Risks and You 1 At some time or other, all of us have played the part of a hypochondriac, imagining that we have some terrible disease on the strength of very minor symptoms. Some people just have to hear about a new disease and they begin checking themselves to see if they may be suffering from it. But fear of disease is not our only fear, and neither is risk of disease the only risk we run. Modern life is full of all manner of threats — to our lives, our peace of mind, our families, and our future. And from these threats come questions that we must pose to ourselves: Is the food I buy safe?Are toys for my children likely to hurt them? Should my family avoid smoked meats? Am I likely to be robbed on vacations? Our uncertainties multiply indefinitely. 2 Anxiety about the risks of life is a bit like hypochondria; in both, the fear or anxiety feeds on partial information. But one sharp difference exists between the two. The hypochondriac can usually turn to a physician to get a definitive clarification of the situation — either you have the suspected disease or you don ’ t. It is much more difficult when anxiety about other forms of risk is concerned, because with many risks, the situation is not as simple. 3 Risks are almost always a matter of probability rather than certainty. You may ask, “ Should I wear a seat belt? ” If you ’ re going to have a head-on collision, of course. But what if you get hit from the side and end up trapped inside the vehicle, unable to escape because of a damaged seat belt mechanism? So does this mean that you should spend the extra money for an air bag? Again, in head-on collisions, it may well save your life. But what if the bag accidentally inflates while you are driving down the highway, thus causing an accident that would never have occurred otherwise? 4 All of this is another way of saying that nothing we do is completely safe. There are risks, often potentially serious ones, associated with every hobby we have, every job we take, every food we eat — in other words, with every action. But the fact that there are risks associated with everything we are going to do does not, or should not, reduce us to trembling neurotics. Some actions are riskier than others. The point is to inform ourselves about the relevant risks and then act accordingly. 5 For example, larger cars are generally safer than small ones in collisions. But how much safer? The answer is that you are roughly twice as likely to die in a serious crash in a small car than in a large one. Yet larger cars generally cost more than small ones (and also use more gas, thus increasing the environmental risks!), so how do we decide when the reduced risks are worth the added costs? The ultimate risk avoider might, for instance, buy a tank or an armored car, thus minimizing the risk of death or injury in a collision. But is the added cost and inconvenience worth the difference in price, even supposing you could afford it? 6 We cannot begin to answer such questions until we have a feel for the level of risks in question. So how do we measure the level of a risk? Some people seem to think that the answer is a simple number. We know, for instance, that about 25,000 people per year die in automobile accidents. By contrast, only about 300 die per year in mine accidents and disasters. Does that mean that riding in a car is much riskier than mining? Not necessarily. The fact is that some 200 million Americans regularly ride in automobiles in the United States every year; perhaps 700,000 are involved in mining. The relevant figure that we need to assess a risk is a ratio or fraction. The numerator of the fraction tells us how many people were killed or harmed as the result of a particular activity over a certain period of time; the denominator tells us how many people were involved in that activity during that time. All risk levels are thus ratios or fractions, with values between 0 (no risk) and 1 (totally risky). 7 By reducing all risks to ratios or fractions of this sort, we can begin to compare different sorts of risks — like mining versus riding in a car. The larger this ratio, that is, the closer it is to 1, the riskier the activity in question. In the case just discussed, we would find the relative safety of car travel and coal mining by dividing the numbers of lives lost in each by the number of people participating in each. Here, it is clear that the riskiness of traveling by car is about 1 death per 10,000 passengers; with mining, the risk level is about 4 deaths per 10,000 miners. So although far more people are killed in car accidents than in mining, the latter turns out to be four times riskier than the former. Those ratios enable us to compare the risks of activities or situations as different as apples and oranges. If you are opposed to risks, you will want to choose your activities by focusing on the small-ratio exposures. If you are reckless, then you are not likely to be afraid of higher ratios unless they get uncomfortably large. 8 Once we understand that risk can never be totally eliminated from any situation and that, therefore, nothing is completely safe, we will then see that the issue is not one of avoiding risks altogether but rather one of managing risks in a sensible way. Risk management requires two things: common sense and information about the character and degree of the risks we may be running. Many times an idea is best understood when it is compared with something else. Often writers will intentionally compare one idea with another in order to clarify or emphasize a particular idea or point of view. Work in groups to make comparisons between hypochondria and anxiety about the risks of life. Similarity Difference Hypochondria Anxiety about the Risks of Life