The impact of risk governance structure on bank risk management effectiveness: evidence from ASEAN countries

This study analyzes the effectiveness of bank risk management in ASEAN countries and examines the specific role of risk governance in enhancing a bank's risk management effectiveness. Our results show that the risk management effectiveness of banks in ASEAN countries is low. Furthermore, by focusing on the insolvency risk, credit risk, and operational risk management of banks in ASEAN countries, the dynamic panel models using the two-step GMM method provide evidence that risk governance structure and its effectiveness positively correlate with risk management effectiveness in banks. Based on our findings, the regulators can establish the guidelines related to risk governance to manage a bank's risk management activities and maintain bank stability.

(Re)Conceptualizing decision-making tools in a risk governance framework for emerging technologies-the case of nanomaterials

The utility of decision-making tools for the risk governance of nanotechnology is at the core of this paper. Those working in nanotechnology risk management have been prolific in creating such tools, many derived from European FP7 and H2020-funded projects. What is less clear is how such tools might assist the overarching ambition of creating a fair system of risk governance. In this paper, we reflect upon the role that tools might and should play in any system of risk governance. With many tools designed for the risk governance of this emerging technology falling into disuse, this paper provides an overview of extant tools and addresses their potential shortcomings. We also posit the need for a data readiness tool. With the EUs NMP13 family of research consortia about to report to the Commission on ways forward in terms of risk governance of this domain, this is a timely intervention on an important element of any risk governance system.

Biobanking and risk assessment: a comprehensive typology of risks for an adaptive risk governance

Biobanks act as the custodians for the access to and  responsible use of human biological samples and related data that have been generously donated by individuals to serve the public interest and scientific advances in the health research realm. Risk assessment has become a daily practice for biobanks and has been discussed from different perspectives. This paper aims to provide a literature review on risk assessment in order to put together a comprehensive typology of diverse risks biobanks could potentially face. Methodologically set as a typology, the conceptual approach used in this paper is based on the interdisciplinary analysis of scientific literature, the relevant ethical and legal instruments and practices in biobanking to identify how risks are assessed, considered and mitigated. Through an interdisciplinary mapping exercise, we have produced a typology of potential risks in biobanking, taking into consideration the perspectives of different stakeholders, such as institutional actors and publics, including participants and representative organizations. With this approach, we have identified the following risk types: economic, infrastructural, institutional, research community risks and participant's risks. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity of an adaptive risk governance as an integral part of good governance in biobanking. In this regard, it contributes to sustainability in biobanking by assisting in the design of relevant risk management practices, where they are not already in place or require an update. The typology is intended to be useful from the early stages of establishing such a complex and multileveled biomedical infrastructure as well as to provide a catalogue of risks for improving the risk management practices already in place.

Development, urban planning and political decisions. A triad that built territories at risk

Chilean geography exposes the country to high-level risks such as earthquakes and tsunamis. The disasters of 1930, 1960, 2010, and 2014 testify to the continuous link between human survival and disasters. However, new hazards have appeared ever since -i.e. flood waterlogging, wildfires, and landslides-, highlighting the relationship between current land uses and space occupation with increasing levels of disaster risk. This research aims to determine relations and responsibilities of the Chilean developmental approach in urban planning and territorial governance processes that have created new territories prone to disaster risk. We resort to a longitudinal analysis from 1930 to 2018 at the Gran Concepción metropolitan area as a proxy of Chilean industrialization and economic development approaches. To do so, we developed mixed-approach descriptive research, for which we collected data from national development policies and documented land occupation processes during pre-dictatorship, dictatorship and post-dictatorship periods. Semi-structured interviews with decision-makers involved in current territorial policy were also carried out. The findings show how territorial governance resulted from political visions around different development paths, wherein the concept of risk is weakly perceived among decision-makers. This perception is linked to narrow economic goals and the understanding of land as a barely regulated marketable asset, profoundly affected by segregated urban planning.

