The National Academies’ commission’s report — “Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Approach to Risk Analysis” — does, however, approve of the Department’s current risk approach on natural disasters. The 150-page study can be downloaded here.

There are few more important aspects of homeland security than risk analysis, particularly in how the government allocates its resources, deals with threats and communicates with all its stakeholders including the public. And, the Department is working on improving things in this area.

Federal News Radio did an interview yesterday with commission chair John F. Ahearne about the report. It can be heard here.

The Obama Administration has said that public readiness is a priority and has taken steps to strengthen the involvement of Americans in their own homeland security. However, officials acknowledge that there is still a ways to go. I present these proposals to help move forward citizen preparedness on a local, state and national level. I hope these suggestions can be a useful addition to the policy discussion and have submitted it to the Federal Preparedness Task Force. As always, I welcome your feedback:

1) CREATE CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS TASK FORCE — The lack of progress to date on public readiness and engagement underscores the need to develop new ways of approaching the issue. DHS Secretary Napolitano should create a Citizen Preparedness Outreach Task Force to assess the current state of public readiness and work on developing new approaches. At present, there is no clear social education analog to civilian emergency preparedness that can be easily pulled off the shelf so it will take some work to develop an effective program. In fact, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism in its final report recommended the Administration make citizen engagement a priority. But Chairman Bob Graham told me that the ‘WMD Commission’ did not did not find anything suitable it could recommend, and that something new has to be developed.

2) BETTER DEFINE WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “PREPARED” “READY” AND/OR “RESILIENT” — An American Red Cross survey indicated that 93% of Americans are not prepared for disasters. The truth is that no one can be fully prepared, but there is a need to offer the public a clearer definition — including a minimum level — of preparedness. That might include creating a family communications plan and storing tangible supplies but also knowing more about potential threats that every American should know. That doesn’t mean overwhelming people with too much information, but making sure they are at least familiar with some basics. (For example, the first time citizens hear about a ‘dirty bomb’ from government officials should not be in the moments after one has been exploded.) In addition to the content questions, there is also a word meaning issue to deal with as well. The Obama Administration has been emphasizing the concept of societal resilience. Should emergency management officials be talking about citizen resilience in their communities rather than preparedness or readiness?

3) SUPPORT & REPORT ON STATE/LOCAL PREPAREDNESS EFFORTS — Provide adequate seed money for state and local government to bolster civilian preparedness programs and link the grants to performance. Encourage authorities to report publicly on their level of citizen preparedness and create metrics for better measuring civilian readiness. Find interested governors to take on leadership roles and create pilot models in their states. There is a need to employ both “bottom/up” and “top/down” approaches to disaster preparedness combining state, local and community leadership and citizen involvement with federal commitment and focus. Ensure that government authorities can competently respond to disasters but also more strongly emphasize the need for the public and local communities to be prepared and self-reliant, particularly in the first 72 hours after a disaster.

4) HIGHLIGHT & SPREAD MODELS FROM AROUND U.S. & OTHER COUNTRIES — There is a need to help promote and implement best practices from communities around the U.S. and draw, where applicable, particularly from British and Israeli experiences. One model may be the United Kingdom’s National Risk Register, which sets out publicly the government’s assessment of the likelihood and potential impact of a range of different public health, natural and terrorist risks. It is designed to increase awareness of the kinds of risks the UK faces, and encourage individuals and organizations to think about their own preparedness. The Register also includes details of what the Government and first responders are doing to prepare for those emergencies and the role of citizens in those plans

5) USE ‘CARROTS’ TO CHANGE PUBLIC BEHAVIOR – Provide a tax write-off for citizens to buy preparedness-related products as a way to promote participation and to signal governmental commitment. Encourage states to create tax-free periods as is being done in Virginia and Louisiana (and has been introduced in the New York legislature). Also, consider targeting assistance to citizens who cannot afford to prepare. The fact is that when we really want to change social behavior as a nation we do it through the carrot or the stick. The carrot is the preferable tool for this issue, but it needs to be used. And, thus far, incentives (and vegetables) have largely been missing from the preparedness effort, which helps explain the lack of progress. Similarly, preparedness disincentives in the law should be removed (ie. in some places, homeowners who retrofit their homes face higher tax assessments.)

6) BRING IN BUSINESS TO DEVELOP INTEGRATED ‘WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN’ PUBLIC PREPAREDNESS MARKETING CAMPAIGNS– Design and roll out a full service preparedness marketing campaign with help from the private and non-profit sectors. Galvanize business to take on disaster preparedness in the same way they have with disaster response, most notably in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (ie. big box stores, packaged goods manufacturers, bottled water companies, wireless industry). Work with companies in preparedness-related businesses to offer major discounts tied to citizens taking actual readiness steps recommended by Ready.Gov and local emergency management offices.

For example, individuals and families come into ‘big box’ stores with emergency communications plans (or fill them out in the store) and in return they would receive a significant discount on supplies or free products (ie. if you purchase a case of bottled water, you would get your emergency supply thrown in for free). And if a customer signed up to volunteer for CERT or the Red Cross Disaster Services, they would get a bigger discount. Mobile phone retail stores would be excellent settings for preparedness events/trainings to help people register for government emergency text/e-mail alerts. I’d also like to see an event/photo-op with kids teaching their parents about texting and its role in an emergency. Here again, the companies would offer customers extra free text/phone minutes for completing the preparedness step.

