The West Nile virus resurfaced in the USA in new areas, killing a record number of people.

Children were abducted in broad daylight.

Long-trusted hormones taken by 6 million menopausal women were found to increase cancer risk.

European cities were flooded.

Add the terrorism threat, and it might seem as if the world has never been more dangerous.

But is it really?

When comparing statistical reality and our perception, there is a huge difference between the threats we think we face and those we actually face, says David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and co-author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World Around You (Houghton Mifflin, $16). The book is due in stores in October.

''The ways we respond to risks have more to do with our feelings than with the facts,'' Ropeik says. ''Our feelings often cloud the interpretation of the facts.''

Overwhelmed by the constant stream of disturbing news, most people tend to overestimate statistically low risks and overlook extremely high ones, he says.

When it comes to risk, Ropeik says, this is how people's minds usually work:

* We are programmed to fear for our children much more than for ourselves, which is why child kidnappings immediately make headlines.

* We dread new, unexplored or unpredictable threats, such as terrorism, water contamination, radiation or the West Nile virus.

* We are more afraid of the hazards we can't control, such as dying in a plane crash.

* We fear the risks that can kill us in a horror-movie-like way, such as being eaten by a shark or bitten by a snake.

* We can become obsessed about perils that are paraded before us in the news, such as bioterrorism.

But even though plane crashes and child abductions might give us nightmares, Ropeik says the statistical likelihood of facing these risks remains very low compared with such common long-term threats as cancer, obesity and heart disease: ''We worry about the wrong things.''

Other experts say it's not fair to criticize the general public for misperceiving risks.

Instead, doctors and researchers who don't inform us of potential dangers or who provide confusing or misleading data are to blame, says Baruch Fischoff, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who has studied risk management for 25 years.

''Professionals make universal recommendations on the basis of weak evidence,'' he says.

As an example, Fischoff cites the controversy surrounding hormone replacement therapy. The pills' long-term side effects should have been examined more thoroughly and explained to women before being prescribed, he says.

But most experts agree on the risks Americans should really worry about:

* Sun exposure. It causes an estimated 1.3 million cases of skin cancer each year, and as many as half of all Americans who live to age 65 will get skin cancer at some point, according to the National Cancer Institute. Skin cancer is one of the few types of cancer whose rates in the USA have been steadily climbing for the past few decades.

* Medical and pharmaceutical errors. Ranked as a leading cause of death and injury in America, such errors kill up to 98,000 hospital patients each year, according to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report. ''We hear about anthrax and shark attacks, but we don't hear about these sorts of deaths,'' Ropeik says.

* Obesity, smoking and lack of physical activity. These and other lifestyle hazards can lead to cancer and heart disease, the two deadliest risks in America. ''Obesity doesn't seem as dreadful as a shark attack,'' Ropeik says, ''but we are not aware of its effects. It's dreadful what it does to both the quality of your life and its longevity.''

* Motor vehicle crashes. After last year's terrorist attacks, many people became afraid of flying and switched to cars, which are significantly less safe than planes. Motor vehicle crashes kill at least 13 times more people a year than died on 9/11; statistics show that a U.S. resident is killed in a car accident every 13 minutes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Even so, we continue to underestimate this risk: 20% of Americans don't wear their seat belts.

''Frightened people make dangerous choices,'' Ropeik says. ''When we are in physical control of the risk, we think we can control the outcome, and therefore (we think) the risk is lower.''

To minimize the real risks, experts suggest learning as much as possible about them from independent sources and putting the information in perspective.

''Look at your own life; see what you're doing that increases your risk of dying and (determine) what you can change,'' Ropeik says, adding that many of the most dreadful risks are preventable.

Above all, try to remain calm. ''It doesn't ever do any good to panic,'' says Paul Slovic, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and president of Decision Research, an institute that studies the psychology of risk perception. ''But it doesn't hurt to be conscious, alert and careful.''

We also should keep in mind, he says, that we actually live in a healthier nation. Life expectancy is at least 20 years longer than it was 100 years ago; many diseases that once were lethal are now curable; and mothers don't die giving birth as often.

''There are a lot of good things happening,'' Slovic says. ''Those usually don't make the news.''

© Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.