Maps of the Centerville community and school site, as well as school floor plans may be downloaded in PDF format here . For each risk category, a four-page summary sheet describing the risk was drafted, reviewed, and tested. Copies of these risk summary sheets in PDF format may be downloaded here . The front page of each sheet includes a brief description of the risk and a table of risk attributes including information on several morbidity and mortality measures, catastrophe potential, quality of scientific understanding, and controllability. On the inside pages of each summary sheet is more detailed information about the nature of the risk nationwide, what's known about the risk in the context of the Centerville Middle School, and a discussion of what actions the school or community have taken in the past to address the risk.
Risk is a complex multi-attribute concept.
Providing systematic and concise information to participants in risk-ranking exercises requires that a standard set of attributes be selected to describe all risks to be ranked. In a recently completed Ph.D. dissertation undertaken as part of our overall risk ranking effort, Dr. Karen Jenni addresses the question of what attributes should be included in evaluating, comparing, and ranking risks. Normative criteria are identified for selecting risk attributes to form the basis of policy. Two original empirical studies of risk perceptions are reported that look at the relationship between the qualitative risk dimensions and the judged acceptability of hazards using the psychometric approach, and also explicitly address the prescriptive uses of those dimensions. The results of these studies were used to select the set of risk attributes used to describe risks in our experimental test bed, the Centerville Middle School.