@article {bnh-4245, title = {Building resilient communities - effective multi-channel communication during disasters: annual project report 2016-17}, number = {344}, year = {2017}, month = {09/2017}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Australia is exposed to a range of natural disasters including severe storm, fire, cyclone, flood, and to a lesser extent, earthquake and tsunami. These disasters have an estimated cost of $9 billion a year [4], alongside the more difficult to measure social impact on society and individuals{\textquoteright} wellbeing. Governments, authorities, and organisations dedicate significant resources to encourage communities to prepare for and respond to natural hazards. However, recent events, media attention, and ongoing academic research continue to highlight cases of non-compliance. Non-compliance can include an individual{\textquoteright}s refusal to evacuate when a voluntary or mandatory evacuation message is issued, evacuating when advised not to, and travelling through hazardous areas when advised not to, to name a few. The consequences of non-compliance during a natural hazard can include personal injury or loss of life, and damage to, or loss of property. Individuals who fail to comply with instructions issued during natural hazards significantly impede the emergency response because they divert resources to compliance-enforcement, and risk the lives of emergency service workers who may be required to assist them. The consequences of non-compliance drive the need to understand how to influence individual-level compliance in a natural hazard, through more effective communication.

This project adopts a multi-hazards approach to examine the effectiveness of response and recovery communication in communities (comprising individuals, groups, and businesses) affected by natural hazards. The core project objectives are two-fold:

  1. Develop methods to maximise the effectiveness of response and recovery messaging to the community during a range of natural hazard events.
  2. Promote both community and disaster agency understanding of the legal motivators for maximising engagement with emergency messages and instructions.

Achieving these objectives will enable the project to deliver evidence-based message content to guide operational and communication strategy, and improve community understanding, decision-making, and compliance during the emergency response and recovery phase of natural disasters.\ 

}, issn = {344}, author = {Vivienne Tippett and Dominique Greer and Amisha Mehta and Sharon Christensen and Bill Duncan and Amanda Stickley and Paula Dootson} } @article {bnh-3083, title = {Building resilient communities - effective multi-channel communication in disasters: Annual project report 2015-2016}, number = {219}, year = {2016}, month = {09/2016}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Recent natural hazard events in Australia and around the world provide constant reminders of why people should prepare and how people should behave. Yet, industry experiences and research shows that community members still fail to comply with instructions issued by government agencies [1]. Particularly in the response and recovery phases of a natural disaster, individuals ignore official emergency instructions in favour of community-generated warnings. While non-compliant behaviour is often not in the best interest of the individual or community, non-compliance is not necessarily malicious or even intentional. However, individuals who fail to comply with instructions issued during natural hazards significantly impede the emergency response because they (a) divert resources to compliance enforcement, (b) risk the lives of emergency service workers who may later be required to assist them, and (c) confuse the core safety message or instruction. Moreover, there is a limited understanding of the legal ramifications of non-compliance from perspectives of individuals, agencies, or corporations.

This year the team have undertaken two work packages: (1) assessing message comprehension of emergency warnings (completed) and (2) experiments on message compliance (ongoing). Community message comprehension of emergency warnings was examined through ten focus groups across Australia. This qualitative work built on research conducted by end-user organisations and addresses issues raised by the National Review of Warnings and Information. Key findings included: time between message updates is used as a proxy for event severity, visuals aid in personalising the risk and overcoming limitations of geographic knowledge, location triggers attention and the personalisation of risk, hazard knowledge and past experience can influence message comprehension in ways that lead to negative unintended consequences, and over-warning is preferred to under-warning. Recommendations are made for how to amend existing emergency messages to improve community member message comprehension. Findings were reported to the BNHCRC 30 June 2016.

The experiments on message compliance are seeking to produce an evidence base for the effectiveness of existing message strategies, and work towards optimising those messages using theoretical insights from psychology, marketing, and behavioural economics. The findings from the community focus groups informed the different manipulations used in the experiments. For example, one experiment manipulated the time between updates with varying degrees of specificity and tested its effect on risk perceptions, information-seeking, and intentions to take protective action. Data collection is still underway and will be reported to the BNHCRC later this year.

