The Danes' perception of risk 2017

This study maps how concerned members of the public are that Denmark will be affected by a range of emergency incidents within the next five years, how concerned they are that they will be directly affected, how likely they believe such incidents are to occur, and the extent to which they believe that Denmark’s emergency services have the level of preparedness to handle the incidents.

Within each of the four categories, the following are the most important conclusions:

• Concern: Generally, most Danes are not concerned about major accidents and disasters. However, more than half of Danes (58 per cent) are concerned about Denmark being affected by terrorism.
• Concern about being directly affected: Close to half of Danes (46 per cent) are concerned that they will be directly affected by terrorism within the next five years.
• Likelihood: The incidents that Danes consider most likely to affect Denmark within the next five years are extreme weather (cloudbursts, hurricane force winds and storm surges), cyber attacks and terrorism.
• Preparedness: Generally, the population is confident that the emergency management services in Denmark will be able to handle most major accidents and disasters. Geomagnetic solar storms, releases of radioactive material from nuclear power plants and cyber attacks are the types of incident that the fewest are confident about in terms of Denmark’s level of preparedness for handling such incidents.