Emergency Risk Communication Essay

With the advent of the electronic age of the Twenty First century, emergency risk communication faces new and ever-evolving challenges. Broad societal developments, biomedical revolution, the increased movement of people and goods, and varying levels of public trust in government are all associated with the increasing challenges emergency communicators have to overcome. Emergency Risk Communications is listed as one of the eight core capacities by the World Health Organization needed for detecting and responding to public health threats (Savoia, Lin, & Gamgewage, 2017).

Risk communication focuses on communicating disaster preparedness information and mitigation strategies to the public before an event occurs to help minimize the damage and effects. Proper communication involves truthfulness, dealing with the news media, planning, and evaluation. Seven rules have been

“Accept and involve the public as a legitimate partner.” Emergency Managers must recognize that the public will want to be involved and will always find a way to be so.

2. “Listen to the Audience.” Only by finding out what's important to the public can effective dialogue occur. Some may look for courtesy and caring, whiles others look for trust or quantitative statistics.

3. “ Be honest, frank, and open.” Trust and credibility are the two greatest attributes in a communicators capabilities. Lies and misdirection will quickly destroy any trust gained and make it more difficult to communicate in the future.

4. “Coordinate and collaborate with other credible sources.” Agencies should know who to contact outside their team for needed information and have those lines of communication already established. Information will appear more credible if multiple agencies are reporting similar data.

5. “Meet the needs of the media.” Generally speaking, the media is more interested in politics than risks. They are also usually more interested in wrongdoing, blame, and danger than