Building resilient communities: Creating effective multi-channel communication during disaster response and recovery

This brief summarises the results of a project from 2014-2017 that examined evidence-based strategies that motivate appropriate action and increase informed decision-making during the response and early recovery phases of natural disasters. The project utilised community focus groups to test emergency warning message comprehension and compliance, conducted a social media analysis during ex-tropical cyclone Marcia to understand community responses to emergency risk and warning messages, used eye-tracking experiments to understand how people visually search for information and how risk tolerance affects essage interpretation, and conducted a survey with businesses to examine the needs of small businesses during hazards. The brief provides key findings from each research method for future emergency risk and warning messages.