Radiation risk communication: First steps in Russia

The changing Russian society lacks social experience in ecological risk management to protect people's health. The most effective way of radiation risk communication is to recruit specialists to participate in every-day communication process, as far as the public does not know organisations which are the sources of objective information on radiation situation. This long process is based on specialists' attitude to radiation and their participation in informing the public via mass-media. Radiation risk management and risk communication include inter-group relations between specialists, population and journalists. It's necessary to work out common ethical position, common point of view, common criteria for assessing danger and, first of all, common language for communication. The methodological document on radiation risk communication for medical staff was worked out at St. Petersburg Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene in 1999.