Turning a preparedness message in to action is hard.

A few years ago while at a congress about emergency preparedness they asked the public (professionals in crisis communication and crisis management) ; whom has an emergency kit? I could not see any hands going up at all. So if the professionals don’t prepare, why would the public do?

The governments is trying to get people to prepare for emergency's using all kinds of campaigns. The assumption is, that communication this message would increase the preparedness of all the citizens. All kinds of research is showing this is not the case. In some cases this might be even counterproductive. The government giving emergency response a high priority seams to let citizens think that the government can handle things. So why does campaigns do not work?

1. Unrealistic optimism; 'it won't happen to me' or 'it won't be that bad'. (Larsson and Enander 1997: 11) (Sattler, Kaiser and Hittner 2000: 1414-1415) (Paton and Johnson 2001:1) (Guion, Scammon and Borders 2007:24).

2. Most preparedness campaigns are to general and people don't know what to prepare for. (Guion, Scammon and Borders 2007:24).

3. Sometimes the threat seems to be too big and people think preparing for it is useless. (Guion, Scammon and Borders 2007:24).

4. The government, being the government also has a image problem. There are plenty of people who just don't trust the government. This includes the preparedness message it is trying to communicate.  This requires constant maintenance of you perception to be trusted by people(Wray e.a. 2006:48-49).

So how much should the government invest in trying to educate people to prepare? Statistics is showing very poor results. People might be aware, but it does not change there preparedness.

Recommend reading and sources:

David N. Sattler, Charles F. Kaiser and James B. Hittner, Disaster Preparedness: Relationships Among Prior Experience, Personal Characteristics, and Distress. Journal of Applied Social Psyhchology. 2000, 30, 7, pp1396-1420

Gerry Larsson en Ann Enander, Preparing for disaster: public attitudes and actions. Disaster prevention and management, volume 6, number 1, year 1997. p11-21.

Guion T. Deirde, Scammon L. Debra and Borders Aberdeen Leila, Weathering the storm: A social markering perspective on disaster preparedness and response with the lessons from hurricane Katrina. American Marketing Association. Vol 26, 2007, p20-32

Paton Douglas, Disaster preparedness: A social-cognitive perspective. Disaster prevention and management. volume 12, number 3, year 2003. p210-216.

Paton Douglas and Johnston David, Disasters and communiies: vulnerability, resilience and preparedness. Disaster prevention and management. volume 10, number 4, year 2001. p270-277.

Wray Ricardo, Rivers Jennifer, Whitowrth Amanda and Jupka Keri, Public perceptions about trust in emergency risk communication, qualitative research findings. International journal of mass emergencies and disasters. March 2006, vol. 24, No. 1, p45-75.