Other activities completed during this reporting period included a workshop run by the Queensland University of Technology{\textquoteright}s Centre for Emergency and Disaster Management titled {\textquotedblleft}2036 Flood Hypothetical{\textquotedblright}. The event was attended by emergency services agencies, government agencies, and other key stakeholders, including representatives from the BNHCRC. The team has also engaged in on-going expert discussions with end-users and other key emergency management personnel around research results and utilisation.

In May 2016 the team attended the BNHCRC Research Advisory Forum in Hobart, Tasmania, where they presented an update on the project and ran a workshop with the end-users in attendance. The forum was valuable in gaining end-user input into the utilisation of the research. End-user engagement has been on-going throughout the year through one-on-one contact, teleconferences, bulletins, cluster bulletins, and face-to-face meetings where possible.

Some team members also attended and presented at the Australia New Zealand Emergency Management and Disaster Conference on the Gold Coast, Queensland in May 2016. The team also submitted a poster to the AFAC/BNHCRC 2015 Conference in Adelaide, South Australia.\ As the project moves forward, the next year will see completion of the required deliverables and utilisation of the research. As major natural disasters have a significant economic impact on society, even small changes\ in protective behaviours can be valuable [2]. Informed emergency messaging can subsequently reduce the costs associated with disasters, which are largely attributed to the public response to the disaster [3], and could potentially save lives.

}, issn = {219}, author = {Vivienne Tippett and Dominique Greer and Amisha Mehta and Sharon Christensen and Bill Duncan and Amanda Stickley and Paula Dootson} } @article {bnh-2313, title = {Connecting communities and resilience: A multi{\textendash}hazard study of preparedness, response and recovery communications: Annual project report 2014-2015}, number = {128}, year = {2015}, month = {10/2015}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Recent natural hazard events in Australia and around the world provide constant reminders of why people should prepare and how people should behave. Yet, industry experiences and research shows that community members still fail to comply with instructions issued by government agencies [1]. Particularly in the response and recovery phases of a natural disaster, individuals ignore official emergency instructions in favour of community-generated warnings. While non-compliant behaviour is often not in the best interest of the individual or community, non-compliance is not necessarily malicious or even intentional. However, individuals who fail to comply with instructions issued during natural hazards significantly impede the emergency response because they (a) divert resources to compliance enforcement, (b) risk the lives of emergency service workers who may later be required to assist them, and (c) confuse the core safety message or instruction. Moreover, there is a limited understanding of the legal ramifications of non-compliance from perspectives of individuals, agencies, or corporations.

This year the Project team have undertaken two work packages; (1) social media pilot and (2) community focus groups on message comprehension. The social media pilot sought to examine decision-making, risk communication, and in particular the existing approach for official messages during response and recovery of natural disaster, via Twitter. The work package involved analysing around 50,000 Tweets exchanged about Tropical Cyclone Marcia, from 18 to 21 February inclusive. Results show that emergency messages include instructions and updates that may lack precision and assume community knowledge. In addition, community members demonstrate affect, overconfidence, and familiarity biases, and demonstrate limited appetite for irresponsibility displayed by journalists or other community members.\  The findings of this study suggest the following opportunities exist for emergency services organisations; (1) add precision to updates and instructions, (2) filter out noise and introduce $\#$official as a hashtag to signal and draw attention to important messages, (3) integrate stories that personalise risk and enhance self-efficacy to reflect trends in community tweets, (4) take advantages of affect and engage in preparation messages during the recovery phase, and (5) ground-truth to share knowledge about event and impact to add accuracy and overcome familiarity bias for the next disaster. The community focus groups, while still ongoing, were conducted to examine community comprehension of emergency warning messages. This qualitative work builds on research conducted by end-user organisations and addresses issues raised by the National Review of Warnings And Information, which was endorsed in May 2015. As at June 30, 2015, five focus groups had been conducted in Brisbane and Hervey Bay in Queensland, and the Dandenongs in Victoria. In July 2015, three focus groups will be conducted in Melbourne, Victoria, and Kempsey, New South Wales. Findings will be reported in the next quarterly reporting period.

}, issn = {128}, author = {Vivienne Tippett and Dominique Greer and Amisha Mehta and Sharon Christensen and Bill Duncan and Amanda Stickley and Paula Dootson} }