Risk and Uncertainty In Health

In this Open Session, presenters will engage with how health risks and uncertainties, access to the resources needed to mitigate them, and blame when something goes wrong are unevenly distributed across populations. For instance, socially privileged groups tend to have greater access to health benefits, time, money, and other resources required to respond to health risks and uncertainties. Yet, many countries rely on individual behaviours—often from a health consumerism approach—to manage health risks and uncertainties, including threats to public health. Such an approach overlooks how individuals’ capacity to respond to health risks and uncertainties is shaped by intersecting inequities (e.g., gender, race, ability, and class). Moreover, groups that face the greatest systemic barriers to managing health risks and uncertainties are also more likely to be labelled “at-risk” or blamed for public health threats. Drawing from a range of topics, presenters in this session will apply risk theory to interrogate inequities related to health risks and uncertainties.