Public Risk Judgments of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Psychometric Structure, Exposure Routes, and Cross-National Differences

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are pervasive in everyday life and pose well-documented public health risks, yet little is known about how lay perceptions of EDC risks are structured and how they vary across exposure routes and regulatory contexts. Drawing on the psychometric paradigm of risk perception, we conducted a large cross-national survey (N = 1,966) in Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants evaluated 18 EDC-related activities across nine canonical risk attributes, ranked perceived health risks by exposure route (consumption, inhalation, dermal contact), and reported perceived severity, susceptibility, general exposure, institutional trust, and sociodemographic characteristics. Across all three countries, risk perceptions exhibited a robust two-dimensional structure corresponding to affective-dread and cognitive-controllability dimensions. However, the relative salience of these dimensions varied systematically: cognitive-controllability cues accounted for more variance in Denmark, whereas affective-dread cues were more prominent in the UK and US. Perceived risk also varied consistently by exposure route, with consumption judged the most risky, followed by inhalation and dermal contact, a hierarchy that showed minimal cross-country variation. At the individual level, greater knowledge of EDCs consistently predicted higher perceived severity, while gender, age, income, parenthood, and institutional trust showed context- and outcome-specific associations. By extending the psychometric paradigm to chronic, diffuse chemical hazards embedded in everyday activities, this study demonstrates that EDC risk perceptions reflect stable affective-cognitive dimensions while remaining sensitive to exposure routes and governance contexts, offering theoretically grounded insights for risk communication and policy design.