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What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm

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Now in its third edition, the World Risk Poll has spanned major periods of global and regional change. In a turbulent world, understanding the risks people face, how they perceive them, and how these experiences and perceptions are changing over time, is crucial to keeping them safe.

This report – What the world worries about – tracks trends in how people’s perceptions and experiences of the greatest risks to their safety have changed since 2019. Based on data collected in 2023, it is the fourth and final World Risk Poll report to be published in 2024.

The report highlights important trends regarding two sources of risk in particular: climate change and road-related accidents.

This longitudinal global dataset has also been used to construct the World Risk Poll Worry and Experience Index – a unique tool that enables direct comparison of people’s perceptions and experiences of risk, which can be hugely important to informing risk communication and mitigation efforts.

We hope that this report, along with the underlying data, empowers policymakers and other stakeholders to inform and target policies and interventions that address both people’s worry about, and experience of, risks to their safety.

Download the report

Click here to download (pdf/7.25mb)

Key findings

  • The World Risk Poll has asked people around the world what they think is the biggest risk to their safety on three consecutive occasions. Each time, the most frequently given answer has come back the same: road-related accidents. In 2023, 16% of the world’s adult population gave this response, as in 2019.
  • Both worry about, and harm from, road-related accidents is on the rise around the world. In 2023, more than three quarters (76%) of adults globally said they are worried such accidents could cause them serious harm. This is an increase of five percentage points compared to 2021, when it was 71%.
  • Meanwhile, the proportion of people who have personally experienced harm increased from 13% in 2021 to 15% in 2023, and the proportion who know someone else who has experienced harm increased from 20% to 25%.
  • Despite increasing global temperatures, and increased personal experience of harm from severe weather events – up from 15% to 18% of people globally – public perception of the threat from climate change has stayed relatively stable. Almost three quarters (72%) of the world’s adult population now say climate change is a ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ serious threat to people in their country in the next 20 years.
  • However, fewer people now sit on the fence when it comes to their perception of climate risk. In 2023, just 12% of people globally say they do not know how much of a threat it is to people in their country, down seven percentage points from 19% in 2021, and 18% in 2019. Some of these people have come to see climate change as a threat, while some now say it is not a threat at all.

Stories

Expert comment

Road safety banner image

Putting people at the heart of road safety

David Reid, Director of Global Advocacy and Partner Campaigns at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, reflects on the complex psychology that influences the behaviour of road users.

Risk perception Road safety
Windmill farm against sunset

A climate mismatch? Perception versus projections

James Chabin and Josefin Pasanen from the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme discuss gaps between climate change risk perceptions and projected impacts, as highlighted by the latest World Risk Poll report.

Climate change Risk perception

Download the report

What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm

This report discussed trends in how people’s perceptions and experiences of the greatest risks to their safety have changed since 2019. Based on data collected in 2023, it is the fourth and final World Risk Poll report to be published in 2024. (PDF, 7.25MB)

Citation

If you wish to use and reference the What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm report in your own work, please include the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.60743/8aw5-z990

Example Citation in IEEE Style:

Lloyd's Register Foundation, “World Risk Poll 2024 Report: What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm,” Lloyd's Register Foundation, 2024. doi: 10.60743/8AW5-Z990.

World Risk Poll Data

Explore the full dataset that underlies this report, including specific data for every country included in the World Risk Poll.

Discover country-level insights
A busy street in New Delhi, India.