Identification of emerging safety and sustainability issues of advanced materials: Proposal for a systematic approach

The EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability is a first step to achieve the Green Deal ambition for a toxic-free environment, and ensure that chemicals are produced and used in a way that maximises their contribution to society while avoiding harm to our planet and to future generations. Advanced materials are predicted to play a pivotal role in achieving this ambition and the underlying sustainability goals, and considerable efforts are invested in designing new classes of materials. Examples of such materials are metamaterials, artificially architectured materials designed to have material properties beyond those of the individual ingredient materials, or active materials at the boundary between materials and devices (e.g., new biomedical soft materials). Such innovative advanced materials raise concern about possible future safety and sustainability issues and would benefit from appropriate risk governance that promotes innovation, while pushing for safety and sustainability. To balance these aspects, a methodology is proposed for the early-stage identification of emerging safety and sustainability issues of advanced materials. As exemplified by two case studies, the methodology aims to be of use for innovators, risk assessors, and regulators. Extension of the methodology is highlighted, as well as implementation in broader initiatives like the EU's industrial policy approach.

Geophilosophical realness of risk: a case study in national housing authority resettlement sites in Albay, Philippines

The geophilosophical realness of risk, as introduced in this study, is composed of the risk hotspot or cold spot information which are stored and sorted in hexagonal bins representing the host environment within the 25-km radius from the crater of the Mayon Volcano. The z scores measured from these hexagonal bins mimic the risk realness or risk reality phenomenon happening in Albay Province, Philippines. The objective of the study is to assess risk reality phenomena that generate risk knowledge originated from applying the seven metatheorems based on the Schoen Golden Triangle and the Fibonacci Golden Ratio. Risk assessment in this study uses the stability site selection criteria and hexagonal binning technique to store, sort, and process risk hotspot and coldspot information. This approach led to the disclosure of risk phenomenon on the 14 out of 25 resettlement sites (host environment) that remained at risk and continuously increasing the risk trend. When people are continuously allowed to occupy risk hotspots areas it hints at ineffective risk governance to neutralize the passively exposed population. This study concluded that the risk reality phenomena assessment opens new avenues for scientifically informed land use, nil exposure, and 0-risk policy in addition to the existing 0-casualty goal to get prepared with the right direction, decision and action to sensitively utilize the stable host environments aligned to improve risk governance.

Ugandan stakeholder hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control: new directions for gene drive risk governance

Background

The African Union’s High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies identified gene drive mosquitoes as a priority technology for malaria elimination. The first field trials are expected in 5–10 years in Uganda, Mali or Burkina Faso. In preparation, regional and international actors are developing risk governance guidelines which will delineate the framework for identifying and evaluating risks. Scientists and bioethicists have called for African stakeholder involvement in these developments, arguing the knowledge and perspectives of those people living in malaria-afflicted countries is currently missing. However, few African stakeholders have been involved to date, leaving a knowledge gap about the local social-cultural as well as ecological context in which gene drive mosquitoes will be tested and deployed. This study investigates and analyses Ugandan stakeholders’ hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control and explores the new directions needed for risk governance.

Methods

This qualitative study draws on 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ugandan stakeholders in 2019. It explores their hopes for the technology and the risks they believed pertinent. Coding began at a workshop and continued through thematic analysis.

Results

Participants’ hopes and concerns for gene drive mosquitoes to address malaria fell into three themes: (1) ability of gene drive mosquitoes to prevent malaria infection; (2) impacts of gene drive testing and deployment; and, (3) governance. Stakeholder hopes fell almost exclusively into the first theme while concerns were spread across all three. The study demonstrates that local stakeholders are able and willing to contribute relevant and important knowledge to the development of risk frameworks.

Conclusions

International processes can provide high-level guidelines, but risk decision-making must be grounded in the local context if it is to be robust, meaningful and legitimate. Decisions about whether or not to release gene drive mosquitoes as part of a malaria control programme will need to consider the assessment of both the risks and the benefits of gene drive mosquitoes within a particular social, political, ecological, and technological context. Just as with risks, benefits—and importantly, the conditions that are necessary to realize them—must be identified and debated in Uganda and its neighbouring countries.

