Professor David Spiegelhalter: Communicating risk and uncertainty 

Perception of risk can be influenced by the choice of words, numbers and pictures. Preferences and understanding varies among people, which suggests the use of multiple presentations including comparators and interactive animations. Communicating 'deeper' uncertainties, in the face of explicit and implicit ignorance, is more tricky. And it's important to bear in mind that people's reactions to risk narratives are likely to be dominated by their cultural world-view. This lecture looked at examples of communication of sensitive topics, from statins to swine flu, climate change to volcanic ash.