Smoking: Risk, Perception, and Policy

By: Slovic, Paul

Book Overview

This book presents a counter-view, based on a survey of several thousand young persons and adults, probing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions of risk associated with smoking. The authors agree that young smokers give little or no thought to health risks or the problems of addiction. The survey data contradicts the model of informed, rational choice and underscores the need for aggressive policies to counter tobacco firms' marketing and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761923802
• ISBN13: 9780761923800
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.9" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Persuasive and Evocative

Paul Slovic writes a compelling foreword to this persuasive and evocative book describing the health risks to smokers and their own perceptions of them. In it, he rebutts economist Viscusi's thesis that smokers make the rational choice to light up, having weighed the risks and benefits already adequately communicated to them by public health agencies. Slovic, unlike Viscusi, does NOT hold the opinion that the money spent communicating the risk of smoking to the public could be better spent elsewhere, and the studies described in Smoking: Risk, Perception, and Policy--undertaken by distinguished scholars like Daniel Romer and Patrick Jamieson--substantiate his position. A fascinating read that unmasks smoking a cigarette as political and public health crime. Loving it!