C3152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Work-related safety precautions can lead to riskier behaviors on the job.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dangerous-jobs-royalty-free-image/157646267">TerryJ/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Interventions designed to keep people safe can have hidden side effects. With an increased perception of safety, some people are more likely to take risks.</p>
<p>For example, some vehicle drivers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(88)90055-3">take more risks when they are buckled up</a> in a shoulder-and-lap belt. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001812">Some construction workers step closer to the edge</a> of the roof because they are hooked to a fall-protection rope. Some parents of young children <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1816378">take less care with medicine bottles</a> that are “childproof” and thus difficult to open.</p>
<p>Techniques designed to reduce harm can promote a false sense of security and increase risky behavior and unintentional injuries.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_bQ06DAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">civil</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bruDeeAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">engineers</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=H0ye5TgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">applied behavioral scientists</a>, we are interested in ways to improve workplace safety. Our ongoing research suggests that employers need to do more than provide injury-protection devices and mandate safety rules and procedures to follow. Job-site mottos like “safety is our priority” are not enough. Employers need to consider the crucial human dynamic that can counteract their desired injury-prevention effects – and tap into strategies that might get around this safety paradox.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman in car's driver's seat fastens her seat belt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501878/original/file-20221219-18-n9w9cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Infamously, people may drive more recklessly after buckling up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-caregiver-fastening-seat-belt-royalty-free-image/1343267514">Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Why precautions can trigger more risks</h2>
<p>A well-established psychological phenomenon known as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/260352">risk compensation</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1982.tb01384.x">risk homeostasis</a> explains this safety paradox. An intervention designed to prevent or reduce unintentional injury decreases one’s perception of risk. Then that perception increases the person’s risk-taking behavior, especially when taking a risk has a benefit, such as comfort, convenience or getting a job done faster.</p>
<p>Just as thermostats have a set point and activate when the temperature deviates from normal, people maintain a target level of risk by adjusting their behavior. They balance potential risks and perceived benefits. </p>
<p>For instance, a driver may compensate for safety interventions like a vehicle shoulder-and-lap belt, an energy-absorbing steering column and an airbag by driving faster – trading off personal safety for time saved. The heightened odds of a crash at higher driving speeds don’t affect only the driver; they also put other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists at more risk. An individual’s risk compensation can influence the injury-prevention impact of protective devices and safety-related rules and regulations for the population overall.</p>
<p>In our own research, we investigated the risk compensation phenomenon among construction workers using an immersive mixed-virtual reality scenario that simulated a roofing task. We asked participants to install asphalt shingles on a real 27-degree sloped roof within a virtual environment that conveyed the sense of being 20 feet off the ground. Then we monitored the workers’ actions and physiological responses while they completed roofing tasks under three levels of safety protection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man roped in with safety equipment uses a hammer on a sloped surface with virtual background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501554/original/file-20221216-21-yu1bs2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inside a mixed-virtual reality world, roofers performed tasks that are normal parts of their job.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jesus M. de la Garza</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As expected, more safety interventions created a false sense of invulnerability in participants. Adding guardrails to the roof’s edge and providing a fall-arrest system for the roofer provided real protection and rightfully increased a sense of security, which resulted in participants’ stepping closer to the edge of the virtual roof, leaning over the edge, and spending more time exposing themselves to the risk of falling. Participants <a href="https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001812">increased their risk-taking behavior by as much as 55%</a>. This study provided empirical evidence that safety devices can implicitly encourage workers to take more risks.</p>
<p>One hypothesis that flows from our research is that educating people about the risk compensation effect could reduce their vulnerability to this phenomenon. Future studies are needed to test this possibility.</p>
<h2>A perception of choice matters</h2>
<p>A crucial consideration is whether people feel the decision to take precautions is their own.</p>
<p>In studies one of us conducted with a colleague, pizza-delivery drivers demonstrated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1991.24-31">safer driving overall when they chose</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.253">to increase particular safe-driving behaviors</a>. For instance, drivers at one store participated in setting a goal to stop completely at intersections at least 80% of the time, while at another store management assigned drivers the 80% complete stopping goal. Drivers from both groups met that goal. But among the drivers who self-selected the target, there was a spillover effect: They increased their use of turn signals and lap-and-shoulder belts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two women in masks sit outside talking" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501880/original/file-20221219-20-tjdv46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rather than get closer because masks provided a level of protection, people appeared to extend their safety behavior by maintaining social distancing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/colleagues-meet-at-outdoor-cafe-during-covid-19-royalty-free-image/1285308734">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.51390/vajbts.v1i1.17">A study early in the COVID-19 pandemic</a> identified a similar spillover or response generalization effect. People who wore a face mask outdoors where mask wearing was not mandated also maintained a greater interpersonal distance from others than did people without masks.</p>
<p>In this case, as with the delivery drivers, one safe behavior spilled over to another safe behavior – the opposite of risk compensation – when people had the perception of personal choice. We believe perceived choice was the critical human dynamic that influenced people to generalize their safety behavior rather than compensate for the reduction in risk.</p>
<p>Top-down rules and regulations can <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/beyond-freedom-and-dignity">stifle a perception of choice</a> and actually motivate people to intentionally do things that flout a safety mandate in order to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1967-08061-000">assert their individual freedom or personal choice</a>. People tend to bridle against the feeling of having a freedom taken away and will do what they can to regain it.</p>
<p>“Click It or Ticket” and other management attempts to dictate safety come with disadvantages that might negate any safety gains. Letting people feel they have a say in the matter can decrease the amount of risk compensation they experience and increase a safety spillover effect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jesus M. de la Garza is a subject matter expert for ARTBA’s Safety Certification for Transportation Project Professionals (SCTPP) program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>E. Scott Geller is an Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech; a Senior Partner with Safety Performance Solutions, Inc., President of Make-A-Difference, LLC; and Co-Founder of GellerAC4P,Inc.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sogand Hasanzadeh received funding from National Science Foundation (Award Number 2049711 and
2049842) and the Electri International (NECA). </span></em></p>If you feel safer, you might take more risks – canceling out the benefits of various safety interventions. But educating people about this paradox and allowing for some personal choice might help.Jesus M. de la Garza, Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, Clemson UniversityE. Scott Geller, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems, Virginia TechSogand Hasanzadeh, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959122022-12-13T04:22:23Z2022-12-13T04:22:23ZWe’re entering a new phase of COVID, where we each have to assess and mitigate our own risk. But how?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498838/original/file-20221205-56543-q8bndu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C48%2C4623%2C3024&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-latin-woman-wearing-face-mask-1946067583">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian government’s latest <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">COVID management plan</a>, released yesterday, maps how the nation will learn to live with COVID. This means transitioning from the emergency phase of the pandemic response, to responding to it in a similar way to other respiratory diseases.</p>
<p>However, as part of this transition, we are still going to need to respond to COVID waves which, although expected to be less destructive, are <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">likely to occur</a> for some time to come.</p>
<p>Under the plan, PCR testing will be prioritised for people who are at greater risk of severe disease from COVID – they will still be able to get a <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8017343/pcr-test-still-there-for-those-at-risk-pm/">PCR test for free</a>. Others will need a doctor or nurse practitioner <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">referral</a> to access free PCR tests, <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8017343/pcr-test-still-there-for-those-at-risk-pm/">unless</a> they visit a state or territory-run clinic. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1602230001654546432"}"></div></p>
<p>Much of the new plan is based on individuals assessing and mitigating their own COVID risk, with more options available to those who are at greatest risk. </p>
<p>So what are the options going forward to protect yourself from COVID? And how do you assess your own risk?</p>
<h2>How can you protect yourself and others from COVID?</h2>
<p>The most effective thing all of us can do to decrease the risk of COVID is to be up-to-date with our vaccinations and boosters. COVID vaccines aren’t perfect and don’t completely stop transmission, but they greatly <a href="https://theconversation.com/previous-covid-infection-may-not-protect-you-from-the-new-subvariant-wave-are-you-due-for-a-booster-193292">reduce your likelihood</a> of becoming seriously ill. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/previous-covid-infection-may-not-protect-you-from-the-new-subvariant-wave-are-you-due-for-a-booster-193292">Previous COVID infection may not protect you from the new subvariant wave. Are you due for a booster?</a>
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<p>Under this <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">plan</a>, testing for COVID will move from a surveillance tool, where we aimed to detect most cases, to a targeted testing system aimed to identify those who are eligible for COVID antivirals. However, people at low-risk of severe illness are still <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">encouraged</a> to do a rapid antigen test (RAT) if they have COVID symptoms so they can confirm if they are infected and isolate appropriately. </p>
<p>People who are at <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">higher risk</a> of severe COVID (older Australians, First Nations people, and people with disability, compromised immune systems or complex underlying health conditions) may be <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/covid-19/treatments/eligibility">eligible</a> for COVID antivirals. These are <a href="https://www.nps.org.au/coronavirus/antiviral-treatments-for-covid-19">highly effective</a> in reducing the rate of hospital admission but need to be started within five days of symptoms starting. Antivirals <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">are available</a> to eligible people after either a positive RAT or PCR test. </p>
