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However, while people have lived through a global pandemic for the last two years, Covid-19 was not seen as one of the top risks, with fewer than one in ten (7%) citing Covid-19 as the top source of risk in their daily lives – positioning it outside the top three perceived risks.
The World Risk Poll results show that even during an emergency such as a global pandemic, people continue to be impacted by other ongoing threats to their safety in their daily lives, particularly in regions with widespread poverty and instability. It’s a reminder for policymakers that there is a broad spectrum of competing risks that must be considered when influencing people’s safety-related choices and behaviour.
Risks of road crashes and crime and violence were highest on the global list of perceived threats, with 13% of people naming road crashes and 12% citing crime and violence when asked to name, in their own words, the biggest risk to their personal safety.
While the Poll shows a slight but significant increase in people feeling less safe, it also highlights several contributing factors, including political and socio-economic. The data shows that people who view violence or political instability as their greatest risk were most likely to feel less safe than five years ago. The report also highlights a ‘dread effect’, where people worry more about the potential threats with more severe consequences, even if they are less likely.
In Latin America, for example, where almost half (47%) of those aged 15-29 named crime and violence as the greatest threat to their safety, over a third (37%) of the population said they would move permanently to another country if given the chance – compared to 16% globally1.
Data on willingness to migrate from the 2021 Gallup World Poll
The proportion of people who said they felt less safe than they did five years previously rose from 30% in 2019 to over a third (34%) in 2021.
Mental health and severe weather were the areas of risk where people’s experience of harm increased most globally from 2019 to 2021. The proportion of people across the world who had experienced, or personally knew someone who had experienced, harm from mental health issues in the past two years rose from one in five (20%) in 2019 to a quarter (25%) in 2021. Similarly, the proportion of people who experience harm from severe weather increased by five percentage points, from 22% to 27%.
The rise in mental health issues was seen across regions and nations of different income levels, showing this is not just a ‘western’ problem and must be considered in all global health and development policies.
The number of people globally who had experienced, or personally knew someone who had experienced, harm from mental health in the past two years rose from 20% in 2019 to 25% in 2021.
Dr. Sarah Cumbers Former Director of Evidence and Insight, Lloyd’s Register Foundation
The World Risk Poll results provide us with valuable insight about people’s perceptions and experiences of risk, and while we can look at the results for different risks individually, it is important to consider how they may be linked.
Overall, compared to five years ago, do you feel more safe, less safe, or about as safe as you did five years ago?
This first report of the 2021 World Risk Poll provides new global insights that identify the differences between people’s thoughts about, and experiences of risk before and after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. (PDF, 3.15MB)
Dr. Joel Gill and Dr. Faith Taylor discuss how World Risk Poll data will be used to understand contributing factors to existing high levels of household preparedness in the face of natural hazards.
Dr. Sarah Jenkins and Dr. Andrea Taylor discuss the integration of the Poll with data on vulnerabilities, governance, and long-term climate projections to identify predictors of disaster risk perception and preparedness, and develop early warning and risk communication strategies.
Lloyd's Register Foundation's former Director of Evidence and Insight, Dr Sarah Cumbers, discusses how the World Risk Poll complements expert risk assessments such as the Global Risk Report, and why these different perspectives are so important.