COVID-19 Risk Assessment Tool: Dual application of risk communication and risk governance

Risk awareness is the best way to prevent and slow-down the transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. Risk awareness is achieved through communication of risk assessment. Effective risk communication is an important measure to control the infodemic. Most risk assessment tools focus on either tracking the affected patients or diagnosing a probable health condition through symptoms. RIKA India introduces an innovative Risk Assessment Tool which goes beyond the symptom detection and patient tracking. It includes four factors in assessment of risk: Health, Behaviour, Exposure and Social Policy. Each of these four factors have sub-factors which help to assess the overall risk in a more comprehensive way and also present it to the user in a simplified way. The paper discusses the importance of the Risk Assessment Tool for awareness generation and decision making. Further, the datasets generated through the tool have been analysed to understand the key intervention areas for COVID-19 response and management.

Making climate information services accessible to communities: What can we learn from environmental risk communication research?

This paper evaluates the role of socio-cultural issues in developing climate information services that are accessible and engaging to urban communities. Two public-facing city-level climate information provision initiatives in Japan are evaluated in light of theory in environmental risk communication. The first case is Fukuoka City, Kyushu, in particular increased flood and heat risk. The second case is Tomakomai City, Hokkaido, particularly municipal data provision on potential localised climate risks related to marine environmental change. Evaluation is undertaken through in-depth interviews with local-level actors (policymakers, scientists, NGOs, citizens), and field observation in each location. The paper argues that at a stage where principles and best practices on climate information service provision are still emerging, it is crucial to avoid assumptions about what communities will want to know about climate risks. The paper hence proposes principles for more appropriate climate risk communication. These include (a) identifying which institutions citizens look to for information on local weather and climate; (b) acknowledging that publics can, in appropriate contexts, be able and willing to engage with complex information on urban climate risk; and (c) considering how data-driven information services fit with the more informal ways in which people can experience environmental change.

'Engagement' of patients and healthcare professionals in regulatory pharmacovigilance: establishing a conceptual and methodological framework

BACKGROUND

Engagement of patients and healthcare professionals is increasingly considered as fundamental to pharmacovigilance and risk minimisation activities. Few empirical studies of engagement exist and a lack of explicit conceptualisations impedes effective measurement, research and the development of evidence-based engagement interventions.

AIMS

This article (1) develops a widely applicable conceptualisation, (2) considers various methodological challenges to researching engagement, proposing some solutions, and (3) outlines a basis for converting the conceptualisation into specific measures and indicators of engagement among stakeholders.

METHOD

We synthesise social science work on risk governance and public understandings of science with insights from studies in the pharmacovigilance field.

FINDINGS

This leads us to define engagement as an ongoing process of knowledge exchange among stakeholders, with the adoption of this knowledge as the outcome which may feed back into engagement processes over time. We conceptualise this process via three dimensions; breadth, depth and texture. In addressing challenges to capturing each dimension, we emphasise the importance of combining survey approaches with qualitative studies and secondary data on medicines use, prescribing, adverse reaction reporting and health outcomes. A framework for evaluating engagement intervention processes and outcomes is proposed. Alongside measuring engagement via breadth and depth, we highlight the need to research the engagement process through attentiveness to texture-what engagement feels like, what it means to people, and how this shapes motivations based on values, emotions, trust and rationales.

CONCLUSION

Capturing all three dimensions of engagement is vital to develop valid understandings of what works and why, thus informing engagement interventions of patients and healthcare professionals to given regulatory pharmacovigilance scenarios.