<p>In addition to the use of vaccines and medicines to reduce COVID risk, we can also reduce the likelihood of spreading COVID by using the strategies we’ve become so familiar with since the start of the pandemic, including masking up, avoiding crowded settings, socialising outdoors where possible and in well-ventilated spaces when indoors, and staying away from others if feeling unwell. </p>
<h2>We all have a different tolerance for risk</h2>
<p>One of the difficulties we all face is working out how we assess and manage our own risk in a world where COVID is a constant presence. </p>
<p>The SARS-CoV-2 virus poses a much <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/covid-19/advice-for-groups-at-risk#:%7E:text=People%20with%20disability-,Age,alert%20others%20about%20potential%20symptoms">greater risk</a> to certain groups, particularly those who are older and people who have chronic health conditions.</p>
<p>For others, the risk the SARS-CoV-2 virus poses is much lower. However, we still have much to learn about long COVID, so we need to factor this into our considerations. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-tips-to-avoid-your-office-christmas-party-turning-into-a-superspreader-event-194602">Four tips to avoid your office Christmas party turning into a superspreader event</a>
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<p>So how do you work out how far to go in protecting yourself and others from COVID?</p>
<p>In addition to our actual risk being different, we all differ in our tolerance to risk, which is determined by our psychological make up as well as <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3114">social and cultural</a> factors. This impacts our risk-benefit calculations, and our subsequent decisions.</p>
<p>People who face similar risks may experience this risk in very different ways. One person may perceive the risk of contracting COVID as too high to take part in certain social activities. Another may see the risk as acceptable when they weigh it up against the costs of social isolation on other aspects of their health and wellbeing.</p>
<p>One of the things we are all going to have to do is to accept these differences in risk tolerance between people and understand that individual risk-benefit calculations are personal, complex and nuanced.</p>
<h2>For some people, getting COVID is a much greater threat</h2>
<p>Although for many people, the risk calculus is now at a point where their lives can start to look more normal than they have for some time, for others the sense of vulnerability to COVID remains high.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1602109523845578753"}"></div></p>
<p>The government’s plan aims to <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/national-covid-19-health-management-plan-for-2023.pdf">leave no-one behind</a> and will prioritise care and support for groups at higher risk, including First Nations people, those in aged care, people with disability and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This includes prioritising vaccination, testing, access to antivirals and targeted outreach programs. </p>
<p>However, based on the bumpy journey we’ve had over the past few years, one would be forgiven for reserving their judgement on how successful these efforts will be. </p>
<p>The biggest difficulty we face in the next 12 months is navigating the reality that not only are some people going to be impacted to a much greater degree than others, we are all going to vary in our risk tolerance. Therefore, it’s important that we respect others’ circumstances in the decisions we make. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/doing-away-with-covid-isolation-rules-means-increased-isolation-and-risks-for-people-with-disability-191943">Doing away with COVID isolation rules means increased isolation and risks for people with disability</a>
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</em>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hassan Vally does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new COVID management plan relies on each of us assessing our own risk of COVID.Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1924752022-10-21T12:38:42Z2022-10-21T12:38:42ZHow unhealthy is red meat? And how beneficial is it to eat vegetables? A new rating system could help you cut through the health guidelines<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490155/original/file-20221017-6623-3opu0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C38%2C5197%2C3423&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new rating system shows that eating the right amount of vegetables can lower your risk of heart disease by nearly 20%.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/eating-mixed-salads-and-drinking-red-wine-royalty-free-image/726799295?phrase=eating%20vegetables&adppopup=true">Westend61/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>We developed a new method for assessing health risks that our research suggests should make it a lot easier for people to determine which health advice to follow – and which to ignore. The approach, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01973-2">recently published in the journal Nature Medicine</a>, offers a straightforward way for both policymakers and the general public to assess the strength of evidence for a given health risk – like consuming red meat – and the corresponding outcome – <a href="https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/about-heart-attacks/silent-ischemia-and-ischemic-heart-disease">ischemic heart disease</a> – using a rating system of one to five stars. </p>
<p>The system we developed is based on several systematic reviews of studies regarding risk factors like smoking and health outcomes such as lung cancer. Well-established relationships between risks and outcomes score between three and five stars, whereas cases in which research evidence is lacking or contradictory garner one to two stars. </p>
<p>In our analysis, only eight of the 180 pairs that we analyzed received the top rating of five stars, indicating very strong evidence of association. The relationship between smoking and lung cancer, as well as the relationship between high <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/about.htm#">systolic blood pressure</a> – the higher of the two numbers in a blood pressure reading – and ischemic heart disease were among those eight five-star pairs. </p>
<p>This rating system enables consumers to easily identify how harmful or protective a behavior may be and how strong the evidence is for each risk-outcome pair. For instance, a consumer seeing a low star rating can use that knowledge to decide whether to shift a health habit or choice.</p>
<p>In addition, we created an online, publicly available <a href="https://vizhub.healthdata.org/burden-of-proof/">visualization tool</a> that displays 50 risk-outcome pairs that we discussed in <a href="https://www.nature.com/collections/begeihaihj">five recently published papers</a> in Nature Medicine. </p>
<p>While the visualization tool provides a nuanced understanding of risk across the range of blood pressures, the five-star rating signals that the overall evidence is very strong. As a result, this means that clear guidelines can be given on the importance of controlling blood pressure. </p>
<p><iframe id="VLj0c" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/VLj0c/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Clear messages and evidence-based guidance regarding healthy behaviors are crucial. Yet health guidance is often contradictory and difficult to understand. </p>
<p>Currently, most epidemiological analyses make strong assumptions about relationships between risks and health outcomes, and study results often disagree as to the strength of risk-outcome relationships. It can be confusing for experts and nonexperts alike to parse through conflicting studies of varying strength of results and determine if a lifestyle change is needed. </p>
<p>This is where our method comes in: The star-based rating system can offer decision-makers and consumers alike much-needed context before headline-grabbing health guidance is dispensed and adopted.</p>
<p>For example, the average risk of ischemic heart disease with a blood pressure of 165 mmHG – or millimeters of mercury, the basic unit used for measuring pressure – is 4.5 times the risk of the disease <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01973-2">with blood pressure of 100 mmHG</a>; but this is just a single estimate. The relative risk of ischemic heart disease increases by more than four times across the blood pressure range, and there is inherent uncertainty in the estimate based on available data. The rating of five stars incorporates all of this information, and in this case means that relative risk of ischemic heart disease across the entire range of exposures increases by at least 85%. </p>
<p>On the other hand, take the example of red meat consumption. Consuming 100 grams of red meat per day – as opposed to none – results in a very modest (12%) increase in risk for ischemic heart disease. That’s why it scores a rating of just two stars, consistent with only a weak association. </p>
<p>People should be well aware of their levels of exposure to risks classified with three to five stars, such as systolic blood pressure. By monitoring and keeping one’s blood pressure as low as possible, a person can substantially reduce the risk of developing ischemic heart disease.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Our hope is that decision-makers will be able to use our star rating system to create informed policy recommendations that will have the greatest benefits for human health. We also hope the public can use the ratings and the visualization tool as a way to more clearly understand the current level of knowledge for different pairs of health risks and outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Stanaway receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aleksandr Aravkin and Christian Razo do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Health guidelines can feel contradictory and hard to interpret. But a new star rating system should help consumers and policymakers better parse the evidence behind health risks and outcomes.Aleksandr Aravkin, Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of WashingtonChristian Razo, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of WashingtonJeffrey Stanaway, Assistant Professor of Global Health and Health Metrics Sciences, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1861882022-09-07T19:38:58Z2022-09-07T19:38:58ZWe need to anticipate and address potential fraud in the metaverse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481907/original/file-20220830-23550-44snrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C8%2C5890%2C3016&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As the possibilities of the metaverse expand, it will occupy an increasing role in everyday life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/we-need-to-anticipate-and-address-potential-fraud-in-the-metaverse" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The metaverse is a virtual online world that people can access in a variety of ways, including through virtual and augmented reality. It offers people an interactive social experience where users are represented by avatars. Users can teleport through different virtual social worlds, participate in events and make transactions using cryptocurrencies.</p>
<p>By 2026, it is predicted that <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-02-07-gartner-predicts-25-percent-of-people-will-spend-at-least-one-hour-per-day-in-the-metaverse-by-2026">25 per cent of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse</a>. There, they’ll be able to participate in activities such as working and shopping, and 30 per cent of firms will have their products and services ready for the metaverse.</p>
<p>The metaverse — which includes blockchains and cryptocurrencies — is still in its early stages. As its possibilities expand, it’s important to consider the potential threats and dangers as the metaverse introduces risks related to legislation, property, control, fraud, privacy threats, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3148642">ethics and security</a>.</p>
<p>As researchers interested in forensic accounting and digital fraud, we have attempted to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-06-2022-0124">identify the risks that are unique to the metaverse</a>.</p>
<h2>Opportunity or threat?</h2>
<p>The metaverse appears to be a foray into developing new models of conducting business online. And as such, can we anticipate the related risks? Are <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/fr-CA/canada/insights/publications/2022/02/exploring-the-metaverse/">current laws applicable to the metaverse</a>? How are we protected from fraud in the metaverse? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/ChsAAAEMi8w","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>While the metaverse offers new opportunities for firms and customers, as a nascent technology, it comes with multiple risks.</p>
