Search for: All records

This mission includes research materials developed by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder in accordance with Colorado House Bill 23-1237 (see related work). For this mission, we collected information using a statewide survey of emergency response personnel (222 responses) and meetings with key partners (37 people). Included here are the survey recruitment materials, survey instrument, raw survey data. We also include a partner meeting question bank that we used to conduct partner meetings. Lastly, we include two annotated bibliographies as documents. We anticipate these materials may be useful in developing future surveys on alerts and warnings and developing interview questions for emergency alert officials. This data could also be reproduced to compare alert and warning services across other states.Included here are data and research materials that supported the investigation of emergency alert and warning systems in Colorado developed in accordance with Colorado House Bill 23-1237 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1237). The aim of the project was to identify how to improve emergency alerting for people who speak non-English languages and have auditory or visual disabilities. First, we include two annotated bibliographies with over 60 publications on topics related to alert and warning systems, disability access, and language access published in the last 20 years. Second, we include a dataset of survey questions, along with the 222 responses from emergency response personnel in Colorado involved in alert and warning activities. Lastly, we also include a data dictionary, partner meeting questionnaire, recruitment materials, and a sample letter of support from a key partner. These data and materials could be used to review relevant publications on this topic and to aid in developing future surveys focused on alert and warning systems. For final report and additional project context, see project webpage: https://hazards.colorado.edu/research-projects/colorado-inclusive-language-and-access-in-emergency-alerts. 

Though significant research exists on earthquake hazard adjustment adoption more generally, research focused on how information seeking influences planned or actual preparedness behavior is rare, limiting our understanding of how information seeking translates into preparedness. To address this gap, our study tests a proposed model of household seismic hazard adjustment using questionnaire responses of roughly 400 households living in the Portland, OR metropolitan region. The proposed model includes components of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) with specific emphasis on past information seeking behavior, preparedness behavior, intentions to seek information, and intentions to take protective action. Other components include risk perception, earthquake experience, affective response, seismic risk zone residency, and demographics. Consistent with previous research, this study finds information seeking behavior to be the strongest influence on preparedness with other important influences being risk perception, affective response, and intentions to prepare. We find weak ties between risk zone residency and earthquake risk perception, though this may be because our sample has little experience with earthquakes and the majority live in the same earthquake risk zones. Importantly, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether information seeking and intentions to prepare eventually result in household protective action. 

A Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake will cause widespread damage along the Pacific Northwest (PNW) coast of the United States. It is, therefore, crucial to understand how to reduce future impacts across this region and assess current levels of household preparedness. Here, we examine whether decades of risk and preparedness campaigns have established protective knowledge and promoted hazard adjustments for residents of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan (PDX) region, an area where risk and preparedness campaigns have been increasing over the last decade. We also explore how PDX preparedness levels compare to those in other PNW regions using analogous data from multiple surveys over a 20-year time interval and assess PDX respondent’s perceptions of risk information sources. We find that 63% of PDX residents do not intend to “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” (DCHO) when earthquake shaking starts and that, although residents are generally aware of earthquake hazards in the area, they are less aware of the specific risks for their homes. Furthermore, PDX residents’ preparedness levels seem to be comparable to those recently surveyed in Washington, but somewhat less than those surveyed two decades ago in California, though more comprehensive data are needed to verify these results. We also find that people rate risk information provided by emergency managers and their websites as more accurate, understandable, relevant, and new than other sources. Our results suggest that significant gaps remain in translating broad awareness of the CSZ earthquake into personal knowledge and preparedness. This work provides guidance to PDX emergency educators for more targeted messaging and provides methods to measure preparedness variables in other regions for future comparisons. By paying close attention to preparedness gaps, local officials can use their limited resources more effectively to develop strategies to inform their communities and improve preparedness before a major earthquake strikes.