Earned Mistrust: How Public Health Forfeited Trust During COVID. What It Would Take To Earn Trust Back
Grand Rounds
Earned Mistrust: How Public Health Forfeited Trust During COVID. What It Would Take To Earn Trust Back
May 9, 2025
12 P.M.
Via Zoom
Peter M. Sandman, PhD
Risk Communications Consultant
Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter M. Sandman was one of the world’s preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants. He is best known for his unique and effective approach to calming unduly upset stakeholders in low-hazard, high-outrage risk controversies. But he also worked on how to convince apathetic people to take precautions (e.g. wear seatbelts) in high-hazard, low-outrage situations; and on how to guide appropriately upset people through high-hazard, high-outrage situations (e.g. pandemics). A Rutgers University professor from 1977 to 1995, Dr. Sandman received his PhD in Communication from Stanford University in 1971. He came out of near-retirement when COVID struck in early 2020. Now he is nearly retired again, living aboard a world-traveling ship. His work lives on mostly through his former clients and through his website, www.psandman.com.
