Do Risk Information Programs Promote Mitigating Behavior?

This article reports the results of a panel study investigating the effects of different radon risk information booklets on households' decisions to undertake mitigation. Multinominal logit models are used to describe how differences in the design of the information booklets along with the radon readings affected the choice to undertake some type of mitigation. To our knowledge this study offers the first example where a large sample was presented with different risk information concerning real risks that they were experiencing, and the research design permitted their risk perceptions and mitigation decisions to be tracked over time. Prescriptive messages along with emphasis on a radon threshold for action as part of the risk information seem to increase the likelihood of mitigating actions. Copyright 1995 by Kluwer Academic Publishers