People, measures and resilience: New ways to study risk communication, responsibility and preparedness

In the event of a major social disturbance, the population is both a protected object and a central part of the crisis management system. The effects of risk communication differ, partly on the basis of people's knowledge, understanding and preparation, and partly on the basis of differences between groups in the population.

The project is organized in three work packages focusing on the following issues:

• What significance does experience, resources and physical context have for people's understanding of major societal disturbances?
• What factors and connections can be identified between communication, motivation and individual action before and during major societal disturbances?
• What indicators and methods are needed to measure the population's resilience and to develop successful risk communication?

Project aim

The aim of the project is to develop methods and indicators that measure the heterogeneous population's knowledge and conditions to communicate and deal with major societal disturbances. These methods and indicators can be used to design successful risk communication can be designed and improve society’s resilience. The project include for example how people absorb information, what types of communication increases their resilience, and GIS data to create risk maps of the population's resilience.

Methods

The starting point for the work in the project is three types of societal disturbances: natural hazards, violence-related incidents and military-related crises. In the three work packages, we use methods such as focus groups and surveys to see patterns and explanations for variations in risk perception. To gain knowledge about how people absorb communication and what factors motivate action, we use experimental methods in RCR Lab where people are exposed to different types of crises. We also use RCR Lab to test the indicators and methods that are developed, in order to design suggestions for adequate risk communication in the final phase of the project.