How Do Perceptions of Risk Communicator Attributes Affect Emergency Response? An Examination of a Water Contamination Emergency in Boston, USA

A water main break that contaminated the Boston area\u27s water distribution system prompted a four-day “boil water” order. To understand risk communication during this incident, 600 randomly sampled residents were mailed questionnaires, yielding 110 valid responses. This article describes how perceptions of different social stakeholders influenced whether respondents complied with the Protective Action Recommendation—PAR (i.e., drank boiled water), took alternative protective actions (i.e., drank bottled water or/and self-chlorinated water), or ignored the threat (i.e., continued to drink untreated tap water). Respondents perceived technical authorities (i.e., water utility, public health, and emergency management) to be higher on three social influence attributes (hazard expertize, trustworthiness, and protection responsibility) than public (i.e., news media, elected officials) and private (i.e., self/family, peers, and personal physicians) intermediate sources. Furthermore, respondents were most likely to comply with the PAR if they perceived authorities and public intermediates to be high on all three attributes and if they had larger households and lower income. Contrarily, they were more likely to take alternative actions if they were younger and had higher levels of income, risk perception, and emergency preparedness. These results underscore the need for technical authorities to develop credibility with their potential audiences before a crisis occurs

Exposure Path Perceptions and Protective Actions in Biological Water Contamination Emergencies

This study extends the Protective Action Decision Model, developed to address disaster warning responses in the context of natural hazards, to “boil water” advisories. The study examined 110 Boston residents’ and 203 Texas students’ expectations of getting sick through different exposure paths for contact with contaminated water. In addition, the study assessed respondents’ actual implementation (for residents) or behavioral expectations (for students) of three different protective actions – bottled water, boiled water, and personally chlorinated water – as well as their demo-graphic characteristics and previous experience with water contamination. The results indicate that people distinguish among the exposure paths, but the differences are small (one-third to one-half of the response scale). Nonetheless, the perceived risk from the exposure paths helps to explain why people are expected to consume (or actually consumed) bottled water rather than boiled or personally chlorinated water. Overall, these results indicate that local authorities should take care to communicate the relative risks of different exposure paths and should expect that people will respond to a boil water order primarily by consuming bottled water. Thus, they should make special efforts to increase supplies of bottled water in their communities during water contamination emergencies

Perceived Stakeholder Role Relationships and Adoption of Seismic Hazard Adjustments

This article examines the relationships among perceived stakeholder characteristics, risk perceptions, respondent characteristics, and self-reported adoption of 16 seismic hazard adjustments by residents in areas of high and medium seismic risk

Компьютерные технологии проектирования литейных и металлургических процессов

Учебная программа " Компьютерные технологии проектирования литейных и металлургических процессов " кафедры "Металлургия и технологии обработки материалов" для дневной и заочной форм получения образования: общее количество часов – 90, трудоемкость учебной дисциплины – 3 з.е., форма контроля знаний – экзамен

Friends and family vs. government: who does the public rely on more to prepare for natural disasters?

This paper examines what organizations and groups individuals rely on to help prepare for natural disasters and how reliance differs vis-à-vis demographic characteristics. Using data gathered from 2,008 individuals employed in the United States, the results revealed that individuals are significantly more likely to rely on friends and family than government organizations at the local, state, and federal level. The findings also suggest that this reliance varies across demographic groups. For example, data from the present study suggest that women and minority groups as well as individuals who are older and less educated are significantly more likely to rely on organizations to help prepare for natural disasters. This study contributes to the disaster management and risk communication literatures by offering key insights into the organizations and groups the American public in general, and certain demographic groups in particular, rely on when it comes to preparing for natural disasters. Knowledge about the organizations and groups that individuals rely on to help prepare for natural disasters can help policymakers and practitioners target those organizations as conduits to deliver critical preparedness information, as well as other information related to disaster mitigation, response, and recovery

Social Representations of Earthquakes: A Study of People Living in Three Highly Seismic Areas

Much research on people’s seismic adjustment activity in highly seismic areas has assumed that low levels of adjustment are attributable to insufficient awareness of seismic risk. Empirical evidence for this assumption is weak, and there is growing appreciation of the role played by sociocultural and emotional variables in risk perception and behavior. This study explored these sociocultural and emotional dimensions via 144 interviews and questionnaires, with matched samples of locals in Seattle (United States), Osaka (Japan), and Izmir (Turkey). The data showed that high awareness of possible seismic adjustment measures was not translated into behavior, with all sites demonstrating low adjustment uptake, though the North Americans adopted significantly more adjustments than the other cultures. Thematic analysis of the interview data suggested that adjustment behavior was undermined by anxiety, distrust, distancing self from earthquake risk and fatalistic beliefs. The paper concludes by recommending how culture-specific disaster mitigation plans may be developed to address these factors