Michael Berger has written a Dec. 15, 2014 Nanowerk Spotlight about a study examining perceptions of nanotechnology risks amongst members of the insurance industry,
Insurance companies are major stakeholders capable of contributing to the safer and more sustainable development of nanotechnologies and nanomaterials. This is owed to the fact that the insurance industry is one of the bearers of potential losses that can arise from the production and use of nanomaterials and nanotechnology applications.
Researchers at the University of Limerick in Ireland have examined how the insurance market perception of nanotechnology can influence the sustainability of technological advances and insurers’ concern for nanotechnology risks. They claim that, despite its role in sustaining technology development in modern society, insurers’ perception on nanomaterials has been largely overlooked by researchers and regulators alike.
I encourage you to read Berger’s piece in its entirety as it includes nuggets such as this,
… Over 64 per cent of surveyed insurers said they were vaguely familiar with nanotechnology and nanomaterial terms, and over 25 per cent said they had a moderate working knowledge and were able to define the terms. The interview data, however, suggests that this knowledge is at a basic level and there is a need for more information in order to allow this group to differentiate between distinct nanomaterial risks.
For those of you who would like to read the researchers’ paper in its entirety, you can find it in the Geneva Association Newsletter: Risk Management, No. 54, June 2014 where you will find a very interesting set of prognostications in Walter R. Stahel’s editorial,
In the editorial of the Risk Management newsletter of May 2013, I was looking back at 25 years of Risk Management Research of The Geneva Association. Today, this editorial and newsletter will look at some specific risks of the next 25 years.
…
If we first look back 25 years, to 1988, the PC had just been invented, Internet was still an internal network at the site of its invention the CERN [European Particle Physics Laboratory] in Geneva, cars were driven by people and mobile phones weighed five kilos and cost $5000, to give but a few technical examples. Dying forests, air pollution and retreating glaciers were the main environmental topics in the news, unemployment and sovereign debt were high on the agenda of politicians—some topics change, others remain.
Looking forward to 2039, the impacts of climate change will have amplified: invasive species—both plants such as ambrosia and animals such as the tiger mosquito—will have advanced further northward in Europe, while intensive agriculture in Scotland and Scandinavia will have become the norm—the European Union (EU) expects a 75 per cent increase in agricultural yields in these regions.
Other topics, such as bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics, represent a formidable challenge both as an opportunity for science and a risk to society. The European Commission estimates that today, 25,000 people die annually as a result of an infection with multi-drug-resistant bacteria.
The ageing population is another major opportunity and risk in the hands of policymakers, a topic which The Geneva Association started analysing more than 25 years ago. Yet the multiple benefits of continued activity by the elderly—such as lower health costs—are only starting to be recognised by politicians. And most companies, organisations and administrations are still extremely hesitant to keep able employees beyond the legal age of retirement.
No easy predictions can be made on the outcome of societal changes. Trends such as a shift from science-based policymaking to policy-based science, from evidence-based advocacy to advocacy-based evidence and from fault-based liability to need-based compensation could lead society onto down the wrong path, which may be irreversible.
The last paragraph from the excerpt is the most interesting to me as its puts some of the current machinations within Canadian public life into context within the European (and I suspect the international) political scene.
I do have a comment or two about the research but first here’s a citation for it,
Insurance Market Perception of Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials Risks By Lijana Baublyte, Martin Mullins, Finbarr Murphy and Syed A.M. Tofai. Geneva Association Newsletter: Risk Management, No. 54, June 2014.
No date is offered for when the research was conducted and there is no indication in the newsletter that it was published prior to its June 2014 publication.
As for the research itself, first, the respondents are self-assessing their knowledge about nanotechnology. That presents an interesting problem for researchers since self-assessment in any area is highly dependent on various attributes such as confidence, perceived intelligence, etc. For example, someone who’s more knowledgeable might self-assess as being less so than someone who has more confidence in themselves. As for this statistic from the report,
… Over 40 per cent of surveyed laypeople heard nothing at all about nanotechnologies and nanomaterials, 47.5 per cent said they were vaguely familiar with the technology and the remaining 11.7 per cent of respondents reported having moderate working knowledge.
Generally, people won’t tell you that they know about nanotechnologies and nanomaterials from a video game (Deux Ex) or a comic book (Iron Man’s Extremis story line) as they may not consider that to be knowledge or are embarrassed. In the case of the video game, the information about nanotechnology is based on reputable scientific research although it is somewhat massaged to fit into the game ethos. Nonetheless, information about emerging technologies is often conveyed through pop culture properties and/or advertising and most researchers don’t take that into account.
One more thing about layperson awareness, the researchers cite a meta-analysis conducted by Terre Satterfield, et. al. (full citation: Satterfield, T., Kandlikar, M., Beaudrie, C.E.H., Conti,J., and Herr Harthorn, B. [2009]. Anticipating the perceived risk of nanotechnologies. Nature Nanotechnology, 4[11]: 752–758), which was published in 2009 (mentioned in my Sept. 22, 2009 post; scroll down about 35% of the way). As I recall, the meta-analysis fell a bit short as the researchers didn’t provide in-depth analysis of the research instruments (questionnaires) instead analysing only the results. That said, one can’t ‘reinvent the wheel’ every time one writes a paper or analyses data although I do wish just once I’d stumble across a study where researchers analysed the assumptions posed by the wording of the questions.