<p>Breaches in ethics are possible. For example, do firms consider whether their code of ethics has been updated to account for expansion into the metaverse? How do customers and employees behave in the metaverse? Is sensitive information protected?</p>
<p>Legal issues will relate to intellectual property rights, the regulation of virtual assets, privacy and gambling. Firms considering using the metaverse should <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4002551">anticipate intellectual property rights</a>, in particular those related to terms of service agreements and end-user license agreements.</p>
<h2>Metaverse fraud risks</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3144763">metaverse can bring many fraud risks</a>, such as market manipulation, cyber breaches and attacks, privacy breaches, money laundering, corporate espionage and identity theft. </p>
<p>Unlike traditional social media platforms, users have no guarantee that the data they share is only shared with those they choose to share it with in the metaverse. That means <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010031">user identities can be tracked and revealed</a></p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010031">As one researcher explains</a>: “We cannot just turn off who can follow our avatars in the metaverse as we can do in the traditional social media.”</p>
<p>Personal information, such as biometric data, can be <a href="https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw/vol23/iss1/1/">collected through the metaverse</a> and in turn <a href="https://home.kpmg/sg/en/home/insights/2022/06/treading-boldly-into-the-metaverse.html">used for marketing purposes</a>. Organizations using the metaverse need to ensure data is anonymized and users cannot be identifiable.</p>
<p>The rapid development of the metaverse has also brought risks related to cryptocurrencies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab118">which are already subjected to very little official regulation</a>. Scams could potentially flourish in the metaverse — and at worse, become normalized as a metaverse experience.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">CNBC looks at how scammers are targeting metaverse investors.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Preventing fraud</h2>
<p>Risks in the metaverse can be mitigated by corporations and governments implementing controls that ensure users and administrators are protected. These are steps that can be taken to deter, prevent and detect fraud in the metaverse. </p>
<p>In our research on identifying potential fraud in the metaverse, we identified two sets of actions: macro, which take place at the government level, and micro, which affect corporations.</p>
<p>At the government level:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Specific regulation is needed for the metaverse, possibly in the form of a new Metaverse Act that encompasses metaverse transactions and actions;</p></li>
<li><p>Increased oversight by government bodies, such as financial authorities;</p></li>
<li><p>Establishment of an international and global authority to oversee the metaverse;</p></li>
<li><p>Co-operation with businesses to share information that will reduce risks and prevent malicious use and unethical behaviour and misinformation in the metaverse;</p></li>
<li><p>Regulatory bodies should require or encourage organizations to disclose how they mitigate metaverse risks, what resources they have, and how they protect users from identity theft, misinformation, cyber threats and privacy breaches.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>At the level of individual corporations or organizations active in the metaverse, here are some steps that can be taken:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Adopt a comprehensive internal approach within different departments (for example auditing, marketing and finance departments) to identify weaknesses when processes are implemented in the metaverse;</p></li>
<li><p>Implement measures that regulate avatar behaviour on different platforms to ensure users conform to community standards;</p></li>
<li><p>Employment of artificial intelligence to combat fraud and scams;</p></li>
<li><p>Update codes of ethics and whistleblowing programs to protect whistleblowers and facilitate whistleblowing channels;</p></li>
<li><p>Ensure that an adequate program is in place to mitigate and respond to metaverse threats.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Boards of directors, governance bodies and management should be trained and able to co-ordinate efforts to combat the emergence and the expansion of crime in the metaverse. Training and education are the first steps in establishing an efficient metaverse anti-fraud program.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As businesses establish themselves in the metaverse, the amount of financial transactions there will increase. This will come with previously unknown risks.Nadia Smaili, Professor in Accounting (forensic accounting), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Audrey de Rancourt-Raymond, Assistant researcher, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1829312022-08-22T12:25:46Z2022-08-22T12:25:46ZDog owners take more risks, cat owners are more cautious – new research examines how people conform to their pets’ stereotypical traits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474683/original/file-20220718-77003-v47a7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C60%2C6398%2C4406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dogs are seen as more likely to leap without looking – possibly a trait shared with their owners.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/action-shot-of-a-dog-running-fast-in-the-mountain-royalty-free-image/1315584843">Artur Debat/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Dog owners tend to take bigger risks and respond more to reward-oriented advertisements. Cat owners, on the other hand, are more cautious and more likely to react to ads emphasizing risk aversion. Those are the two main findings from <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221078036">new peer-reviewed research I co-authored</a>. </p>
<p>My dog Midoo is always eager to join me in various activities and is never hesitant to show her excitement when people appear at the doorstep. By contrast, my cat Mipom is more alert and suspicious when she is around strangers, keeping a comfortable distance from people. I wondered, do their general dispositions have any impact on my own behavior or the decisions I make? </p>
<p>These are the questions I hoped to answer over a series of 11 studies I conducted with fellow marketing professors <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xNX83X0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Xiaojing Yang</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6QixZowAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Yuwei Jiang</a>. </p>
<p>Our first pair of studies looked at pet ownership data in U.S. states and compared that with several crude measures of risk-taking. For example, we found that people in states with a higher share of dog owners, such as North Dakota, had a greater prevalence of COVID-19 infections in 2020 than states with more cat owners, such as Vermont. Although we controlled for political orientation and other variables, our results show only a correlation. The reason dog ownership seems associated with more COVID-19 cases, for example, could be that dog owners take more risks – or they simply have to take their pets out for walks more often, which means greater exposure. </p>
<p>In another study, we wanted to get individual-level data, so we used an online survey tool to recruit 145 owners of either a cat or a dog – not both. We gave participants an imaginary US$2,000 and asked them to invest any portion of it in either a risky stock fund or a more conservative mutual fund. Dog owners, who made up 53% of participants, were significantly more likely to invest in stocks and also put more money at risk than cat owners.</p>
<p>The results of this study were also correlational in nature. So in the other studies we sought to document causality. </p>
<p>For example, we asked 225 people to view four print ads featuring either a cat or a dog and then decide how to allocate a $2,000 investment, as in the previous study. We found that exposure to dogs led participants to be more likely to invest more money in stocks.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Small white kitten hiding beneath a floral couch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474684/original/file-20220718-51582-5ka2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cats are said to be more cautious by nature.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/small-white-kitten-hiding-beneath-a-floral-couch-royalty-free-image/552105001">Jodie Griggs/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Another study recruited 283 undergrads and asked them to recall a past experience involving a cat or dog. They then randomly read an ad for a massage business that either emphasized how massages increase metabolism, boost immunity and rejuvenate the body – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/383429">messages psychologists have found</a> appeal to people seeking rewards – or how they soothe body aches, relieve tension and reduce stress – phrases that tend to work better on cautious people. We told them that the company was offering $50 gift cards to several participants based on how much they were willing to bid. </p>
<p>Students who recalled an interaction with a dog offered bids significantly higher when they were exposed to the reward-oriented rather than risk-aversion ads. In contrast, those who recalled a cat offered much higher bids when they saw ads focused on risk aversion. </p>
<p>We believe these effects occur because people form mental associations of pets’ stereotypical temperaments and personalities – dogs like Midoo are eager, cats like Mipom are cautious. As a result, upon exposure to dogs or cats, these associations rise to the top of the mind and influence decisions and behaviors, an effect confirmed by our studies.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Pets, especially dogs and cats, are prevalent and play important roles in the lives of tens of millions of people.</p>
<p>In the U.S., <a href="https://www.lemonade.com/pet/explained/pet-ownership-statistics/#US-household">70% of households own at least one pet</a>. And 50% say they own at least one dog, while 40% have a cat.</p>
<p>Because pets provide a sense of companionship, many people treat dogs and cats as friends and family members. So it’s only natural to wonder if our furry friends exert an influence on us, just as our human friends and family members do. </p>
<p>Our research suggests they do.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>We plan to examine other possible effects of pets on people’s decisions and behaviors. For example, it is possible that interactions with dogs or cats can make people more or less willing to engage in conspicuous consumption. We also want to examine whether interactions with pets could affect people’s tendency to donate to charitable causes and engage in other activities meant to benefit others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lei Jia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A series of studies found that exposure to dogs leads people to make riskier financial decisions, while interactions with cats have the opposite effect.Lei Jia, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kent State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1835212022-07-24T20:01:44Z2022-07-24T20:01:44ZPeople who lived in the UK in the ‘mad cow disease’ years may now be able to give blood. The risk of vCJD is tiny<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466871/original/file-20220603-20-xfv97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C998%2C444&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-medical-mask-sits-chair-donates-2123764988">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From today, eligible people who were in the United Kingdom in the 80s and 90s will be able to donate blood in Australia again.</p>
<p>That’s because the risk of acquiring variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from blood transfusions in Australia is incredibly tiny. </p>
<p>We calculated that risk was about one in 1.4 billion, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/vox.13290">publishing our research</a> in the journal <em>Vox Sanguinis</em>.</p>
<p>The removal of restrictions, which have been in place for more than 20 years, means about 750,000 more Australians can now potentially donate blood.</p>
<p>This is at a time when there is a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-31/australia-blood-stocks-plummet-due-to-covid-flu/101113510">shortage of blood donations</a> due to donors sick with COVID or flu.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1531493334165823490"}"></div></p>
<h2>Remind me again, what is vCJD?</h2>
