information targets the right stakeholders, where the dialog being communicated emphasizes both the importance of risk management and need for an ongoing monitoring of the risks presented . A common issue for communicating risk lies in determining the correct method in making the risk understandable and relatable to other relative risks while retaining the respect of those receiving the information. Risk communicators must also take into account another compounding factor for this issue; the culture of those receiving the message may have their own inherent fears and understanding of the risks presented. For example, a professional may communicate specific risks to potential radiation exposures really well, but there may be audience members that have already concluded that no level of radioactive exposures can ever be safe. This may complicate the role of EHS professionals communicating risk as these potential biases need to be understood and considered but may be difficult to address. In addition, accounting for these issues may be at a local level, as in the safety culture of a workplace, or perhaps at the regional level when implementing risk management programs in different countries worldwide.
1.3 Emergency Response
Risk communication, as it relates to occupational and environmental considerations, is primarily focused on the scientific literature and through governmental institutions on the topic of emergency response. Serious emergency response parameters like radiological or biological terrorism, chemical plant releases or explosions, or infectious disease issues are all situations where sound and practical risk communication to the right target audiences is essential to ensure potential issues are not compounded. The offering of timely and accurate objective and impartial data provides great assistance to those managing the process, confidence to the affected communities, and can aid in achieving a coordinated and effective emergency response (6). One method used to better understand the risk perception of a given audience relating to potential emergency or crisis situations and improve the development of communication strategies is known as the deliberative decision‐making process (4). Creating an open dialog between government institutions, experts, and the public is an excellent strategy for initiating preventative steps toward adapting the right information to the appropriate audience in a timely and consistent fashion. In an era of immediate and broadly spread media accessibility, understanding this process and information it provides is especially important for EHS professionals. It can assist in developing a keen understanding of how to provide consistent and clear risk communication in the workplace using methods that are just as important for terrorism responses as they are for environmental policy and nanotechnology risks (4, 7, 8). As there is no singular strategy or process for risk communication effectiveness, understanding the complexity in how delivering the necessary information, as well as the message itself, can be affected by both the communicator and the receiver of information.
2 EHS ROLES IN RISK COMMUNICATION
Emergency response can certainly be an important component of the roles and responsibilities of EHS professionals, both as an active participant and in development of plans and programs. However, when it comes to the day‐to‐day activities and interactions with the workers who we are morally and ethically required to protect, there is far less information available to effectively assist in communicating risk and achieve the reduction of work‐related exposures to hazards. It is important for EHS disciplines to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. Most spend their entire career developing the skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary for their field practitioner specialties. Their level of success is often built upon performing their roles and responsibilities in an environment where normal communication skills are enough for addressing routine issues and problems. Although EHS staff may be comfortable in their professional duties conversing on more technical topics amongst themselves, the ability to translate this information to the workforce and their management may need development. Communicating risks can become even more complicated when anger, criticism, fear, lack of trust, and other emotionally driven issues become entangled within workplace discussions. It is important for EHS practitioners to understand their innate communication styles. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses within their natural habits for communication and understanding these is an essential component for learning how to change and improve this skillset. This process begins by understanding the pitfalls of risk communication inherent to their discipline and other EHS professions. It is also about learning how to overcome these personal and professional hurdles while remaining competent. Questions must be answered in a language of risk understood by workers, managers, and all potential stakeholders.
When it comes to effective risk communication the EHS professions are each faced with unique hurdles that are important to address individually. In doing so, a better and more efficient method for understanding one's strengths and weaknesses is very helpful. It is necessary to understand the audience's perception of the communicator's expertise, the potential complexity of the message they are communicating, and how the audience may be affected by the message. In addition, there is the growing population of EHS Generalists that are self‐employed, working with small consulting companies, or working for multinational firms that are increasingly being found to have an amazingly small EHS staff. An increasing number of EHS professionals work for consulting firms that provide broad services to industry and government on a contractual basis. This includes those who work for insurance carriers that provide consulting services to the company's various clients. In some instances, these relationships are stable and allow the development of industry‐specific expertise. In other cases, the EHS practice is broad‐based and varied, not affording professionals the opportunity to strengthen skillsets. Consulting practice presents considerable challenges in risk communication as well, as they may be required to influence internal corporate culture and intervene with stable prevention activities externally from the company. Therefore, many companies are outsourcing EHS responsibilities that include IH, occupational safety (OS), and environmental analyst (EA) functions. Manufacturers may ask their EHS staff to monitor not only the indoor air quality but also the hazardous emissions released into the air and water of surrounding communities. Public health agencies or environmental groups may hire or otherwise call upon EHS professionals to monitor pollutants in community air and water as well. Therefore, it is also essential for EHS Generalists to also understand the risk communication expectations of the individual EHS professions as they are employed to potentially provide this information to workers, to workplace managers, to the public, and to the environmental community.
2.1 Industrial Hygiene
The IH profession focuses on the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of hazards that arise in the workplace that can affect the health of workers as well as the community at large. Therefore, the role of the IH in responding to emergencies arising from these workplace hazards and potentially affecting the greater public health is a natural extension of their professional responsibilities. However, the IH role in the identification of hazardous agents goes well beyond emergency response and is primarily focused on their responsibilities to protect the workers as they perform their tasks in a given workplace or across multiple facilities. The identification of potential hazards, the assessment of the work‐related risks, the establishing of the necessary controls, and the management of these risks over time for field IH practitioners span the broad scope of chemical, physical, and biological agents. As part of their assessment of work‐related health risks for a single task can include air sampling for an expanding array of potential chemical exposures, measuring for noise levels of nearby equipment, and acquiring an evaluation of mold spores to address indoor air quality issues. The broad array of professional knowledge to perform these assessments and identify commensurate controls is considered inherent to the extensive educational expectations that are necessary for the qualifications of a practicing IH. A qualified professional will have been given training across a broad cross‐section of scientific areas of expertise, including toxicology, epidemiology, statistics, microbiology, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering controls, monitoring equipment, and more.
An essential component that is often missing from professional IH curriculum is the basics of interpersonal relationships and the communication of their assessment outcomes to the workers they are ethically bound to protect. How does one communicate information derived from white‐collar technical and scientific foundations to a blue‐collar