The negative effects of climate change are calling for action to mitigate and adapt to future challenges. National crisis management authorities need to prepare to handle crisis caused by direct or indirect effects. In this study, we investigate how crisis management authorities within the European Union prepare for the effects of climate change by conducting a small questionnaire study. The questionnaire used consisted of 12 questions and was answered by 17 counties. Results indicate that most crisis management agencies focus on weather-related incidents, such as floods, heatwaves and forest fires. Indirect effects are not prepared for to the same extent. The gulf between crisis management and climate adaptation is discussed.

In Sweden, as in other industrialised nations, occupational exposure limits are considered to be an important tool for chemical risk management, although many other factors also play a role in occupational safety and health management. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of occupational exposure limits in relation to information about, and the risk perception of, chemicals. An interview study was performed at four Swedish process industry workplaces in order to investigate these issues. For each workplace, the range of informants covered at least one person who spent most of their working time in the production process; one person in a managerial position; one person in the site health, safety and environment department; the main safety ombudsman; and the site manager. The results show that informants' understanding of occupational exposure limits and their use is quite poor, although they do understand that there is epistemic uncertainty in determining the toxicological effects of hazardous substances. The risk perception and safety behaviour of the informants were not affected by the occupational exposure limits, nor did occupational exposure limits have any role as sources of information. Nevertheless, almost all the informants expressed the view that occupational exposure limits are trusted and needed; safety engineers and main safety ombudsmen, generally, also added that occupational exposure limits are useful. What was found to be most important factor for the informants' perception of risk and safety was trust in specific people, often established through long-term relationships.

The aim of this study is to investigate public perceptions of three potentially privacy-invasive technologies relevant to daily mobility – video surveillance (CCTV), positioning via mobile phone, and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags – via contrasting scenarios and items measuring factors such as acceptance and desirability.  The effect of parenthood on perceptions is also explored and proves to generally shift attitudes in a more favorable direction, i.e. parents perceive higher positive effects and lower negative effects of a technology.  Parenthood also proves to affect males and females differently, where female non-parents often perceive technological applications less favorably than do other groups by having heightened risk perception, lower trust, lower acceptance, etc.  For the aggregate respondent group, the analysis indicates that technologies targeting the “crowd” versus the “individual”, and technologies associated with a non-commercial actor can be linked to a trend of relatively greater acceptability, although this does not necessarily lead to high ratings of trust for these data collectors in the absolute sense.  Also, the least favorably perceived scenario does not elicit particularly high ratings of worry or offense.  These results, combined with a lack of willingness to discuss with influential parties (elected representatives or relevant authorities or companies) and a lack of willingness to search for information about a technology regardless of ratings of acceptance or privacy-invasiveness, lead the authors to submit that the respondents feel a sense of resignation towards technological development.  This may have broad implications for decision-making and democratic processes, as perceived lack of influence and perceived lack of interest in participation feed back into each other, which may further divide laypersons from experts, companies, and authorities.

This study goes beyond attitudes and behavioral indications as response to risk perceptions and focuses on actual behavior of laypeople. We report the results from a survey, conducted among a sample of Swedish citizens in the spring of 2009, looking at lay actions as responses to the financial crisis of 2008. In total, 3138 respondents were asked whether they had done something to protect their money during the recent financial crisis or not. The total sample, 1053 respondents, was divided into two comparable groups and a binary logistic regression tested a model with nine factors hypothesized to be predicting the choice to act or not as a response to the financial crisis. Among the eight factors predicting likelihood to act were gender, age, education, ethnicity, possession of assets affected of the financial crisis, worrying about the everyday household finances, the perception of others' actions, and importance put on being knowledgeable and up-dated about financial matters. The ninth factor-respondents' perception of the crisis to be a greater threat to the U.S. and global economy than to their own personal finances-did not contribute significantly to the model.A second aim of the study was to determine whether any individuals acted rashly and, if so, whether this group differed in any statistically significant way from the group of individuals that acted in a more financially circumspectly manner. In the group of individuals that acted rashly there is a higher propensity of: individuals who do not think they have assets affected by the crisis: individuals who have a lower level of education; and individuals who consider it important to be knowledgeable and up-to-date about financial matters. It should be of interest to policymakers and researchers to further explore features of this group of laypeople because it is the most important target group for consumer information and protection.

Through history and in most cultures differences between men and women have been observed and expressed in various ways. Also in our society differences between men and women are evident and this becomes particularly clear in the context of risk perception. This chapter will present three models that are found in the research literature that aim at explaining these differences. The first model focuses on differences due to knowledge and familiarity with science, including trust. This model however, fails to take into consideration the distinction between estimated knowledge and factual knowledge, making it difficult to understand exactly what role knowledge plays in risk perception. Second, differences between men and women have also been explained by biological mechanisms or social roles. Here it is believed that women are more nurturing by nature and men are more driven toward growth and expansion. It is argued that it is of limited importance whether these differences are biological or social, as it will have little bearing on the management of risk. The third explanation focuses on cultural differences and uses examples from disaster management. Here it is concluded that women are by social processes most often excluded from the areas where risks are created and managed, and suffer the consequences from this lack of influence in disasters. The chapter concludes with three suggestions for future research.

This article reports on how professionals at municipal level responsible for crisis communication (N=152) in Sweden judge the probability of 10 different responses occurring among the public, among people within their own emergency organization and themselves in case of a crisis. The direct physical effects of the crisis were kept identical throughout the study, but the cause of the crisis varied over three scenarios: accidental, terrorist and unknown. The results show that there are differences between how the respondents judge the reactions of themselves, their peers and the public, and there are also differences in the three crisis presented. The respondents judged their own reactions to be more logical and rational, and less marked by fear, panic and irrationality compared with the other two groups in all three crises. Also, it was investigated what source of information the crisis communicators thought would be used most by the public. The perceived sources of information varied depending on the cause of the crisis. The merit of these assumptions and implications for crisis communication are discussed.

Vad Sveriges konsumenter verkligen gjorde med anledning av finanskrisen hösten 2008 beskrivs i en rapport av två forskare från Kungliga Tekniska högskolan i Stockholm. Här får vi veta att 16,8 procent av de tillfrågade valde att vidta någon som helst åtgärd med anledning av krisen. Inom denna grupp dominerar handlingar som avser att säkra de egna investeringarna. Endast ett fåtal har uppfattat att hela eller delar av det finansiella systemet var hotat och agerat därefter genom att till exempel ta ut alla sina besparingar eller helt byta bank.