<p>Researchers identified vCJD as a new and emerging fatal neurological disease <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8598754/">in 1996</a>. It has since been associated with 233 cases <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11283320/">worldwide</a>, with 178 of those in the UK. </p>
<p>Once infected, people show no symptoms for many years. But when they do, there are psychiatric symptoms, such as depression. Then there are sensory symptoms, such as pain, followed by neurological abnormalities. People usually die about a year after symptoms start.</p>
<p>Transmission has been mainly via eating beef from cattle with bovine spongiform encephalitis (or BSE, commonly referred to as “mad cow disease”) in the UK during the 80s and 90s. </p>
<p>Mad cow disease had been spread by contaminated stock feed (cattle had been fed with contaminated beef products) before regulations were tightened and implemented, from 1996.</p>
<p>Over this time, an estimated <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7130755/">180,000</a> infected cattle had entered the UK human food chain.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rare-and-deadly-creutzfeldt-jakob-disease-remains-a-bit-of-a-medical-mystery-44408">Rare and deadly, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease remains a bit of a medical mystery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>How is this connected to giving blood?</h2>
<p>There is no easy test for vCJD and infected people don’t know they have it until they have symptoms. This pre-symptomatic phase can be as long as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310634/">several decades</a>. So there was speculation there could be unidentified people with vCJD, but exactly how many was unclear.</p>
<p>This is a potential public health issue as people who don’t know they have vCJD could transmit to others through blood, or tissue and organ donations.</p>
<p>This is why people who were in the UK between 1980 and 1996 for six months or more have been unable to give blood in Australia, since December 2000. Other countries had similar bans.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blood bag hanging in operating theatre while surgeons operating" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466879/original/file-20220603-24-1esy45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People who didn’t know they had vCJD could have transmitted to others via a blood transfusion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/giving-blood-during-operation-222697294">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-animal-experiments-to-saving-lives-a-history-of-blood-transfusions-80391">From animal experiments to saving lives: a history of blood transfusions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>So what’s changed?</h2>
<p>Since the peak of the vCJD epidemic in 2000, when there were <a href="http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/figs.pdf">28 deaths in the UK</a>, there has been a rapid decline in recorded cases, with only two worldwide since 2015. These numbers are much lower than modelled predictions. </p>
<p>Because there have been no BSE or vCJD cases in Australia, lower-than-predicted vCJD case numbers generally, and the ongoing change in the proportion of people in Australia who were exposed to vCJD, we recently reassessed the risk of vCJD in Australian blood donors.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-ethnic-face-is-changing-and-so-are-our-blood-types-113454">Australia’s ethnic face is changing, and so are our blood types</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The risk is tiny, the benefits large</h2>
<p>We looked at a range of scenarios, including different assumptions about the numbers of people with vCJD, infectiousness and incubation periods.</p>
<p>Using modelling, we predicted a blood donation from an Australian with vCJD would occur once every 65 years, but this rate decreases over time.</p>
<p>If that donated blood was used in a transfusion today, there would be about a one in 1.4 billion chance of the recipient developing vCJD.</p>
<p>In other words, there is virtually no increased risk of vCJD transmission via transfusion (and this is decreasing). Lifting the ban on UK donors would increase the donor pool by 750,000 newly eligible people. </p>
<p>Assuming donation at the current rate, this would result in a gain of around 58,000 blood donations annually.</p>
<p>Our research was instrumental in supporting today’s opening up of blood donations, <a href="https://www.lifeblood.com.au/news-and-stories/media-centre/media-releases/tga-approval-lift-mad-cow-blood-donation-ban-people-who-lived-in-uk">as approved</a> by the Therapeutic Goods Administration earlier this year and subsequently supported by Australian governments.</p>
<p>The Food and Drug Administration has also <a href="https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/recommendations-reduce-possible-risk-transmission-creutzfeldt-jakob-disease-and-variant-creutzfeldt">recommended</a> removing similar restrictions on blood donors in the United States.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors acknowledge the assistance of Veronica Hoad and Alison Gould from Lifeblood in drafting and reviewing the article.</em></p>
<p><em>Contact <a href="https://www.lifeblood.com.au">Lifeblood</a> to donate blood in Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Seed is Senior Blood Safety Analyst, Clinical Services and Research, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work was funded by and NH&MRC Partnership Grant (APP1151959)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hamish McManus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We calculated there was a one in 1.4 billion chance of someone contracting vCJD from a blood transfusion. And that risk will get even smaller with time.Hamish McManus, Biostatistician, Kirby Institute, UNSW SydneyClive Seed, Adjunct lecturer in allograft transmissible infections, medical school (surgery), The University of Western AustraliaMatthew Law, Professor and Program Head, Biostatistics and Databases Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822872022-05-17T12:26:39Z2022-05-17T12:26:39ZIt’s impossible to determine your personal COVID-19 risks and frustrating to try – but you can still take action<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463465/original/file-20220516-23-r0etgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=151%2C92%2C4901%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Before the pandemic, an intergenerational tea party wouldn't have seemed a risky proposition.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mature-woman-with-her-favorite-grandchild-royalty-free-image/947724704?adppopup=true">fotostorm/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“How risky is being indoors with our 10-year-old granddaughter without masks? We have plans to have birthday tea together. Are we safe?”</p>
<p>That question, from a woman named Debby in California, is just one of hundreds I’ve received from concerned people who are worried about COVID-19. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xDbfMhwAAAAJ&hl=en">I’m an epidemiologist</a> and one of the women behind <a href="https://dearpandemic.org/">Dear Pandemic</a>, a science communication project that has delivered practical pandemic advice on social media since the beginning of the pandemic. </p>
<p>How risky is swim team? How risky is it to go to my orthodontist appointment? How risky is going to the grocery store with a mask on if no one else is wearing one and my father is an organ transplant recipient? How risky is it to have a wedding with 200 people, indoors, and the reception hall has a vaulted ceiling? And on and on.</p>
<p>These questions are <a href="https://dearpandemic.org/how-safe-is-my-specific-situation-event-activity/">hard to answer</a>, and even when we try, the answers are unsatisfying.</p>
<p>So in early April 2022, when Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, told Americans that from here on out, each of us is going to have to <a href="https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220411/fauci-weigh-personal-risk-amid-covid-uptick">do our own personal risk assessment</a>, I put my head down on my desk.</p>
<p>Individualized risk assessment is not a reasonable ask, even for someone who does risk assessment for a living, let alone for the rest of us. It’s impossible to evaluate our own risk for any given situation, and the impossibility of the task can make us feel like giving up entirely. So instead of doing that, I suggest focusing on risk reduction. Reframing in this way brings us back to the realm of what we can control and to the tried and true evidence-based strategies: wearing masks, getting vaccinated and boosted, avoiding indoor crowds and improving ventilation. </p>
<h2>A cascade of unknowable variables</h2>
<p>In my experience, nonscientists and epidemiologists use the word “risk” to mean different things. To most people, risk means a quality – something like danger or vulnerability.</p>
<p>When epidemiologists and other scientists use the word risk, though, we’re talking about a math problem. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwv001">Risk is the probability of a particular outcome</a>, in a particular population at a particular time. To give a simple example, the chances that a coin flip will be heads is 1 in 2.</p>
<p>As public health researchers, we often offer risk information in this format: The probability that an unvaccinated person will die of COVID-19 if they catch it is about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.09.1464">1 in 200</a>. As many as <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/6may2022">1 in 8 people with COVID-19</a> will have symptoms persisting for weeks or months after recovering.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="white-haired man in jacket and tie seated at mic with 'Dr. Fauci' on name plate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463466/original/file-20220516-26-zikrhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anthony Fauci wore a mask in advance of Senate testimony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/director-of-the-national-institute-of-allergy-and-news-photo/1237661251">Shawn Thew/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To embark on your personal risk assessment, as Fauci casually suggested, you first have to decide what outcome you’re talking about. People often aren’t very specific when they consider risk in a qualitative sense; they tend to lump a lot of different risks together. But risk is not a general concept. It’s always the risk of a specific outcome.</p>
<p>Let’s think about Debby. First, there’s the risk that she will be exposed to COVID-19 during tea; this depends on her granddaughter. Where does she live? How many kids at her school have COVID-19 this week? Will she take a rapid test before she comes over? These factors all influence the granddaughter’s risk of exposing Debby to COVID-19, but I don’t know any of them and likely neither does Debby. Given the lack of systematic testing, I have no idea how many people in my own community have COVID-19 right now. At this point, our best guess at community rates is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/surveillance/wastewater-surveillance/wastewater-surveillance.html">literally in the toilet</a> – <a href="https://theconversation.com/wastewater-monitoring-took-off-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-heres-how-it-could-help-head-off-future-outbreaks-180775">monitoring sewage for the coronavirus</a>.</p>
<p>If I assume that Debby’s granddaughter does have COVID-19 on the appointed day, I can start thinking about Debby’s downstream risks: whether she’ll get COVID-19 from her granddaughter; the chances that she’ll be hospitalized and that she’ll die; and the probability that she’ll have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html">long COVID</a>. I can also consider the risk that Debby will catch COVID-19 and then give it to others, perpetuating an outbreak. If she gets sick, the whole hierarchy of risks comes into play for everyone Debby sees after she is infected. </p>
<p>Finally, there are competing risks. If Debby decides to skip the party, there may be risks to her own or her granddaughter’s mental health or their relationship. Many skipped celebrations in many families <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nobody-will-ever-agree-on-whether-covid-lockdowns-were-worth-it-161154">could negatively affect the economy</a>. People could lose business; they could lose their jobs.</p>
<p>Each of these probabilities is influenced by a cascade of fickle conditions. Some of the factors that shape risks are in your control. For example, I decided to get vaccinated and boosted. Therefore, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7112e1.htm">I’m less likely to end up in the hospital and to die if I get COVID-19</a>. But some risks are not in your control – age, other health conditions, gender, race and the behavior of the people all around you. And many, many of the risk factors are simply unknowns. We’ll never be able to accurately evaluate the whole volatile landscape of risk for a particular situation and come up with a number. </p>
