Risk perception of the Belgian population. Results of the public opinion survey

摘要: The SCK• CEN 2006 risk perception barometer is based on over 1000 Computer Assisted Personal Interviews, with a duration of 35 min on average, taken from persons selected to be representative for the Belgian 18+ population, and all realized in the period March 21st–April 12th 2006.Historically this barometer draws on the French IRSN Baromètre (1988): SCK• CEN carried out a previous version in Belgium in the autumn of 2002. Most questions however were not repeated in the 2006 edition, but new topics were broached instead. The questions are presented as statements, with respondents stating agreement on a five points Likert-scale (strong disagreement, disagreement, undecided, agreement, strong agreement), and allowing a" no answer/don't know" category when explicitly asked. In this barometer, we added a large section to analyze the context of an individual's risk perception. Besides the classical background variables used to obtain the quota for representativity (age, language, habitat, gender and social class), we also included a series of questions assessing the sociological context and the psychological personality profile.