Leveling the playing field using an asymmetric informational intervention

The case of radon risk surveys

Bibliographic Data

ID19472882
AuthorsFien Bergen (Political Communication, University of Antwerp), Peter Thijssen (0000-0002-1202-8452, Political Communication, University of Antwerp, corresponding author), Tanja Perko (0000-0001-8405-6631, Faculty of Social Sciences, University Ljubljana), Melisa Muric (0000-0002-1297-0376, Political Communication, University of Antwerp)
Year2026
Volume29
Issue4
Pages391-418
Publication date2026-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Risk Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1366-9877 • E-ISSN: 1466-4461
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13669877.2026.2641517
OpenAlexW7160167285
LanguageEN
References cited75

Surveying behavioral intentions on unfamiliar health risks is challenging due to limited public awareness. Researchers therefore sometimes use asymmetric informational interventions (II) that provide background knowledge to less-informed respondents, before assessing attitudes and behavioral intentions. While such informational interventions are not suitable for experimental research—since they are provided asymmetrically, only to a specific subgroup—they still allow us to test whether instant information can influence people’s intentions to detect or prevent health risks. Guided by the Ability, Motivation, and Opportunity (AMO) framework, we analyze how such an II mitigates the effect of prior knowledge (ability), moderates effects for specific groups (motivation), and depends on prior campaign exposure (opportunity). Using survey data from seven EU countries (N ≈ 8900) collected in the EU-funded RadoNorm project, we test the impact of an audiovisual II about radon—an unfamiliar but significant lung cancer risk—on behavioral intentions and three of its main predictors: susceptibility, efficacy, and social norms. Findings show that the II partly reduces the prior knowledge gap and has generally similar effects across tested predictors and groups, suggesting well-designed asymmetric IIs can support informed responses without producing systematic differences in survey data. We do find that national campaign context conditions these effects, with stronger influence where public sensibilization is weaker. This study advances methods for researching perceptions of unfamiliar health risks

Radon · Risk assessment · Risk communication · Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping · Radioactivity and Radon Measurements · Reliability and Agreement in Measurement

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