<h2>Taking charge of what you can</h2>
<p>There will never be a situation where I can say to Debby: The risk is 1 in 20. And even if I could, I’m not sure it would be helpful. Most people have a very hard time understanding probabilities they encounter every day, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2018.1553884">the chance that it will rain</a>.</p>
<p>The statistical risk of a particular outcome doesn’t address Debby’s underlying question: Are we safe?</p>
<p>Nothing is entirely safe. If you want my professional opinion on whether it’s safe to walk down the sidewalk, I will have to say no. Bad things happen. I know someone who tore a tendon in her hand while putting a fitted sheet on a bed last week.</p>
<p>It’s much more practical to ask: What can I do to reduce the risk? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="young girl shows off her 'I got my COVID-19 vaccine' sticker" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463468/original/file-20220516-19-1vlpcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting vaccinated is one important way to cut your risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/girl-shows-her-sticker-after-being-vaccinated-at-a-covid-19-news-photo/1240240694">Zou Zheng/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Focusing on actions that reduce risk frees us from obsessing over unanswerable questions with useless answers so we can focus on what is within our control. I will never know precisely how risky Debby’s tea is, but I <a href="https://dearpandemic.org/protecting-against-new-covid-virus-variants/">do know how to make the risks smaller</a>. </p>
<p>I suspect the question folks are really asking is: How can I manage the risks? I like this question better because it has an answer: You should do what you can. If it’s reasonable to wear a mask, wear one. <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-you-wear-a-mask-on-a-plane-bus-or-train-when-theres-no-mandate-4-essential-reads-to-help-you-decide-181582">Yes, even if it isn’t required</a>. If it’s reasonable to do an <a href="https://theconversation.com/just-how-accurate-are-rapid-antigen-tests-two-testing-experts-explain-the-latest-data-180405">at-home antigen test</a> before you see your vulnerable grandparents, do that. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html">Get vaccinated and boosted</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.10.039">Tell your friends and family</a> that you did, and why. Choose outdoor gatherings. <a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indoor-air-clean-can-reduce-the-chance-of-spreading-coronavirus-149512">Open a window</a>. </p>
<p>Constantly assessing and reassessing risks has <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-decision-making-is-difficult-and-exhausting-heres-the-psychology-that-explains-why-176968">given many people decision fatigue</a>. I feel that too. But you don’t need to recalibrate risks of everything, every day, for every variant, because the strategies to reduce risk remain the same. Reducing risk – even if it’s just a little bit – is better than doing nothing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malia Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People want a simple answer. Is this action safe? But despite Anthony Fauci bouncing responsibility for COVID-19 risk assessment to individuals, your risk can’t be boiled down to one probability.Malia Jones, Scientist in Health Geography, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1815822022-04-20T19:36:25Z2022-04-20T19:36:25ZShould you wear a mask on a plane, bus or train when there’s no mandate? 4 essential reads to help you decide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458911/original/file-20220420-25-qleeh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=187%2C130%2C5120%2C3082&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It is now up to individuals whether to wear masks in airports and other mass transit areas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TravelMaskMandate/28ce57b3790b493190c8409bf0cd06d0/photo?Query=mask%20plane&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=469&currentItemNo=22">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 18, 2022, a judge in Florida <a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/federal-mask-mandate-airlines-04-19-22/index.html">struck down the federal mandate requiring passengers on mass transit to wear masks</a>. While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that passengers mask up while on planes, trains or buses, it is no longer a requirement. When asked whether people should wear masks on planes, President Joe Biden replied: “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/federal-mask-mandate-airlines-04-19-22/index.html">That’s up to them</a>.”</p>
<p>The Conversation has been covering the science of masks since the beginning of the pandemic. Masking may no longer be required on mass transit, but you can always choose to still wear a mask. For those worried about being exposed to SARS-CoV-2 or developing COVID-19, below are highlights from four articles exploring the benefits of wearing a mask and how to get the most protection from wearing one. </p>
<h2>1. Masks can protect the person wearing them</h2>
<p>A lot of the reason for wearing a mask is to protect others. But early on in the pandemic, <a href="https://profiles.ucsf.edu/monica.gandhi">Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine</a> at the University of California, San Francisco, explained how masks can protect the wearer, too.</p>
<p>“When you wear a mask – even a cloth mask – you typically are <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.7326%2FM20-2567">exposed to a lower dose of the coronavirus</a> than if you didn’t,” Gandhi writes. “Both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009799117">recent experiments in animal models</a> using coronavirus and nearly a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2802">hundred years of viral research</a> show that <a href="https://theconversation.com/cloth-masks-do-protect-the-wearer-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick-143726">lower viral doses usually mean less severe disease.</a>”</p>
<p>Though it’s only one of many factors, “the amount of virus that you’re exposed to – called the viral inoculum, or dose – has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2802">a lot to do with how sick you get</a>. If the exposure dose is very high, the immune response can become overwhelmed,” explains Gandhi. “On the other hand, if the initial dose of the virus is small, the immune system is able to contain the virus.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cloth-masks-do-protect-the-wearer-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick-143726">Cloth masks do protect the wearer – breathing in less coronavirus means you get less sick</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The better the mask, the lower the exposure dose. And in the many months since Gandhi wrote that story, a lot of work has been done to determine which kinds of masks are most effective. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An N95, surgical and cloth mask." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458910/original/file-20220420-18-nanbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not all masks offer the same amount of filtration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/protective-face-masks-commonly-used-during-2020-royalty-free-image/1248294245?adppopup=true">Gaelle Beller Studio/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. What makes for a good mask?</h2>
<p>The first thing to consider when wearing a mask is whether it’s a good one. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=MaEhNkQAAAAJ">Christian L'Orange is a professor of mechanical engineering</a> and has been testing different masks for the state of Colorado since the pandemic started. He explains that there are two things that make for a protective mask. “First, there’s the ability of the material to capture particles. The second factor is the fraction of inhaled or exhaled air leaking out from around the mask – essentially, how well a mask fits.”</p>
<p>When it comes to these two attributes, L'Orange says, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-best-mask-for-covid-19-a-mechanical-engineer-explains-the-science-after-2-years-of-testing-masks-in-his-lab-175481">the N95 and KN95 masks are the best option</a>.” This performance has a lot to do with the materials they are made from. “These fibers are very tightly packed together so the gaps a particle must navigate through are very small. This results in a high probability that particles will end up touching and sticking to a fiber as they pass through a mask. These polypropylene materials also often <a href="https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/machinery-tools-supplies/what-is-melt-blown-extrusion/">have a static charge</a> that can help attract and catch particles.”</p>
<p>Fit is the second important factor for a mask. As L'Orange writes, “a mask can offer protection only if it doesn’t leak.” N95s and KN95s are stiff and seal much better than other masks.</p>
<p>If you don’t have access to an N95 or KN95, surgical masks should be your second choice. They are made of densely woven material, but they don’t seal perfectly. Cloth masks should be your last choice because of their generally loose weave and bad fit. But there are ways to improve the performance of surgical and cloth masks. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-best-mask-for-covid-19-a-mechanical-engineer-explains-the-science-after-2-years-of-testing-masks-in-his-lab-175481">What is the best mask for COVID-19? A mechanical engineer explains the science after 2 years of testing masks in his lab</a>
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<hr>
<h2>3. How to make a mask fit well</h2>
<p>“No matter how good a mask’s material is, it won’t work well if it doesn’t fit well,” writes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fZJWmF8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Scott Schiffres, a mechanical engineer</a> at Binghamton University.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/cdc-says-masks-must-fit-tightly-and-two-are-better-than-one-153778">two ways to improve the fit and performance of surgical and cloth masks</a>. The first, explains Schiffres, is simply wearing two masks. “Double-masking is wearing a cotton mask over a medical-procedure mask.” This can greatly improve the fit and add a little bit more filtration. The second approach is to knot and tuck a surgical mask so that it fits better. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OD-jy7M6tEc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Knotting and tucking a surgical mask can make it fit much better.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Schiffres explains in his article, “Knotting and tucking entails tying a knot in the elastic loops that go over your ears, close to where they attach to the mask. Then, you tuck the extra mask fabric into the gap that is often present where the ear loops attach to the mask, and flatten that part as much as possible. Both of these tricks make a better fit and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm?s_cid=mm7007e1_w">decrease the mask-wearers’ exposure to potentially infectious aerosols by 95%</a> as compared with wearing no mask at all. That’s a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2013.43">15% improvement over the 80% efficiency found when using a single surgical mask</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cdc-says-masks-must-fit-tightly-and-two-are-better-than-one-153778">CDC says masks must fit tightly – and two are better than one</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Breakthrough cases and new variants</h2>
<p>The final consideration when deciding to wear a mask isn’t about you. Doing so can protect others. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XY7DNtgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Sara Sawyer</a>, <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/pac/arturo-barbachano-guerrero">Arturo Barbachano-Guerrero</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=l2lpnYkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Cody Warren</a> are virologists and biologists at the University of Colorado Boulder. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/alpha-then-delta-and-now-omicron-6-questions-answered-as-covid-19-cases-once-again-surge-across-the-globe-174703">a recent story</a>, they write that omicron "is often able <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04385-3">to evade existing immunity</a> long enough to start an infection, cause symptoms and transmit onward to the next person.” “This explains why reinfections and vaccine <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectiveness/why-measure-effectiveness/breakthrough-cases.html">breakthrough infections</a> seem to be more common with omicron.”</p>
