突发公共卫生事件的应对需要在紧急状态下及时做出应急决策。但是由于恐慌假设、非理性行为假设和社会风险假设的存在，致使应急决策者因担心社会风险的发生而陷入决策困境，从而有可能因为决策的不及时或应急措施的不当而失去最佳应对时机，并因此造成更大的社会风险。为了合理地进行应急决策，有必要在突发公共卫生事件应急决策过程中开展社会风险评估，包括对社会稳定、社会生产和社会生活等方面所带来的风险进行评估。由有专业知识和工作经验的专家对这些社会风险进行科学、合理的评估，有可能对突发公共卫生事件应急决策的社会风险做出专业的、客观的判断，并提出相关应对策略，有助于突发公共卫生事件的应急决策者做出科学合理的决策。

Response to public health emergencies requires timely decision making. However, emergency decision makers may fall into dilemmas because of their tremendous worries about the occurrence of social risks caused by panic hypothesis, irrational behavior hypothesis and social risk hypothesis, which may cause delayed decision making or improper emergency measures. For public health emergencies, it means the loss of the best response time or even greater social risks. To make reasonable emergency decisions, it is necessary to conduct social risk assessment before or during the emergency decision making, including the possible risks in social stability, social production and people′s lives. The participation of experts in the risk assessment is likely to make professional and objective judgments on the social risks of these decisions and propose related coping strategies, which will be helpful for emergency decision makers to make scientific and reasonable decisions.