Whether it’s their physical and emotional well-being or their hard-earned tax dollars at stake, Americans have a major interest in finding safe, effective and affordable solutions to environmental health risk problems.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 3 and 4, South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) will air a one-hour program, entitled Living With Risk. Co-produced by MUSC’s Environmental Hazards Assessment Program (EHAP), the panel discussion presents German, Australian and Dutch approaches to risk management, and examines their potential applicability in the American context.

Air times are 10 p.m. Feb. 3 and 1:30 p.m. Feb. 4 on Channel 7 (Comcast Cablevision Channel 11) in Charleston and SCETV affiliates and transponders statewide.

“This program serves a variety of purposes, the most important of which is to inform a wide audience of the impact environmental risk has on our quality of life,” said Richard Jablonski, a research associate at MUSC/EHAP and one of the program’s producers. “With a better knowledge of these issues, people can more effectively engage in public policy and decision-making processes that affect their lives.”

Toward that end, moderator Lynn Sherr, correspondent for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20, leads a 10-member panel through a discussion of environmental risk problems in the United States. Major areas of discussion include the staggering cost of cleanup, complex and frustrating regulation, and ineffective public participation in decision-making processes.

Charleston-area viewers will recognize local participants in the program. An introductory film clip, focusing on problems in the Neck Area of the Charleston peninsula, features Stanley Schuman, M.D., Dr.P.H., of the MUSC Department of Family Medicine, Mayor Keith Summey of the City of North Charleston, and Wayne Fanning of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), as well as area residents Oliver Addison, Roscoe Mitchell and Ida Taylor. Dr. Charles E. Young, Pastor of the Ebenezer AME Church on Nassau Street in Charleston, is one of the 10 primary panelists.

Funded by the United States Department of Energy, the program is one outgrowth of the ongoing partnership between MUSC/EHAP, SCETV and AEA Technology of the United Kingdom. In 1996, the partners produced International Case Studies in Risk Assessment and Risk Management.

The television program Living With Risk is one product of a follow-up activity entitled International Case Studies in Risk Assessment and Risk Management for Community-Based Stakeholders.

Readers interested in either program may contact Richard Jablonski at 727-6462.