<p>Case numbers are low for now, and therefore so is the risk of catching or transmitting the coronavirus. But it is not zero; some places have higher risk than others, and new variants can come on quickly. As the team writes, all new variants that spread widely – so-called <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-classifications.html#anchor_1632154493691">variants of concern</a> – are likely to be highly transmissible.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/alpha-then-delta-and-now-omicron-6-questions-answered-as-covid-19-cases-once-again-surge-across-the-globe-174703">Alpha then delta and now omicron – 6 questions answered as COVID-19 cases once again surge across the globe</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The person next to you on the plane might not be wearing a mask and, as it stands, that is their choice to make. If you want to lower your own chances of catching or spreading the coronavirus, there are still a number of reasons to wear a well-fitting, high-quality mask. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Despite the halt to the federal mask mandate for mass transit, people may still choose to protect themselves. For those who do, the type of mask and how well it fits matter.Daniel Merino, Associate Breaking News Editor and Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly PodcastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769682022-04-19T12:19:46Z2022-04-19T12:19:46ZPandemic decision-making is difficult and exhausting – here’s the psychology that explains why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458383/original/file-20220418-22-mu1qko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=367%2C62%2C4848%2C3409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">So much uncertainty around risk can make it extra hard to decide what to do.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-hipster-woman-using-a-smart-phone-in-her-royalty-free-image/990991128">Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You want to sit down for an indoor dinner with friends. A couple of years ago, this was a simple enough activity that required minimal planning. However, that is not the case in today’s world. Many people now face a stream of further considerations about benefits and risks.</p>
<p>Will I enjoy the experience? What are the potential downsides? Am I comfortable with the restaurant’s pandemic-related policies? What’s the ventilation like? Is it very busy there at this time of day? Am I planning to see lots of people, or people with compromised immune systems, in the near future? </p>
<p>This is exhausting! <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gFXRTf4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As scientists</a> <a href="https://tricomilab.wixsite.com/ldmlab/people">at the</a> <a href="https://tricomilab.wixsite.com/ldmlab">Learning and Decision-Making Lab</a> at Rutgers University-Newark, we’ve noticed how many decision-making processes are affected by the pandemic. The accumulation of choices people are making throughout the day leads to what psychologists call <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jean-Twenge/publication/237738528_Decision_Fatigue_Exhausts_Self-Regulatory_Resources_-_But_So_Does_Accommodating_to_Unchosen_Alternatives/links/554b9ee40cf21ed21359ccbd/Decision-Fatigue-Exhausts-Self-Regulatory-Resources-But-So-Does-Accommodating-to-Unchosen-Alternatives.pdf">decision fatigue</a> – you can end up feeling overwhelmed and make bad decisions. The current pandemic can make this situation more pronounced, as even the choices and activities that should be the most simple can now feel tinged with risk and uncertainty. </p>
<p>Risk involves known probabilities – for example, the likelihood of losing a certain hand in poker. But <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305826/the-signal-and-the-noise-by-nate-silver/">uncertainty is an unknown probability</a> – you can never really know the exact chance of catching COVID-19 by engaging in certain activities. Human beings tend to be both risk-averse and uncertainty-averse, meaning that you likely avoid both when you can. And when you can’t – as during a confusing phase of a pandemic – it can be draining to try to decide what to do.</p>
<h2>Rules are easy, decisions are hard</h2>
<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most people didn’t think through some basic decisions in the same way they might now. In fact, even early in the pandemic you didn’t really need to. There were rules to follow whether you liked them or not. Capacity was limited, hours were restricted, or shops were closed. People were strongly urged to opt out of activities they’d normally engage in.</p>
<p>This is evident in data we collected from university students in fall 2020 and spring 2021. One question we asked was, “What has been the hardest part of the pandemic for you?” Responses included “Not being able to see my friends and family,” “Having to take classes online,” “Being forced to stay home” and many other similar frustrations. </p>
<p>Many of our survey respondents were either not able to do things they wanted to do or were forced to do things they didn’t want to do. In either case, the guidelines were clear-cut and the decisions were less of a struggle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="masked cafe worker puts out an 'open' sign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458384/original/file-20220418-76603-u14lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pandemic world that is open for business sets the scene for a lot more daily decisions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/all-set-to-restart-business-royalty-free-image/1272761167">pixdeluxe/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As restrictions ease and people think about “living with” the coronavirus, the current phase of the pandemic brings with it a new need to make cost-benefit calculations.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that not everyone has experienced these kinds of decisions in the same way. Throughout the course of the pandemic there have been people who did not have the luxury of choice and needed to go to work regardless of the risk. There have also been those who have taken risks all along. On the other end of the spectrum, some people continue to stay isolated and avoid almost every situation with the potential for contracting COVID-19.</p>
<p>Those who experience the most decision fatigue are those who are in the middle – they want to avoid COVID-19 but also want to get back to the activities they enjoyed before the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Shortcuts can short-circuit decision-making</h2>
<p>Psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote in his book “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533557/thinking-fast-and-slow">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>” that “when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead.”</p>
<p>Making decisions about risk and uncertainty is hard. For instance, trying to think through the probability of catching a potentially deadly virus while going to an indoor movie theater is difficult. So people tend to think in terms of binaries – “this is safe” or “this is unsafe” – because it’s easier.</p>
<p>The problem is that answering easier questions instead of trickier ones leaves you vulnerable to cognitive biases, or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808098.002">errors in thought that affect your decision-making</a>.</p>
<p>One of the most prevalent of these biases is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9">availability heuristic</a>. That’s what psychologists call the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on how easily it comes to mind. How much a certain event is covered in the media, or whether you’ve seen instances of it recently in your life, can sway your estimate. For example, if you’ve seen stories of a plane crash in the news recently, you may believe the probability of being in a plane crash to be higher than it actually is.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p>
<p>The effect of the availability heuristic on pandemic-era decision-making often manifests as making choices based on individual cases rather than on overall trends. On one side, people may feel fine going to a crowded indoor concert because they know others in their lives who have done this and have been fine – so they judge the likelihood of catching the coronavirus to be lower as a result. On the other hand, someone who knows a friend whose child caught COVID-19 at school may now think the risks of transmission in schools are much higher than they really are.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the availability heuristic means these days you think much more about the risks of catching COVID-19 than about other risks life entails that receive less media attention. While you’re worrying about the adequacy of a restaurant’s ventilation system, you overlook the danger of getting into a car accident on your way there.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman seated in restaurant booth looks out the window pensively" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458385/original/file-20220418-87032-gbe2cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can’t know for sure whether you’ll get infected after meeting a friend.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pensive-woman-sitting-by-herself-in-a-restaurant-at-royalty-free-image/1138424247">LeoPatrizi/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A constant process</h2>
<p>Decisions in general, and during a pandemic in particular, are about weighing risks and benefits and dealing with risk and uncertainty.</p>
<p>Because of the nature of probability, you can’t be sure in advance whether you’ll catch COVID-19 after agreeing to dine at a friend’s house. Furthermore, the outcome does not make your decision right or wrong. If you weigh the risks and benefits and accept that dinner invitation, only to end up contracting COVID-19 at the meal, it doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision – it just means you rolled the dice and came up short.</p>
<p>On the flip side, if you accept the dinner invitation and don’t end up with COVID-19, don’t get too smug; another time, the outcome might be different. All you can do is try to weigh what you know of the costs and benefits and make the best decisions you can.</p>
<p>During this next phase of the pandemic, we recommend remembering that uncertainty is a part of life. Be kind to yourself and others as we all try to make our best choices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People tend to dislike uncertainty and risk – two things that are hard to avoid completely during a pandemic. That’s part of why it can feel especially draining to make even small decisions these days.Elizabeth Tricomi, Associate Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University - NewarkWesley Ameden, Ph.D. Student in Psychology, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803382022-04-07T20:01:52Z2022-04-07T20:01:52ZThe next COVID wave is here. Why for some of us it’s OMG and for others it’s meh<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456730/original/file-20220407-13054-qfk34u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C995%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-african-american-sporty-woman-wearing-1925570561">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Depending on where you live, you may have been warned to brace for the next COVID wave, <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-cases-are-rising-but-we-probably-wont-need-more-restrictions-unless-a-worse-variant-hits-179969">driven by</a> the new Omicron subvariant, more of us being out and about, and fewer people wearing masks. </p>
<p>Alternatively, you may be living somewhere already approaching the peak of the wave.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Comparing COVID waves" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456725/original/file-20220406-20442-i84cbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The number of daily COVID cases for each state and territory, based on a seven-day average.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.covid19data.com.au/compare-outbreaks">www.covid19data.com.au</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You may have noticed a range of responses. For some people, the prospect of another COVID wave prompts a “meh” and shoulder shrug. For others, it’s an anxious “OMG!”. </p>
<p>Why do people’s responses differ?</p>
<h2>Two main reasons why</h2>
<p>Two psychological factors influence how people respond to the same situation differently:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>how likely you think there’ll be a bad outcome</strong> If you think there’s a high chance you’ll contract COVID, you’ll likely be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.20">more frightened</a> and actively avoid situations where you think you might catch it</p></li>
<li><p><strong>how bad you think the bad outcome will be</strong> If you expect huge “costs” from becoming infected – such as becoming so sick you’ll end up in hospital – this can also affect your response. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.20">greater the anticipated cost</a>, the greater the fear and avoidance.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In other words, even though we may face the same situation, people will differ in how they expect things to pan out. In turn, this affects how fearful they are and how they behave.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-cases-are-rising-but-we-probably-wont-need-more-restrictions-unless-a-worse-variant-hits-179969">COVID cases are rising but we probably won't need more restrictions unless a worse variant hits</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>From OMG to meh (or the other way around)</h2>
