Understanding Risk Behavior: 

The Fundamental Challenges

Human exposure to risk from coastal hazards is increasing because vulnerable coastal areas are becoming more 

densely populated. Coastal hazards such as hurricanes and floods are predicted to become more intense as a 

result of climate change. Better risk communication can save lives, protect property, lessen damage to coastal 

economies, and create more resilient coastal communities that recover more quickly after a disaster.

What Is Risk?

Risk is often defined as a combination of the danger posed by an event (hazard), the vulnerability of people to 

an event (exposure), and the likelihood of the event occurring (probability). But why do two people exposed 

to the same level of risk behave differently? Why does one family evacuate for an oncoming storm while other 

neighbors stay? Because peoples’ behavior is also determined by their own perceptions and their own decisionmaking processes.

Risk perception

There are many models and frameworks that attempt to explain how people perceive and interpret risk. A 

common idea in the models is that people perceive risk from two dimensions: what they know about the risk, 

and how they feel about the risk. Feelings about risk are shaped by peoples’ past experiences, the opinions of 

their social networks, their level of control over the risk, and many other factors. Risk managers tend to pay too 

little attention to how people feel about the risk, focusing instead on increasing their knowledge. Conversely, 

the public tends to put a lot of emphasis on how they feel about the risk, sometimes ignoring important 

messages or information.

Making decisions in the face of risk

Perception can be seen as the first step in making a decision, followed by considering options, calculating 

which option is in your best interest, and then taking action. As with risk perception, psychological and social 

factors such as the decisions of friends and family, as well as physical circumstances such as mobility and access 

to transportation, impact how a person weighs the costs and benefits of different options. Many people use 

intuition or “rules of thumb” to make decisions, which can be helpful or harmful. Decision-making is rarely 

limited to two mutually exclusive options; there are often many alternate paths.

Risk Communication

Risk communication is a critical component of risk management. The ultimate goal of risk communication 

is generally to change peoples’ behavior in a given situation. And because research has repeatedly shown 

that behavior change is rarely achieved without highly tailored and carefully crafted messages, a keen 

understanding of audiences and their situations is essential to success. Best practices in development and 

delivery of risk communication strategies follow on the next page.

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Risk Behavior and Communication: Best Practices

In 2009, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center sponsored a 

study on the communication of natural hazard risks in coastal areas. This study identified suggestions or best 

practices to aid in the challenging tasks of communicating risks and changing public behavior.

Best Practices

•	 Start small—consider beginning a risk behavior change and messaging campaign by initially 

targeting a very specific behavior displayed by a very specific audience. Small-scale, localized efforts 

may be more likely to succeed and can be helpful in setting the stage for more comprehensive and 

far-reaching campaigns.

•	 Use social norms to your advantage—people are profoundly influenced by the behavior of those 

around them. Begin your campaign by targeting an audience whose behavior may be relatively easy to 

change, and allow that group’s behavior to diffuse throughout the broader community.

•	 Know your audience—do what’s necessary to understand your audience’s perceptions, decisionmaking processes, and social and cultural norms. Specifically, uncover what prevents and promotes 

the behavior that you’re trying to cultivate. Knowing your audience will help you design an effective 

message and identify a trusted messenger to deliver that message.

•	 Present easy-to-understand and repetitive information—craft your message to be as brief and 

as vivid as possible. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And recognize that the 

message will need to be delivered repeatedly, through a variety of media and communication channels, 

in order to change behavior. 

•	 Use a positive approach—provide your audience with a specific action to take, and design a message 

that taps into existing skills, roles, or desires. Messages suggesting a familiar or easy-to-do action can be 

more effective at grabbing an audience’s attention and promoting action.

•	 Evaluate your success—evaluate your campaign mid-course and make any needed improvements. 

Also evaluate your campaign when it’s over to understand whether you met your goals. This 

information can help to craft more effective campaigns next time.

The Social Marketing Approach

Many effective behavior change campaigns use the social marketing approach. Social marketing uses social 

science methods to uncover the barriers that prevent an audience from doing something, as well as the 

benefits that an audience would expect from that behavior. Communication and other tools such as prompts, 

incentives, social norms, and commitment are then used to encourage the new behavior by decreasing barriers 

and increasing benefits. Multiple resources on social marketing, and the report on which this document is 

based, are available under Communicate at www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/inundation/resources.html.