RAMAS - Risk Imaging Software

Psychometric and socio-cultural theories of risk perception emphasize the disparity between expert risk assessments, which focus on the frequency of adverse events of measured magnitudes, and lay assessments, which are conditioned by additional qualities of the hazard and of the risk perceiver.  The RAMAS Risk Imaging approach treats this disparity as a form of uncertainty and employs methods to bound variability and incertitude in risk assessments.  

Risk is perceived differently by different individuals and interest groups.  RAMAS Risk Imaging visualizes risk by quantifying attitudes regarding the importance of uncertainty, the meaning of disagreements between measurements or opinions, and the meaning of absence of evidence.  Visualizations of risk are generated for different risk perceivers.  Comparing and contrasting these visualizations facilitates communication and decision making.

Although the development of this software was guided by theory formulated in risk perception and risk communication research, the method is theoretically eclectic and meant to be adaptable to a wide range of applications and levels of analysis.  The commonality expected across applications is the need of risk analysts and decision makers to convert highly uncertain measurements of the frequency and adversity of multiple harms associated with a potential hazard into an image of risk as variably perceived by different individuals and interest groups. 

Risk perception, as conceived in this sense, is unlike an MRI image in that there is no “correct” perception to be recorded.  Occupational, environmental, and health risks are experienced and perceived in the context of culturally complex and highly politicized arenas.  An analysis informed and colored by these complexities is required.  RAMAS Risk Imaging is intended as an aid in the production of uncertainty-informed risk assessment.

RAMAS Risk Imaging requires data regarding the frequency and the adversity of each harm due to a hazard. This data may come from various sources, including controlled trials, surveys, and expert opinions and judgments. Each of these sources results in an uncertain estimate of the true frequency and/or adversity of the harms that comprise a hazard. RAMAS Risk Imaging uses both the uncertain estimates and the uncertainty associated with them to generate an image of risk.

The RAMAS Risk Imaging approach follows four steps in the visualization of risk. The first step is to decompose the risk into it`s frequency and adversity components. The next step is to incorporate quantitative uncertainty into these components using methods such as interval arithmetic, info-gap, ordination based upon revealed preferences, and dependency bounding. The third step is to re-compose the risk as a function of uncertain frequency and uncertain adversity. The final step is to focus the risk image on particular risk perceptions by specifying attitudes towards risk and uncertainty.