Towards a comprehensive wildfire management strategy for Mediterranean areas: Framework development and implementation in Catalonia, Spain

Southern European countries rely largely on fire suppression and ignition prevention to manage a growing wildfire problem. We explored a more wholistic, long-term approach based on priority maps for the implementation of diverse management options aimed at creating fire resilient landscapes, restoring cultural fire regimes, facilitating safe and efficient fire response, and creating fire-adapted communities. To illustrate this new comprehensive strategy for fire-prone Mediterranean areas, we developed and implemented the framework in Catalonia (northeastern Spain). We first used advanced simulation modeling methods to assess various wildfire exposure metrics across spatially changing fire-regime conditions, and these outputs were then combined with land use maps and historical fire occurrence data to prioritize different fuel and fire management options at the municipality level. Priority sites for fuel management programs concentrated in the central and northeastern high-hazard forestlands. The suitable areas for reintroducing fires in natural ecosystems located in scattered municipalities with ample lightning ignitions and minimal human presence. Priority areas for ignition prevention programs were mapped to populated coastal municipalities and main transportation corridors. Landscapes where fire suppression is the principal long-term strategy concentrated in agricultural plains with a high density of ignitions. Localized programs to build defensible space and improve self-protection on communities could be emphasized in the coastal wildland-urban interface and inner intermix areas from Barcelona and Gerona. We discuss how the results of this study can facilitate collaborative landscape planning and identify the constraints that prevent a longer term and more effective solution to better coexist with fire in southern European regions.

Which risk understandings can be derived from the current disharmonized regulation of complementary and alternative medicine in Europe?

BACKGROUND

Many European citizens are seeking complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). These treatments are regulated very differently in the EU/EFTA countries. This may demonstrate differences in how risk associated with the use of CAM is perceived. Since most CAM treatments are practiced fairly similarly across Europe, differing risk understandings may influence patient safety for European CAM users. The overall aim of this article is thus to contribute to an overview and awareness of possible differing risk understandings in the field of CAM at a policymaking/structural level in Europe.

METHODS

The study is a re-analysis of data collected in the CAMbrella EU FP7 document and interview study on the regulation of CAM in 39 European countries. The 12 CAM modalities included in the CAMbrella study were ranked with regard to assumed risk potential depending on the number of countries limiting its practice to regulated professions. The 39 countries were ranked according to how many of the included CAM modalities they limit to be practiced by regulated professions.

RESULTS

Twelve of 39 countries generally understand the included CAM treatments to represent "high risk", 20 countries "low risk", while the remaining 7 countries understand CAM treatments as carrying "very little or no risk". The CAM modalities seen as carrying a risk high enough to warrant professional regulation in the highest number of countries are chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, homeopathy and osteopathy. The countries understanding most of the CAM modalities in the study as potentially high-risk treatments are with two exceptions (Portugal and Belgium) all concentrated in the southeastern region of Europe.

CONCLUSION

The variation in regulation of CAM may represent a substantial lack of common risk understandings between health policymakers in Europe. We think the discrepancies in regulation are to a considerable degree also based on factors unrelated to patient risk. We argue that it is important for patient safety that policy makers across Europe address this confusing situation. This could be done by applying the WHO patient safety definitions and EU's policy to facilitate access to "safe and high-quality healthcare", and regulate CAM accordingly.

Ethics of radiological risk governance: justice of justification as a central concern

Due to the specific character of the radiological risk, judgements on whether the use of nuclear technology would be justified in society have to consider knowledge-related uncertainties and value pluralism. The justice of justification not only informs the right of the potentially affected to participate in decision making, but also implies the responsibility of concerned actors to give account of the way they rationalise their own position, interests, hopes, hypotheses, beliefs, and concerns in knowledge generation and decision making. This paper characterises the evaluation of whether the use of nuclear technology would be justified in society as a 'complex social problem', and reflects on what it would imply to deal with its complexity fairly. Based on this assessment, the paper proposes 'reflexivity' and 'intellectual solidarity' as ethical attitudes or virtues for all concerned actors, to be understood from a specific 'ethics of care' perspective 'bound in complexity'. Consequently, it argues that there is a need for an 'interactive' understanding of ethics in order to give ethical attitudes or virtues a practical meaning in a sociopolitical context, and draws conclusions for the case of radiological risk governance.

