Doctoral Dissertation Research: Radon and the Evolution of Risk Assessment in Cold War America, 1945-1991

博士论文研究：氡气与冷战美国风险评估的演变，1945-1991

• 批准号: 0724844
• 负责人: Cathryn Carson
• 金额: $ 0.43万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0724844&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Radon; Evolution

This dissertation research proposal is for support of a series of in-depth, structured interviews with key figures in the early professionalization of risk assessment. These oral histories will be a crucial basis for two chapters of Ellen Bales's dissertation on the founding of risk assessment as a formal, professional field in the United States between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. The award will permit Bales to interview ten central actors, substantiating the primary goal of the dissertation: to examine risk assessment's embattled status as a science, the broader social and cultural context that influenced its codification and its role as informant for policies concerning science and technology, with a particular focus on radiation protection.The intellectual merit of this dissertation lies in its analysis of the historical roots of formal risk assessment, a professionalization account that is framed by a fresh look at two case studies of the risks posed by radon, a radiation threat in both the workplace and the home. Over the latter half of the 20th century, questions of risk, responsibility, and accountability developed and co-evolved in social, scientific, legal, and regulatory contexts, linking newly-prominent concerns about radiation to an increasingly urgent focus on developing methods for quantifying risks and communicating those findings. This examination provides a new understanding of multiple literal and figurative sites of decision-making and conflict: from the workplace to private property; from citizens as laborers to citizens at home; from the poor and disenfranchised to the middle-class homeowner; from individual decision-making to group politics; from health to debility; from informal to formal risk assessment.The broader impact of this project extends beyond the history of 20th-century American science to include environmental history, labor history, Cold War history, history of public health and medicine, and STS. Furthermore, Bales's dissertation will inform current practitioners of risk assessment and risk communication, who can gain new insight through understanding their field's antecedents, historical context, and early organization. Finally, an analytical history of risk assessment has value to a wider public precisely because the problematic of risk, as it has been quantified and perceived and discussed both by experts and non-experts, is a major preoccupation in the United States today.

这项论文研究建议是为了支持一系列深入的，结构化的访谈，并在风险评估的早期专业化中对关键人物进行了支持。这些口述历史将是艾伦·贝尔斯（Ellen Bales）在1970年代末至1990年代初期的正式专业领域成立的两章中的至关重要的基础。该奖项将允许Bail访谈十个中央参与者，证实了论文的主要目标：审查风险评估作为一门科学作为科学的状态，更广泛的社会和文化背景，影响其编纂的社会和文化背景，并将其作为政策的作用与政策相吻合，以进行科学和技术的建议，并通过对辐射的特定范围来评估这种散布的智力。 rad构成的风险是两个案例研究，rad构成了工作场所和家庭的辐射威胁。在20世纪后半叶，在社会，科学，法律和监管环境中提出和共同发展的风险，责任和问责制问题，将有关辐射的新事物关注与日益紧迫的关注越来越紧迫的关注，以开发量化风险的方法和交流这些发现。这项检查为决策和冲突的多个字面和比喻地点提供了新的理解：从工作场所到私有财产；从公民作为劳动者到家里的公民；从贫穷而被剥夺权利到中产阶级房主；从个人决策到团体政治；从健康状况到虚弱；从非正式的风险评估到正式的风险评估。该项目的广泛影响范围超出了20世纪美国科学的历史，包括环境历史，劳动历史，冷战历史，公共卫生和医学史以及STS。此外，Bales的论文将为现任从业者提供风险评估和风险交流，他们可以通过了解其领域的前提，历史背景和早期组织来获得新的见解。最后，风险评估的分析历史对更广泛的公众有价值，恰恰是因为风险的问题已经被专家和非专家量化，感知和讨论，这是当今美国的主要关注。