Toward a framework for understanding lay public’s comprehension of disaster and bioterrorism information

In the last decade, we have witnessed a significant increase in disaster preparedness and crisis communication efforts. This stands in sharp contrast with paucity of research that deals with the public’s comprehension of disaster information and related decision-making. The objective of this paper i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biomedical informatics 2005-08, Vol.38 (4), p.331-344
Main Authors: Keselman, Alla, Slaughter, Laura, Patel, Vimla L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety and performance
Bioterrorism
Cognitive science
Comprehension
Decision Support Techniques
Disaster communication
Disaster Planning
Disasters
Health Behavior
Health decision-making
Health Education
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Information Dissemination - methods
Information Storage and Retrieval - methods
Models, Psychological
Public health
Qualitative methodology
Research Design
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Summary:In the last decade, we have witnessed a significant increase in disaster preparedness and crisis communication efforts. This stands in sharp contrast with paucity of research that deals with the public’s comprehension of disaster information and related decision-making. The objective of this paper is to outline a theoretical and methodological framework for research on lay comprehension of crisis information. The proposed framework integrates two bodies of research: (1) cognitive science literature on comprehension and decision-making and (2) studies of the effects of anxiety on performance. The paper reviews selected works and methods from both fields, discussing how cognitive perspective could be extended to include emotional factors. We also discuss how further research integrating the proposed framework with public health communication perspective could: (1) provide insights for developing effective disaster communication and (2) inform the development of technological support for disaster communication and for education of lay people and health professionals.
ISSN:1532-0464
1532-0480
DOI:10.1016/j.jbi.2005.05.001