Public awareness and risk perceptions of endocrine disrupting chemicals

EDCs are ubiquitous in modern life and human exposure is associated with many negative health effects such as reproductive disorders, metabolic disorders, and hormone related cancers. EDCs are a serious public health risk and numerous guidelines and risk messages have been disseminated to inform and protect the public.

However, little is known about current levels of public awareness and risk perception of EDCs and how the public respond to EDC risk messages. Understanding how the public characterises and evaluates a risk has important implications in determining societal decision making and behaviour change. Therefore, effective risk communication of EDCs must take into account the public’s perspective.