Glossary
Risk Compensation
What is risk compensation?
Risk compensation is the idea that feeling safer can lead people to take more risks. A driver might take more chances after a safety improvement because they feel better protected.
What the evidence can tell us
The important question is how much behavior changes and what happens to safety overall. In a 2020 analysis, Mantzari, Rubin, and Marteau challenged the claim that compensatory behavior cancels the population benefits of public-health protections.
A public-health example
The analysis examined whether face-mask use was accompanied by reduced hand hygiene. Its supplementary evidence table includes a trial among Hajj pilgrims assigned by tent to a face-mask or control group. The recorded self-reports of handwashing and antiseptic use showed no statistically significant differences between those groups. This did not support the specific concern that providing masks would reduce hand hygiene in that study.
Handwashing is a behavior measure; respiratory infection is a health outcome. A result about the former does not by itself establish the latter, and one trial does not settle every possible form of risk compensation.
Why it matters
Measure both the behavior and the outcome, such as injuries or infections. People could take more risks and still be safer overall because the protection works. The driver example explains the hypothesis; evidence about a particular safety measure has to establish its actual effects.