Risk is a tricky thing. We like to think we understand it but when it gets down to brass tacks it can be harder to wrap your brain around things like acceptable or unacceptable risk. How do you define it how do people understand risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the trouble we sometimes have understanding risk, communicating risk is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Baruch Fischhoff

Baruch Fischhoff is the Howard Heinz University Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. Fischhoff’s a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the National Academy of Medicine and past President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and of the Society for Risk Analysis. He was founding chair of the Food and Drug Administration Risk Communication Advisory Committee and chaired the National Research Council Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security. His research focuses on judgment and decision making, including risk perception and risk analysis. Fischoff is the author of a number of books on the subject, including Acceptable Risk and Risk: A Very Short Introduction.