Digital engagement methods for earthquake and fire preparedness: a review

Abstract

Natural or human-made hazards may occur at any time. Although one might assume that individuals plan in advance for such potentially damaging events, the existing literature indicates that most communities remain inadequately prepared. In the past, research in this area has focused on identifying the most effective ways to communicate risk and elicit preparedness by means of public hazard education campaigns and risk communication programmes. Today, web-and mobile-based technologies are offering new and far-reaching means to inform communities on how to prepare for or cope with extreme events, thus significantly contributing to community preparedness. Nonetheless, their practical efficacy in encouraging proactive hazard preparedness behaviours is not yet proven. Building on behaviour change interventions in the health field and looking in particular at earthquakes and fire hazards, the challenging RISK team has reviewed the currently active websites, Web, and mobile applications that provide information about earthquake and home fire preparedness. The review investigates the type of information provided, the modality of delivery, and the presence of behaviour change techniques in their design. The study proves that most of the digital resources focus on a single hazard and fail to provide context-sensitive information that targets specific groups of users. Furthermore, behaviour change techniques are rarely implemented in the design of these applications and their efficacy is rarely systematically evaluated. Recommendations for improving the design of Web-and mobile-based technologies are made so as to increase their effectiveness and uptake for a multi-hazard approach to earthquake and home fire preparedness.

The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertain: Contributions of Volunteered Geographic Information to Community Disaster Resilience

“…Less privileged individuals may be unable to participate, thus being excluded from the resilience-building benefits of VGI. Marginalized groups and individuals are often not represented on maps, and, particularly troubling for resilience, those people already marginalized are often the most vulnerable to disasters (Hewitt, 1997), especially since preparedness information is often not directed at vulnerable groups (Verrucci et al, 2016). Echoing critiques in the mid-1990s of the uneven community access to GIS technologies (e.g., Sawicki and Craig, 1996) as well as critique of participatory GIS in the 2000s (Elwood, 2006), Haworth (2018) recognizes the importance of understanding barriers to participation in community applications of VGI, and Burns (2018) urges us to recognize the social and political imbalances of big data, understanding that representations of the "real world" in data are rooted in spatial inequalities.…”

How to increase earthquake and home fire preparedness: the fix-it intervention

“…Community preparedness for natural hazards remains low across cultures (Ballantyne et al 2000;Lindell and Whitney 2000;Paton 2000), even among those where awareness of the natural hazard risk is high (Joffe et al 2013;Karanci et al 2005;Lindell 2013;Solberg et al 2010) Despite the importance of natural disaster preparedness interventions in reducing personal, social and economic losses, the literature on such interventions is scarce and its methodology is often not well documented (Perez-Fuentes and Joffe 2015). There are a wide range of mass media and internet-based natural disaster preparedness engagement methods, yet their documentation and evaluation are rare (Verrucci et al 2016). When preparedness campaigns and interventions are evaluated, most are vaguely described.…”

Tool, toolmaker, and scientist: case study experiences using GIS in interdisciplinary research

“…Further contact details were also shared to assist the Psychologist with engaging with city officials and community champions. There were also publications on shared research outputs early in the project associated with literature reviews, initial data collection efforts and app prototyping with Engineers (Verrucci et al, 2016).…”