<p>More than two years into the pandemic the world is a very different place. We now know more about the virus and its effects. A larger proportion of the community has been infected and recovered. We have high vaccination rates, protecting us from severe illness. The dominant Omicron variant is reportedly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajpath.2022.01.007">less severe</a> than previous variants.</p>
<p>So, for many people, this has resulted in a shift in the anticipated cost of catching COVID. For some, becoming infected with COVID might seem inevitable. However, this prospect is no longer considered bad enough to prevent them from being out and about.</p>
<p>Then there’s the impact of more than two years of expecting to get infected, but not actually contracting COVID. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2013.09.016">reduces</a> our expectation of infection, our fear and our avoidance.</p>
<p>For example, loosened restrictions and re-engagement in pre-pandemic activities may have initially been anxiety provoking. But over time, in the absence of catastrophe (such as being hospitalised with COVID), our fears decline.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Friends sitting around restaurant table, waiter taking orders" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456735/original/file-20220407-18446-pw7ao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You know what? Let’s book a table.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bar-restaurant-waiter-takes-order-diverse-1031029918">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is called “extinction learning” and is the basis for exposure therapy – the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/11474-011">gold standard treatment</a> for anxiety. </p>
<p>However, if someone is unexpectedly hospitalised with COVID, this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2007.11.007">can increase</a> their belief in the likelihood and cost of contracting COVID. Once recovered, they’re then more likely to be afraid and avoid being exposed to more risk.</p>
<p>COVID also no longer dominates the news cycle. This reduced opportunity to consume threatening COVID information may have also reduced COVID-related fear. However, this may have been superseded by other recent threats in the news – floods and war. </p>
<p>All these factors account for why people’s responses to COVID can change over time. What used to be OMG a few months ago might now be a meh, or vice-versa.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/feeling-socially-anxious-about-returning-to-the-office-youre-not-alone-179757">Feeling socially anxious about returning to the office? You're not alone</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Are some people more prone to OMG, then meh?</h2>
<p>For some, OMG is an appropriate response, for instance, if they are vulnerable or are protecting a vulnerable person. </p>
<p>An OMG response may also have been appropriate earlier in the pandemic, when we knew so little about the virus and we weren’t certain vaccines would arrive. Avoiding risk made sense when we were unable to accurately determine the likelihood and cost of contracting COVID. </p>
<p>However, at this stage of the pandemic some people may be prone to overestimating the likelihood of contracting COVID and its consequences – independent of both the actual risk and their experience of COVID so far.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man clutching head" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456738/original/file-20220407-12600-2dv585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some people are stuck in a cycle of fear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-suffering-anxiety-depression-due-1926963035">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These people are likely to seek out and pay greater attention to negative or threatening information around them. This is a process known as attentional bias and is <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-4158755">linked to anxiety</a>. </p>
<p>People with this characteristic are also more likely to avoid situations that provoke anxiety. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.003">prevents opportunities</a> to adjust their expectations about the chance of contracting COVID and the cost.</p>
<p>This creates a perpetual cycle of fear and avoidance that does not dissipate over time.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stop-fixating-on-the-daily-covid-numbers-170279">How to stop fixating on the daily COVID numbers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is your response appropriate?</h2>
<p>A rational response is one that accurately reflects both the likelihood and the cost of a negative consequence. The threat posed by COVID will vary between individuals. So it is important to accurately assess the threat for you.</p>
<p>If the threat is high, more caution may be warranted to prevent contracting COVID by physically distancing, wearing masks or reducing social contact. </p>
<p>Alternatively, if the threat is low, less caution may be required.</p>
<p>Here are some practical steps to help you accurately determine the likelihood and cost of contracting COVID and align your response accordingly:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>assess the evidence. Stay well informed from credible sources about infection rates and rates of serious illness requiring hospitalisation</p></li>
<li><p>talk to medical professionals about your personal risks and how to manage them</p></li>
<li><p>if your fear of COVID is having a serious negative impact on your life, seek support from a mental health professional. <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-cognitive-behaviour-therapy-37351">Cognitive behaviour therapy</a> is a psychotherapy that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbct.2020.12.004">teaches people</a> how to evaluate threat and reduce avoidance. Alternatively, you can access cognitive behaviour therapy at <a href="https://mindspot.org.au/">MindSpot</a> or <a href="https://thiswayup.org.au/">This Way Up</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, contact <a href="https://www.lifeline.org.au/">Lifeline</a> (13 11 14), <a href="https://www.beyondblue.org.au/">Beyond Blue</a> or <a href="https://headspace.org.au/eheadspace/">eheadspace</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aliza Werner-Seidler receives research funding from the NHMRC (GNT1197074).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie H Li does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than two years into the pandemic the world is a very different place. But this only partly explains different people’s responses to COVID.Sophie H Li, Senior Clinical Research Manager and Clinical Psychologist, UNSW SydneyAliza Werner-Seidler, Associate Professor & Clinical Psychologist, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1775092022-02-24T13:53:35Z2022-02-24T13:53:35ZIf I am vaccinated and get COVID-19, what are my chances of dying? The answer is surprisingly hard to find<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448171/original/file-20220223-19-hf3m0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C149%2C2356%2C1359&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vaccination has allowed people to be more social again with much less risk of serious illness, but less cautious behaviors put people at an increased risk of catching the virus.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-multiracial-people-drinking-cocktails-at-home-royalty-free-image/1297963782">Sabrina Bracher / iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thankfully, most people who get COVID–19 don’t become seriously ill – especially those who are vaccinated. But a small fraction do get hospitalized, and a smaller fraction do die. If you are vaccinated and catch the coronavirus, what are your chances of getting hospitalized or dying?</p>
<p>As <a href="https://coloradosph.cuanschutz.edu/resources/directory/directory-profile/Miller-Lisa-UCD5695">an epidemiologist</a>, I have been asked to respond to this question in one form or another throughout the pandemic. This is a very reasonable question to ask, but a challenging one to answer. </p>
<p>To calculate the risk of hospitalization or death after getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 you need to know the total number of infections. The problem is that nobody knows exactly how many people have been infected by the coronavirus. So while it is very hard to estimate the true risk of dying if you are vaccinated and come down with COVID-19, there are some ways to better understand the risks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign for a testing location." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448163/original/file-20220223-15-q2x9b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Testing can catch a large number of coronavirus cases, but will never detect all of them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakMaryland/948d4f8300724f7e9419d2269e103435/photo?Query=covid%20testing%20site&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3192&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Counting infections</h2>
<p>The first thing to consider when thinking about risk is that the data has to be fresh. Each new variant has its own characteristics that change the risk it poses to those it infects. Omicron came on quickly and seems to be leaving quickly, so there has been little time for researchers or health officials to collect and publish data that can be used to estimate the risk of hospitalization or death. </p>
<p>If you have enough good data, it would be possible to calculate the risk of hospitalization or death. You would need to count the number of people who were hospitalized or died and divide that number by the total number of infections. It’s also important to take into account time delays between infection, hospitalization and death. Doing this calculation would give you the true infection hospitalization or fatality rate. The trouble is health officials <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html">don’t know with certainty how many people have been infected</a>.</p>
<p>The omicron variant is incredibly infectious, but the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e4.htm?s_cid=mm7104e4_w">risk of it causing significant illness is much lower</a> compared to previous strains. It’s great that omicron is less severe, but that may lead to fewer people seeking tests if they are infected.</p>
<p>Further complicating things is the widespread availability of at-home test kits. Recent <a href="https://sph.cuny.edu/research/covid-19-survey-january-2022/">data from New York City</a> suggests that 55% of the population had ordered these and that about a quarter of individuals who tested positive during the omicron surge used a home test. Many people who use home tests report their results, <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/should-you-report-your-covid-19-home-test-results-5215274">but many do not</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, some people who do get symptoms simply may not get tested because they can’t readily access testing resources, or they don’t see a benefit in doing so. </p>
<p>When you combine all these factors, the result is that the official, reported count of coronavirus cases in the U.S. is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html">far lower than the actual number</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing two different curves and coronaviruses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448165/original/file-20220223-25-1o02s28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mathematical models can be used to estimate total numbers of cases, but they don’t have specific enough data to be used for precise risk calculations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/flattening-the-virus-disease-curve-vector-royalty-free-illustration/1244458380?adppopup=true">Mironov Konstantin / iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Estimating cases</h2>
<p>Since the beginning of the pandemic, epidemiologists have been working on ways to estimate the true number of infections. There are a few ways to do this.</p>
<p>Researchers have previously used <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.753487">antibody tests results</a> from large populations to estimate the prevalence of the virus. This type of testing takes time to organize, and as of late February 2022, it doesn’t appear that anyone has done this for omicron.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Another way to estimate cases is to rely on <a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/global?view=vaccinations&tab=trend">mathematical models</a>.
