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At A Glance:

This sub-project creates new strategies for and understanding of communications in a crisis.

• This research aims to provide strategies for the improvement of public communications before, during and after a crisis to mitigate consequences
• Research findings relating to crisis communications inform parameters in LaSER's PLAN-C computer model

Publications

A. Kling & R. Zimmerman (2006) Risk Communication for Large Scale Emergency Readiness (LaSER): Highlights of Preliminary Findings. NYU - Wagner

R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, I. Portelli, and G. Foltin (2006) Communicating Risk to Reduce Human Loss in Large Scale Disasters. International Conference on Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure - International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) & International Society for Exposure Assessment (ISEA), Paris France

R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, I. Portelli, and G. Foltin (2006) A Comparison of Risk Communication Structures for Two Attack Scenarios - Society for Risk Analysis 2006 Annual Meeting, Baltimore MD

R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, I. Portelli, and G. Foltin. A Focus Group Report re Comparison of Risk Communication Structures for Two Attack Scenarios

R. Zimmerman, C. E. Restrepo, W. Remington and A. Culpen. Risk Communication Focus Groups Report.

R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, I. Portelli, and G. Foltin: A Focus Group Report re Comparison of Risk Communication Structures for Two Attack Scenarios.

R. Zimmerman, C. E. Restrepo, W. Remington and A. Culpen, Risk Communication Focus Groups Report.

Presentations

September 30, 2005. Participant in LaSER-sponsored Panel Discussion on Hurricane Katrina and Vulnerability. New York, NY: New York University.

September 2-6, 2006. R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, G. Foltin and I. Portelli, "Communicating Risk to Reduce Human Loss in Large Scale Disasters," International Conference on Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure (co-organized by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and the International Society of Exposure Assessment (ISEA), Paris, France.

December 5, 2006. R. Zimmerman, A. Kling, G. Foltin and I. Portelli, "A Comparison of the Risk Communication Structures for Two Attack Scenarios," accepted for presentation at the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD.

About the Lead Investigator

Rae Zimmerman, Ph.D. is Professor of Planning and Public Administration at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and since 1998, Director of the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS), a center, initially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for collaborative, interdisciplinary activities on infrastructure research, education, and outreach. She leads ICIS' partnership in the DHS-funded Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Modeling of Terrorism Events with the University of Southern California, where her work focuses on critical infrastructure. Since the Fall of 2004 she resumed for the fourth time being Director of Wagner's Urban Planning Program.

Project Team Members

Principal Investigator:
Lewis Goldfrank, M.D.
(NYU School of Medicine)

Co-PI: Rae Zimmerman, Ph.D.
(NYU Wagner)

George Foltin, M.D.
(NYU School of Medicine)

Paul Slovic, Ph.D.
(NYU Wagner)

Becca Nagorsky
(NYU Wagner)

Alison Kling
(NYU Wagner)

Wendy Remington
(NYU Wagner)

Alison Culpen
(NYU Wagner)

Ian Portelli
(NYU School of Medicine, Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response)

Risk Communications

The goal of the risk communication sub-project is to develop and test critical communication strategies and plans for community public health preparedness, response, and mitigation of event consequences before, during and after a large scale, urban terrorist event.   Understanding risk communication principles is critical for responsive leadership in times of crisis, and will enable the building of effective capacity to reduce the consequences of terrorism.

Under crisis conditions, communication should be planned based upon consideration of message content, the characteristics of message senders and recipients, and the technology being used to convey messages to minimize delay in involving the correct personnel and utilizing the correct responses. The nature of these factors differs for pre-disaster, during disaster and post-disaster conditions. These dimensions will be incorporated into the risk communication task for LaSER. An interdisciplinary approach is adopted drawing on social psychology, communication technology, and risk communication directly applied to health threats associated with disasters.

Current Accomplishments:

• Developed a typology for organizing risk communication indicators.
• Developed and identified an extensive set of indicators supported by a literature and case review on risk communication and behavior in disasters, covering a broad range of medical, sociological, and risk analysis publications, articles, and cases.
• Developed a framework portraying parties involved in disaster communication (government, public, media, specialists, and services/industry/health care), their roles, and mode of interaction as a means of portraying communication networks.
• Designed preliminary message sets for a terror scenario involving a hypothetical release of Sarin gas in a confined space and for Smallpox and the modeling of human responses to messages based on risk communication indicators and the messenger-recipient role framework (ongoing).
• Designed focus group strategy, including recruitment script, scenarios and scenario scripts, and obtained IRB approval to conduct focus groups to obtain inputs for the risk communication indicators and scenario message sets; implemented two focus groups in August 2006 and documented results.
• Trained graduate students in risk communication methods and techniques, particularly with respect to applications in the area of health emergencies.
• Current products include: a set of risk communication indicators, an extensive literature review as background and support for the indicators, the identification of actual and desired behaviors by various public groups (including emergency responders) including whether or not people stay or leave an area in an attack, the preliminary design of message frameworks for Sarin release and Smallpox release scenarios, and publications, reports and presentations listed below on preliminary findings, a focus group report, a working paper on initial public behavior (whether people stay or leave) in a disaster, and various conference presentations. An additional product consisted of inputs in the form of questions pertaining to communication for the LaSER survey (Organization Based Incident Management: The Role of Volunteers on University Campus during Catastrophic Events).
• Current work also includes research on Compliance, Trust and Worry factors, relating to Leave and/or Stay Parameters included in the Computer Simulation (PLAN-C) Model. This is achieved in collaboration with the multidisciplinary modeling and legal team during collaborative team meetings.

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