Full Description
9/11. Tornadoes. Emergency preparedness. Whether explaining parts per million to a community exposed to contaminated groundwater or launching a campaign to encourage home carbon monoxide testing, an effective message is paramount to the desired result: an increased understanding of health risk.
How people interpret and respond to risk messages related to potential immediate or long-term environmental danger is largely influenced by such factors as age, ethnicity, community, and proximity to the health risk in question. Communicating Environmental Risk in Multiethnic Communities is the first book to address the theory and practice of disseminating disaster warnings and hazard education messages to multiethnic communities. Authors Michael K. Lindell and Ronald W. Perry introduce theory-based reasoning as a basis for understanding warning dissemination and public education, devoting specific attention to the community context of emergency warning delivery and response. Through these principles of human behavior, readers can apply risk communication information to virtually any specific disaster agent with which they may be concerned.
The authors review a variety of theories of emergency decision-making and develop a Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) as the foundation for understanding citizen response to both emergency and educational communications. Combining risk theory with practical application, Communicating Environmental Risk in Multiethnic Communities examines the research literature and identifies the important factors that affect people's decisions to comply with warnings. The authors present a review of a range of public education campaigns for different types of hazards.
This volume is recommended for practitioners in private emergency management and federal, state, and local governments, as well as students studying risk communication, health communication, emergency management, and environmental policy and management.
Contents
1. Risk Communication, Culture, and Ethnicity
Risk Communication in Environmental Hazard Management
Risk Communication, Ethnicity, and Culture
2. Theoretical Bases of Risk Communication
Social Influence
Theories of Behavioral Evaluation and Choice
Theories That Integrate Social and Cognitive Processes
The Protective Action Decision Model
3. Disaster Warnings as Risk Communication
Protective Action Decisions
Situational Influences on Disaster Response
Warning Compliance and Spontaneous Response
Warning Multiethnic Communities
4. Hazard Awareness as Risk Communication
Household Hazard Adjustment Decisions
Situtational Influences on Hazard Adjustment
5. Approaches to Influencing Hazard Adjustment Adoption
The Context of Evnironmental Risk Communication
Risk Communication During the Continuing Hazard Phase
Risk Communication During an Escalating Crisis or Emergency Response
References
Index
About the Authors
