Professor David Spiegelhalter: Communicating risk and uncertainty

Perception of risk can be influenced by the choice of words, numbers and pictures. Preferences and understanding varies among people, which suggests the use of multiple presentations including comparators and interactive animations. Communicating 'deeper' uncertainties, in the face of explicit and implicit ignorance, is more tricky. And it's important to bear in mind that people's reactions to risk narratives are likely to be dominated by their cultural world-view. This lecture looked at examples of communication of sensitive topics, from statins to swine flu, climate change to volcanic ash.

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David is such a good communicator and an easy listen ... something that cannot be said for so many on this subject

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Excellent talk. What a great professor!

[@MadaxeMunkeee]

David starts at 4:00 :)

[@gmshadowtraders]

28:00 - 29:30 the Professor lays waste to the Bank of England's GDP forecast! It's a nice use of fan charts to capture the idea of uncertainty. From the BOE's Feb 2013 Inflation report: "GDP growth is therefore expected to lie somewhere within the fan on 90 out of 100 occasions. And on the remaining 10 out of 100 occasions GDP growth can fall anywhere outside the green area of the fan chart". It's how you balance the range of outcomes above and below the central projection that is crucial.