Society for Risk Analysis

The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), founded in 1980, is an international and multidisciplinary organization concerned with the assessment, characterization, and management of risks to human health, with risks to the natural and built environments, and with the development of policies related to risk. SRA does not, however, take stands on issues of public policy.

The society focuses on a variety of risks, but primarily those posed by natural forces, human activities, and chemical, biological, and physical agents. Intersecting these interests is another key focus of the organization: communication about risks, especially communication between experts and the public.

SRA has roughly 2,000 members, many of whom stem from academia, government, business, and industry. Annual meetings have been held since 1981. Each meeting has typically been devoted to a specific theme in risk analysis, including risk analysis in the 21st century, assessing and managing risks in a democratic society, risk analysis in an interconnected world, learning from cross-cultural comparison, and the analysis, communication, and perception of risk. Regardless of the central theme of any given meeting, however, a wide range of risk-related topics are explored via workshops and hundreds of presentations.

Meeting places rotate every three years among Washington, D.C., another eastern location in the United States, and a western U.S. location. SRA has also cosponsored various international conferences about risk.

Within SRA, members have formed a diverse and sometimes fluid set of specialty groups, each providing a focus and forum for their specific interests in risk analysis and management. These groups help to plan SRA's annual meetings and special conferences. Among the specialty groups have been those concerned with biological stres-sors, decision analysis, dose response, exposure assessment, ecological risk assessment, economics and benefits analysis, emerging nanoscale materials, risk policy and law, and risk communication. Some groups give awards for the best student research submitted to them for each SRA annual meeting.

One of the oldest groups is the Risk Communication Specialty Group (RCSG). RCSG was founded in 1990 to promote research into the communication of risk information between expert and lay audiences; to facilitate collaborative scholarship and the exchange of ideas among scholars, students, and practitioners; and to provide leadership in advancing the field. Members in this group bring a variety of theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives to their focus on risk communication. For example, typical interests among RCSG members can include mass media coverage of risk, trust and credibility, public participation, audience risk perception and information processing, social influence, and evaluations of various risk communication efforts. In 1998, RCSG initiated an annual blind-refereed competition among student risk communication papers.

In addition to the specialty groups, a varied and sometimes changing set of regional organizations, each with their own officers and activities, have been affiliated with SRA. These organizations have included a number of SRA chapters in the United States and in various parts of the globe, as well as international “sections” (such as SRA-Europe and SRA-Japan) designed to provide more culturally diverse forums for risk-related research, policies, and practices. Collaborating with SRA-Europe and SRA-Japan, for example, and with other interested organizations, SRA cosponsored a World Congress on Risk in Brussels, Belgium, in 2003.

...