Providing balanced risk information in surveys used as citizen participation mechanisms

Despite the ability of surveys to obtain a representative sample of opinion s, one drawback to using surveys as mechanisms for citizen participation in environmental policy making is that citizens who respond may be unfamiliar with the issues. This study investigates whether providing balanced inform ation in the survey impacts responses to a series of questions on waste man agement. Randomly selected residents in five New York counties received one of two survey versions. The versions were identical, except one contained information sidebars adjacent to a series of questions on waste management. Analysis showed that while respondents gave similar answers to demographic , behavior, and media usage questions, they responded quite differently to questions about waste management. Recipients of the information sidebars we re more certain of their opinions and generally more positive toward the wa ste management options. The results suggest that providing balanced informa tion in citizen surveys can sometimes lead to more deliberative responses.