Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s been a while since I last blogged. I’d like to say that I’ve been busy with other things, or have been honing and fine-tuning this update for months. I really would like to say that.
However, reality is that for a while there wasn’t anything I was finding particularly sharable, and then because it’d been a while I forgot my password to login! However, I am back with renewed passion, and a plethora of things that I want to get off my chest about emergency management and resilience. *pauses for whooping*
Earlier in the year I attended the International Pint of Science Festival 2014 in London, where “interesting, fun and relevant cutting-edge science talks are delivered in an accessible format to the public – in the pub!”. That sounded like my kind of event, and even better, the pub in question was a boat! So I headed below deck ‘below deck’ on Thamesis Dock (a converted Dutch barge moored just between Vauxhall and Lambeth Bridges) and propped up the bar!
First up was Faith Turner talking about the mechanics of landslides, which was particularly pertinent as the Oso landslide in Washington had just happened. With a nod to the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, Faith revealed her demonstrator “Andrex Mountain”, to show some of the mechanics in play. However, this was essentially the warm up act…
Next was Professor Bruce Malamud from Kings College London talking about risk and how the public and experts can have different perceptions.
In preparation for the TV programme Perfect Storms: Disasters that changed the world (Yesterday 2013), the producers contacted Bruce to consider the results of a survey that they had undertaken. In what I expect was a bit like Family Fortunes, a group of 2000 people were asked ‘how risky’ they thought a number of scenarios were. The results of this survey were then compared to the ‘expert assessment of risk’ in the form of the National Risk Register.
What the study revealed (putting methodological flaws to one side) was that in some cases the expert and public perceptions of risk line up quite well, but for other scenarios there is a dramatic difference of opinion.
I spoke to Bruce after the talk, and we’re now looking at conducting some further research using the Talk London platform to see if there are wide discrepancies in risk perception specifically in London. essentially I want to play a game of Pin the Risk on the Register!
Awareness of what people are concerned about (and what they’re not) as well as a deeper understanding of factors that influence risk perception will then hopefully be useful in making our risk communication more effective.
For example – Heatwave is assessed as a High Risk, yet routinely people don’t take too much action either in advance of or during a heatwave. What factors influence that behaviour? How can we better understand the public perception of Heatwaves, and use that to target communications more effectively? (this particular example comes from a conversation with my parents late last summer when I ‘got it in the neck’ with questions like What does a Leave 4 Heatwave mean? and Can’t you find something better to say than keep cool when it’s hot?).
As the project develops I’ll keep you updated on what we find out and how it influences our thinking!
However, as that one isn’t my picture I thought I’d also share the best one that I have personally found, literally just around the corner from my office. Whilst it’s not specifically an ’emergency’ warning sign, I think it could have potential applications in emergency situations!
Following yesterday’s post on the unusual item in my Grab Bag I’ve been challenged by a colleague on Twitter to take a #CBRNEselfie…maybe I’ll incorporate the third element of today’s challenge into that to gain those extra points! Stay tuned!