Researchers have used these models to make estimates of <a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections">total case numbers</a> and also for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11127-7">infection fatality rates</a>. But the models don’t distinguish between estimated infections of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. </p>
<p>Research has shown time and again that vaccination <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-booster-shot-cuts-omicron-death-risk-by-95-u-k-study-shows-11643302875">greatly reduces one’s risk of serious illness or death</a>. This means that calculating the risk of death is only really useful if you can distinguish by vaccination status, and existing models don’t enable this.</p>
<h2>What’s known and what to do?</h2>
<p>Without a good estimate of total cases by vaccination status, the best data available is known cases, hospitalizations and deaths. While this limited information doesn’t allow researchers to calculate the absolute risk an individual faces, it is possible to compare the risk between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.</p>
<p>The most <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccinations">recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> shows that hospitalization rates are 16 times higher in unvaccinated adults compared to fully vaccinated ones, and <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status">rates of death are 14 times higher</a>.</p>
<p>What is there to take away from all this? Most importantly, <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination">vaccination greatly reduces the risk</a> of hospitalization and death by many times.</p>
<p>But perhaps a second lesson is that the risks of hospitalization or death are much more complicated to understand and study than you might have thought – and the same goes for deciding how to react to those risks.</p>
<p>I look at the numbers and feel confident in the ability of my COVID-19 vaccination and booster to protect me from severe disease. I also choose to wear a high-quality mask when I’m indoors with lots of people to lessen my own risk even further and to protect those who may be unable to get vaccinated. </p>
<p>There have been many lessons learned from this pandemic, and there are many things researchers and the public still need to do better. It turns out that studying and talking about risk is one of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the past, Lisa Miller has received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mentioned in this article. </span></em></p>Calculating your risk of death or hospitalization if you are infected with the coronavirus requires good data – notably, the total number of infections in the US. Unfortunately, that data is fuzzy.Lisa Miller, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical CampusLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667142021-09-07T12:54:34Z2021-09-07T12:54:34ZElon Musk’s Tesla Bot raises serious concerns – but probably not the ones you think<p>Elon Musk <a href="https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=7514">announced a humanoid robot</a> designed to help with those repetitive, boring tasks people hate doing. Musk suggested it could run to the grocery store for you, but presumably it would handle any number of tasks involving manual labor.</p>
<p>Predictably, social media filled with references to a string of dystopian sci-fi movies about robots where everything goes horribly wrong.</p>
<p>As troubling as the robot futures in movies like <a href="https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/i-robot">I, Robot</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">The Terminator</a> and others are, it’s the underlying technologies of real humanoid robots – and the intent behind them – that should be cause for concern.</p>
<p>Musk’s robot is being developed by Tesla. It’s a seeming departure from the company’s car-making business, until you consider that Tesla isn’t a typical automotive manufacturer. The so-called “<a href="https://www.tesla.com/AI">Tesla Bot</a>” is a concept for a sleek, 125-pound humanlike robot that will incorporate Tesla’s automotive artificial intelligence and autopilot technologies to plan and follow routes, navigate traffic – in this case, pedestrians – and avoid obstacles.</p>
<p>Dystopian sci-fi overtones aside, the plan makes sense, albeit within Musk’s business strategy. The built environment is made by humans, for humans. And as Musk argued at the Tesla Bot’s announcement, successful advanced technologies are going to have to learn to navigate it in the same ways people do.</p>
<p>Yet Tesla’s cars and robots are merely the visible products of a much broader plan aimed at creating a future where advanced technologies liberate humans from our biological roots by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/26/elon-musk-avoid-becoming-like-monkeys-humans-must-merge-with-machines/">blending biology and technology</a>. As a researcher who studies the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b8NhWc4AAAAJ&hl=en">ethical and socially responsible development and use of emerging technologies</a>, I find that this plan raises concerns that transcend speculative sci-fi fears of super-smart robots.</p>
<h2>A man with big plans</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/itll-take-more-than-tech-for-elon-musk-to-pull-off-audacious-new-tesla-master-plan-62884">Self-driving cars</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dear-elon-musk-your-dazzling-mars-plan-overlooks-some-big-nontechnical-hurdles-84948">interplanetary rockets</a> and <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/neuralinks-technology-is-impressive-is-it-ethical-812afb38b19e">brain-machine interfaces</a> are steps toward the future Musk envisions where technology is humanity’s savior. In this future, <a href="https://www.inverse.com/innovation/elon-musk-transition-earth-to-renewables">energy will be cheap, abundant and sustainable</a>; people will work in harmony with intelligent machines and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/26/elon-musk-avoid-becoming-like-monkeys-humans-must-merge-with-machines/">even merge with them</a>; and humans will become an <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/elon-musk-aiming-for-mars-so-humanity-is-not-a-single-planet-species.html">interplanetary species</a>. </p>
<p>It’s a future that, judging by Musk’s various endeavors, will be built on a set of underlying interconnected technologies that include sensors, <a href="https://www.techopedia.com/definition/17043/actuator">actuators</a>, energy and data infrastructures, systems integration and substantial advances in computer power. Together, these make a formidable toolbox for creating transformative technologies.</p>
<p>Musk imagines humans ultimately <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa8m3SATR1s">transcending our evolutionary heritage</a> through technologies that are beyond-human, or “super” human. But before technology can become superhuman, it first needs to be human – or at least be designed to thrive in a human-designed world. </p>
<p>This make-tech-more-human approach to innovation is what’s underpinning the technologies in Tesla’s cars, including the extensive use of optical cameras. These, when connected to an AI “brain,” are intended to help the vehicles autonomously navigate road systems that are, in Musk’s words, “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1387901003664699392">designed for biological neural nets with optical imagers</a>” – in other words, people. In Musk’s telling, it’s a small step from human-inspired “robots on wheels” to humanlike robots on legs.</p>
<h2>Easier said than done</h2>
<p>Tesla’s “full self-driving” technology, which includes the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/u-s-senator-slams-teslas-misleading-name-for-autopilot-driver-assistance-system-idUSKBN1ZN20N">dubiously named Autopilot</a>, is a starting point for the developers of the Tesla Bot. Impressive as this technology is, it’s proving to be less than fully reliable. Crashes and fatalities <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-feds-are-investigating-teslas-autopilot-and-what-that-means-for-the-future-of-self-driving-cars-166307">associated with Tesla’s Autopilot mode</a> – the latest having to do with the algorithms <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-61557d668b646e7ef48c5543d3a1c66c">struggling to recognize parked emergency vehicles</a> — are calling into question the wisdom of releasing the tech into the wild so soon.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two firefighters stand beside a wrecked car with a crumpled front end" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419170/original/file-20210902-19-1yl19eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A series of crashes involving Tesla’s autopilot technology has prompted a federal investigation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TeslaCrash-Utah/bef821ed3f3041a68d82c35e3ea40f31/photo">South Jordan Police Department via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This track record doesn’t bode well for humanlike robots that rely on the same technology. Yet this isn’t just a case of getting the technology right. Tesla’s Autopilot glitches are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-drivers-test-autopilots-limits-attracting-audiencesand-safety-concerns-11621503008">exacerbated by human behavior</a>. For example, some Tesla drivers have treated their tech-enhanced cars as though they are fully autonomous vehicles and failed to pay sufficient attention to driving. Could something similar happen with the Tesla Bot?</p>
<h2>Tesla Bot’s ‘orphan risks’</h2>
<p>In my work on socially beneficial technology innovation, I’m especially interested in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/16321">orphan risks</a> – risks that are hard to quantify and easy to overlook and yet inevitably end up tripping up innovators. My colleagues and I work with entrepreneurs and others on navigating these types of challenges through the <a href="https://riskinnovation.org/">Risk Innovation Nexus</a>, an initiative of the Arizona State University <a href="https://entrepreneurship.asu.edu/">Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute</a> and <a href="https://globalfutures.asu.edu/">Global Futures Laboratory</a>.</p>
<p>The Tesla Bot comes with a whole portfolio of orphan risks. These include possible threats to privacy and autonomy as the bot collects, shares and acts on potentially sensitive information; challenges associated with how people are likely to think about and respond to humanoid robots; potential misalignments between ethical or ideological perspectives – for example, in crime control or policing civil protests; and more. These are challenges that are rarely covered in the training that engineers receive, and yet <a href="https://riskinnovation.org/resources/case-studies/">overlooking them can spell disaster</a>.</p>
<p>While the Tesla Bot may seem benign – <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-musk-ai-day">or even a bit of a joke</a> – if it’s to be beneficial as well as commercially successful, its developers, investors, future consumers and others need to be asking tough questions about how it might threaten what’s important to them and how to navigate these threats.</p>
<p>These threats may be as specific as people making unauthorized modifications that increase the robot’s performance – making it move faster than its designers intended, for example – without thinking about the risks, or as general as the technology being weaponized in novel ways. They are also as subtle as how a humanoid robot could threaten job security, or how a robot that includes advanced surveillance systems could undermine privacy.</p>
<p>Then there are the challenges of technological bias that have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-bias.html">plaguing AI for some time</a>, especially where it leads to learned behavior that turn out to be highly discriminatory. For example, AI algorithms have produced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-020-0288-5">sexist</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist">racist</a> results.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UG_X_7g63rY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">MIT’s Joy Buolamwini explains the threat of bias in AI.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Just because we can, should we?</h2>
<p>The Tesla Bot may seem like a small step toward Musk’s vision of superhuman technologies, and one that’s easy to write off as little more than <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300389545/tesla-bot-is-teslas-late-april-fools-joke">hubristic showmanship</a>. But the audacious plans underpinning it are serious — and they raise equally serious questions.</p>
<p>For instance, how responsible is Musk’s vision? Just because he can work toward creating the future of his dreams, who’s to say that he should? Is the future that Musk is striving to bring about the best one for humankind, or even a good one? And who will suffer the consequences if things go wrong?</p>
<p>These are the deeper concerns that the Tesla Bot raises for me as someone who <a href="https://andrewmaynard.net/">studies and writes about the future and how our actions impact it</a>. This is not to say that Tesla Bot isn’t a good idea, or that Elon Musk shouldn’t be able to flex his future-building muscles. Used in the right way, these are transformative ideas and technologies that could open up a future full of promise for billions of people.</p>
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<p>But if consumers, investors and others are bedazzled by the glitz of new tech or dismissive of the hype and fail to see the bigger picture, society risks handing the future to wealthy innovators whose vision exceeds their understanding. If their visions of the future don’t align with what most people aspire to, or are catastrophically flawed, they are in danger of standing in the way of building a just and equitable future.</p>
<p>Maybe this is the abiding lesson from dystopian robot-future sci-fi movies that people should be taking away as the Tesla Bot moves from idea to reality — not the more obvious concerns of creating humanoid robots that run amok, but the far larger challenge of deciding who gets to imagine the future and be a part of building it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you see the Tesla Bot as a joke or a harbinger of a dystopian future, you could be missing the real threat, which has more to do with Elon Musk’s power than robots run amok.Andrew Maynard, Associate Dean, College of Global Futures, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.