The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is developing guidance on uncertainty in scientific assessments for its expert scientific panels, staff and partners in EU member states to apply in their work for EFSA. Risk communication is a core task for EFSA, which considers effective communication of uncertainties to all its stakeholders – including the general public – vital to its risk assessment role. Clear, mutually understood expressions of uncertainty as well as of risk are therefore essential. However, the literature is equivocal about the best methods for communicating scientific uncertainties and there is a lack of empirical evidence on the best approaches for reaching non-technical audiences. Consequently, EFSA commissioned target audience research to generate data that could be used to fill these gaps and form the basis of a structured approach to uncertainty communication at EFSA.
EFSA communicates the scientific uncertainties related to its assessments when relevant to the conclusions, but it has not developed a model that is applied holistically. How EFSA’s Scientific Panels report their uncertainty assessments is closely related, but the research goes further looking at how communication messages are understood by EFSA’s target audiences.
Different methods, approaches and tools for communicating scientific uncertainties to European and national decision-makers, stakeholders and the general public were tested in a first phase. Individual interviews followed by focus group exercises differentiated the level of scientific technicality in the communication messages on uncertainties intended for different target audiences. Participants read and evaluated uncertainty statements (including quantitative and qualitative expressions) then discussed matters of clarity, usefulness and perceptions, providing a rich and nuanced tapestry of reactions, as individuals and as a collective.
A second phase involving an online survey further tested preferences for uncertainty expressions, fine-tuned the study design and broadened the sample pool to multiple countries and languages while maintaining the same categories of target audiences.
The research results will be used to finalise EFSA guidance on this subject and to establish best practice at EFSA on communicating scientific uncertainties.