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Risk Communication and Multiple Unexplained SymptomsDr. Susan Santos
and Vulnerability: Methods and Models for Science and SustainabilityDr. Robert Corell Wednesday, 14 May 2003
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Risk Communication and Multiple Unexplained SymptomsBy Dr. Susan Santos, Manager, Summary: Since the time of the Civil War, soldiers who return from armed conflicts have experienced a multitude of similar health symptoms including fatigue, chronic pain, and shortness of breath, headaches, impaired concentration and sleep disturbances. After returning home form the Persian Gulf in 1991, some veterans began reporting diverse symptoms for which they believe there was some “environmental exposure”. To date, researchers have yet to identify a cause or identifiable disease to what has since been called “Gulf War Syndrome”.
Following an Institute of Medicine report which called for “strategies to better address medically unexplained physical symptoms in populations deployed to hostile settings”, the Veterans Administration created two nationwide centers – The War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center – to conduct research, provide education and clinical services to veterans with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). Part of the Center’s mandate is to “improve risk communication” regarding MUS. However, to date – little primary research in risk communication has focused on the exposures and risk related concerns of veterans and deployed soldiers.
This talk will discuss risk communication as it relates to MUS and in
particular, research to look at the risk perception research from environmental
risk communication and its applicability to MUS. Biography: Dr. Susan L. Santos, an internationally recognized expert in risk communication, is founder and principal of FOCUS GROUP, a consultancy specializing in risk communication, community relations, and health and environmental management. Dr. Santos has served as risk communication practitioner in hundreds of public meetings, hearings, citizen briefings, and workshops on behalf of government, industry, and citizen groups. Currently, Dr. Santos is executing intervention strategies for communicating hazardous waste cleanup programs, food safety and risk assessment issues, military deployment related risks, and decommissioning of a nuclear reactor facility.
In addition to managing FOCUS GROUP, Dr. Santos is an Assistant Professor in the Health Education and Behavioral Sciences Division of the University Medical and Dental School of New Jersey; serves as a Committee Member on the National Academy of Sciences Panel; and holds an appointment to the Boston College School of Management’s Center for Corporate Citizenship.
Dr. Santos has an interdisciplinary doctorate degree in risk communication and public policy from Northeastern University’s Law, Policy and Society Program. She received her graduate degree in civil engineering and public health from Tufts University, and her undergraduate degree in chemistry and sociology from Boston College. She is listed in Who’s Who Among Women in Science, and the recipient of a German Marshall Fund Fellowship Award and two NASA Group Achievement Awards for her consulting assistance to NASA. Dr. Santos has published widely in the areas of risk communication, risk assessment, and risk management, and is a member of the Society for Risk Analysis, American Chemical Society, Public Relations Society of America and International Association for Public Participation.
Dr. Santos can be reached at FOCUS GROUP, 29 Welgate Road, Medford MA 02155, 781-483-3054, Fax 781-483-3058, Email: focusgroup@aol.com if there are questions about her presentation after the meeting. Vulnerability: Methods and Models for Science and SustainabilityBy Dr. Robert Corell, (handouts: corell.pdf, 694 KB) Summary: Research on questions of global environmental change and the sciences that address sustainable development should increasingly recognize the need to address the consequences of the changes taking place in structure and function of the biosphere, elevating such questions as: Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental changes underway, and where? Research is increasingly demonstrating that vulnerability is not just about exposure to hazards—perturbations and stresses—but also about risk, sensitivity, and resilience in the context of the system experiencing hazards. These emerging concepts will require a re-thinking of the basic concepts of vulnerability, including the capacity to treat coupled human-environment systems. A vulnerability framework for the assessment of coupled human-environment system will be discussed, with illustrations in two cases, the indigenous communities in the Arctic and in the context of harnessing science and technology for sustainable development.
Biography: Robert Corell is a Senior Research Fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Atmospheric Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Corell’s current research focuses on the sciences of global change and the interface between science and public policy, with particular emphasis on vulnerability issues and sustainable development. He has been one of the leaders of a major international initiative, supported in part from a grant from the Packard Foundation, entitled “An International Initiative for Science and Technology for Sustainability (ISTS)”. He is leading, with Jim McCarthy also of Harvard, a research project to explore methods, models, and conceptual frameworks for vulnerability research, analysis, and assessment. The current focus of this project is on vulnerabilities of indigenous communities in the Arctic. Further, he currently serves as the Chair of the steering committee for the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; an international assessment of the impacts of climate variability, change, and UV increases in the Arctic Region, and Co-chairs the international Ad hoc Advisory Group (the committee to produce a comprehensive long range implementation plan for the Consortium) of the Consortium for Science and Technology for Sustainable Development – an international group sponsored by ICSU, TWAS, and ISTS. Previous executive appointments included Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation; Chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s committee that has oversight of the U.S. Global Change Research Program; and chair and principal U.S. delegate to many international bodies with interests in and responsibilities for climate and global change research programs. Dr. Corell is an oceanographer and engineer by background and training, having received the Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. degrees at the Case Institute of Technology and MIT and having held appointments at the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Academic appointments were held at the University of Washington and the University of New Hampshire. |
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