Managing Swedish forestry's impact on mercury in fish: Defining the impact and mitigation measures

Inputs of anthropogenic mercury (Hg) to the environment have led to accumulation of Hg in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, contributing to fish Hg concentrations well above the European Union standards in large parts of Fennoscandia. Forestry operations have been reported to increase the concentrations and loads of Hg to surface waters by mobilizing Hg from the soil. This summary of available forestry effect studies reveals considerable variation in treatment effects on total Hg (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) at different sites, varying from no effect up to manifold concentration increases, especially for the bioavailable MeHg fraction. Since Hg biomagnification depends on trophic structures, forestry impacts on nutrient flows will also influence the Hg in fish. From this, we conclude that recommendations for best management practices in Swedish forestry operations are appropriate from the perspective of mercury contamination. However, the complexity of defining effective policies needs to be recognized.

Risk assessment of vector-borne diseases for public health governance

OBJECTIVES

In the context of public health, risk governance (or risk analysis) is a framework for the assessment and subsequent management and/or control of the danger posed by an identified disease threat. Generic frameworks in which to carry out risk assessment have been developed by various agencies. These include monitoring, data collection, statistical analysis and dissemination. Due to the inherent complexity of disease systems, however, the generic approach must be modified for individual, disease-specific risk assessment frameworks.

STUDY DESIGN

The analysis was based on the review of the current risk assessments of vector-borne diseases adopted by the main Public Health organisations (OIE, WHO, ECDC, FAO, CDC etc…).

METHODS

Literature, legislation and statistical assessment of the risk analysis frameworks.

RESULTS

This review outlines the need for the development of a general public health risk assessment method for vector-borne diseases, in order to guarantee that sufficient information is gathered to apply robust models of risk assessment. Stochastic (especially spatial) methods, often in Bayesian frameworks are now gaining prominence in standard risk assessment procedures because of their ability to assess accurately model uncertainties.

CONCLUSIONS

Risk assessment needs to be addressed quantitatively wherever possible, and submitted with its quality assessment in order to enable successful public health measures to be adopted. In terms of current practice, often a series of different models and analyses are applied to the same problem, with results and outcomes that are difficult to compare because of the unknown model and data uncertainties. Therefore, the risk assessment areas in need of further research are identified in this article.

Compassionate containment? Balancing technical safety and therapy in the design of psychiatric wards

This paper contributes to the international literature examining design of inpatient settings for mental health care. Theoretically, it elaborates the connections between conceptual frameworks from different strands of literature relating to therapeutic landscapes, social control and the social construction of risk. It does so through a discussion of the substantive example of research to evaluate the design of a purpose built inpatient psychiatric health care facility, opened in 2010 as part of the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Findings are reported from interviews or discussion groups with staff, patients and their family and friends. This paper demonstrates a strong, and often critical awareness among members of staff and other participants about how responsibilities for risk governance of 'persons' are exercised through 'technical safety' measures and the implications for therapeutic settings. Our participants often emphasised how responsibility for technical safety was being invested in the physical infrastructure of certain 'places' within the hospital where risks are seen to be 'located'. This illuminates how the spatial dimensions of social constructions of risk are incorporated into understandings about therapeutic landscapes. There were also more subtle implications, partly relating to 'Panopticist' theories about how the institution uses technical safety to supervise its own mechanisms, through the observation of staff behaviour as well as patients and visitors. Furthermore, staff seemed to feel that in relying on technical safety measures they were, to a degree, divesting themselves of human responsibility for risks they are required to manage. However, their critical assessment showed their concerns about how this might conflict with a more therapeutic approach and they contemplated ways that they might be able to engage more effectively with patients without the imposition of technical safety measures. These findings advance our thinking about the construction of therapeutic landscapes in theory and in practice.

'System Destroys Trust?'-Regulatory Institutions and Public Perceptions of Food Risks in Taiwan

This article aims to explore public perceptions of global food risk issues and public attitudes towards government capacity to respond to concerns with technological and health uncertainties in an era of rapid economic development in newly industrialized countries. From cross-national comparative research on global food risk issues in the EU, UK, Germany, and Taiwan, survey results revealed distinct structural problems existing in Taiwan. In particular, it revealed that a long-term culture of authoritarian technological decision-making and positivistic risk assessment has lead to social risk perceptions being institutionally amplified and public trust gradually being destroyed.