Wikipedia has an entry on relative Risk that I find fascinating. We all, for very good historical and biological reasons, factor in our own experience when calculating risk. So sure, there's research and evidence, but you also are gonna say, nope, I got food poisoning last time I went there, so never again.
It also means when something happens near you, in a place you visit all the time, you discard it as an outlier. And when the same kind of thing happens somewhere you don't go, you assume you can personally avoid such risk by continuing to not go there.
It does also mean that when talking with people who live three neighborhoods over, you are sometimes doing different calculations. And you find yourself trying convince them that your calculation is the correct one.
And someone else trying to convince me something else seems less credible. But when it's my neighborhood, or one I frequent, I feel more certain of my own experience. But may have more trouble convincing folks who have only seen it on the news.
