Changing the focus of warnings messages is pivotal to successful action during an emergency. Photo: Dana Fairhead
Australian lives are being saved by Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research that is shaping warnings and public information campaigns to prepare and protect communities threatened by flood, fire, heatwave and other natural hazards.
The insights from researchers at the Queensland University of Technology are equipping emergency service agencies around Australia with better-targeted long-term public safety campaigns as well as evidence-based warning messages delivered to at-risk populations in the face of imminent natural hazard threats.
The goal of the project was to save lives and empower communities to act to ensure their safety, by improving community warning messages.
The impact of the Effective risk and warning communication during natural hazards project has been dependent on close collaboration with the emergency service agencies from the beginning. This allowed the work to be shaped and directed at important stages.
Through active testing of the wording and structure of warning messages agencies have a better understanding of how messages are understood and translated into direct action. The team, led by Prof Vivienne Tippett, has supported broader initiatives in emergency communications and warnings, not just for individual organisations, but also at the national level by providing reviews and assisting with the development of evidence-based warnings doctrine.
Researchers contributed to the development of the National Emergency Management Handbook on Public Information and Warnings and the companion guide Warning Message Construction: Choosing Your Words, both published by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience in 2018. The publications drew directly on the research to give guidance on the key considerations for writing effective warning messages, including structures and language styles for specific audiences, such as high-risk groups and non-English speaking communities. The research team were also essential to the updated second edition (November 2021), with the team reviewing the handbook to provide advice on new research to be included, such as the team's own research on the effects of visual media in warnings, and the community warnings research undertaken in NSW after the 2019/20 bushfires, as well as updating the companion guide.
Warnings save lives and empower people to act, says Amanda Leck, Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience.
“Communities under the immediate threat of fire, flood, storm or cyclone are now likely to be much safer because fire and emergency services are now able to warn them, in a way that communities are more likely to take action. This is because of the research that’s been conducted.
“What was missing previously was an evidence-base to guide emergency services in how to structure warning messages in a way that the community is much more likely to take action and take the action that emergency services are asking of them in what is often a very high stressful environment for those community members.”
State-based emergency service agencies have drawn from the project and have collaborated at the national level to determine a style and structure for their official public messages.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk credited the warnings research, combined with CRC fire mapping tools, with saving lives and the township of Gracemere, in the November 2018 fires. “The reason why we’ve put the map out is to show very clearly that Gracemere was directly in the line of this fire,” she said. “That is why we took the action that we did to evacuate the town and thankfully the town was defended and containment lines are now well established.” (29 November 2019, Courier Mail).
The Bureau of Meteorology has recently completed a review of its suite of national warnings across 11 warnings services based on the attributes contained in Australia’s Total Warning System, the development of which was based on the CRC research for the Public Information and Warnings Handbook.
Changing the focus of warning messages has been the key, believes Anthony Clark, Director Corporate Communications at the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
“This research is a really important piece of the puzzle. It is a game-changer for us as we had been sending out information and warnings in a format that met the needs of the emergency services. This research tips the process on its head and puts the community first and foremost. Emergency services are forming warning messages with the community in mind, so we can get the best possible response from the community in a time of disaster,” Anthony says.
In South Australia, the Country Fire Service has used the findings to change its warning messages, ensuring they are simpler and easier to understand, explains Fiona Dunstan, Manager Information Operations.
“We’ve looked at our warnings and restructured and reprioritised the content to make sure the critical information was upfront. This ensures timely, targeted and meaningful information is provided to the community,” Fiona says.
Country Fire Service warnings are now much shorter – previously they were three pages long. Now the vital information is on one page.
The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services have used the research findings to influence community behaviour when the communities’ capacity to act rationally may be impaired.
“The research results are highly valuable and provide emergency service agencies with sound principles to follow”, explains Hayley Gillespie, Executive Manager Media at QFES.
“These include using clear, direct language, structuring information in easily understood formats, and linking agency communications to other credible information sources. All of these strategies, and others the research covers, will help people to quickly make sound decisions that could save lives and property.”
The study has seen close collaboration between the research team and the emergency services sector, with other organisations to have their warning information reviewed include the Inspector-General of Emergency Management Queensland, Emergency Management Victoria, Victoria State Emergency Service, Country Fire Authority, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services Western Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology.