How risk assessments by emergency management organisations fall prey to narrow framing

Abstract

A review of risk assessments by a number of emergency management organisations shows that though ethical judgements are implicit in the methodologies and metrics used, they are not explicitly discussed. As a result, these assessments lack transparency and suffer from narrow framing. It is proposed that the framing be broadened to integrate ethical decision-making with risk assessment and to frame the concept of risk more broadly, to create a more holistic and relevant decision-making framework.