7) DON’T BE AFRAID TO TELL THE CHILDREN — Put more emphasis on educating young people on preparedness by piggybacking on other related school-based social education efforts, most prominently fire safety. The challenge is the both the decentralization of the nation’s education system and the already high curricula demands on teachers. Yet, an effective fire education program was implemented in the schools beginning in the 1970’s, and there would seem to be a perfect fit to integrate a preparedness module into that existing program. The federal government should work with state and local officials as well as fire and education officials to determine how best to accomplish that objective.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate recently suggested expanding the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program for young people. I believe that a decision to expand CERT-type training in the schools would be welcomed on a bipartisan basis.There should be more public briefings on how personal tech would be helpful in an emergency, before the emergency (including how Twitter, Facebook and one’s smart phone can be invaluable). Further, every governmental preparedness web site should add a cell phone and an extra battery (or other power source) to the basic components of their recommended disaster supply kit.  Many private companies are working on applications for citizen emergency communications. Those business efforts need to be integrated with official alerts (ie. the new iteration of the Emergency Alert System) and unofficial citizen-based social media (as well as the news media). Both the content and distribution channels of emergency communications are changing and new models need to be developed.

8 EMBRACE AND ACCELERATE PREPAREDNESS 2.0 – There is a need to better inform the public on the potential of 21st century personal technology to prepare for and respond to 21st century emergencies. We must make Americans more aware of the capabilities of the technology at their fingertips (ie. wireless devices, social media sites) in advance and integrate it into disaster planning and response. The public’s new ability to access and distribute information offers both an opportunity and a challenge to government authorities.

There should be more public briefings on how personal tech would be helpful in a crisis, before the crisis (including how Twitter, Facebook and one’s smart phone can be invaluable). Further, every governmental preparedness web site should add a cell phone and an extra battery (or other power source) to the basic components of their recommended disaster supply kit. Many private companies are working on content and distribution applications for citizen emergency communications. Those business efforts can complement official efforts (ie. the new iteration of the Emergency Alert System) and unofficial citizen-based social media (and well as the news media). One hugely promising initiative is CrisisCommons which over the past year has created groups of volunteers throughout the world to bring technology to bear on disaster response issues.

9) FIND POLITICAL, CELEBRITY PREPAREDNESS SPOKESPEOPLE – During the time that I have covered the topic of citizen emergency preparedness, one of the most surprising things I’ve found is that there is no major elected official who has taken the lead on the issue. It’s surprising for a number of reasons: natural disasters and terrorism dominate the headlines and will continue to for the foreseeable future; citizen preparedness is pretty much an unassailable, bipartisan, patriotic and community-building topic; and even the smallest interest in Washington has at least one political champion (but not public preparedness). And, with much to do, there is a great opportunity to have a positive policy and political impact. To some in the readiness community, the absence of star power on the issue has been one reason for the lack of public attention. Though celebrities have been eager to participate in fundraising efforts after catastrophes like the Haiti effort), there is no big star who is singularly identified as a spokesperson for emergency preparedness.

10) GIVE THE PUBLIC MORE INFO SO THEY CAN BETTER PREPARE & PARTICIPATE – There is a need to better inform the public when it comes to disaster preparedness so they can not only ready themselves and their families but also be part of the policy debate. Let me mention two areas briefly:

a) Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): In its report, the WMD Commission argues that the incoming Administration should make an effort to inform and engage the public on the subject of WMD’s. I agree. And, I suggest officials consider starting that process by defining (or redefining) what a WMD actually is. At present, it is most common to define a WMD for the public as a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (or “CBRN”) weapon.

The Commission report, however, focuses primarily on the dangers of biological and nuclear terrorism, both of which could be absolutely catastrophic. By contrast, a chemical or radiological (better known as a ‘dirty bomb’) weapon could be very serious but would likely not cause as much lasting damage. In fact, both a chemical and radiological attack would likely be a one-shot event seriously impacting those directly near the event, closer in result to a ‘traditional’ terrorist bombing. A nuclear bomb or biological incident, however, could have wide and long-lasting ‘mass destruction’ impact to humans, property and the society itself. We don’t want the public — and the nation as a whole — to overreact to some threats and underreact to others.

b) Risk: I think it may be one of the most important homeland security subjects for both the government and the public, because it highlights some of the tradeoffs involved in determining how to allocate the nation’s security resources and the role of risk management in making those decisions. This is a debate which should include the public. Right now, Americans aren’t engaged in the discussion over the security, financial, logistical and time tradeoffs involved in our own homeland security.

We need to introduce risk management into homeland security which would lead us to ask and answer important questions: What improves our security and resiliency? And what can be done at a reasonable social and financial cost? Those answers should come not only from policymakers but with the guidance of the public itself.

The public should be asked: How much risk do you want to pay for? How much inconvenience do you want to deal with? These are dilemmas we deal with everyday in our lives; we need to bring that same approach to homeland security and disaster preparedness. FEMA’s Fugate has since his days in Florida made the point that natural hazards turn into natural disasters because of man-made decisions on development, including ubiquitous golf courses: “You can tee off in Tallahassee and play through to Pensacola,” he likes to say.  ”Unless the public understands we need to change where we develop and live, it won’t matter.” It is up to elected officials to present those choices, including building codes, levies and insurance incentives.

11) ‘SEE AND SAY’ SOMETHING MORE – Build upon the initial success of ‘See Something, Say Something’ -type citizen information campaigns by providing the public with more specific guidance on how to assist law enforcement and, without giving away sources and methods, offering more feedback on the information they have provided. Law enforcement officials are concerned about societal complacency nine years since 9/11, but have not determined how to communicate to the public a more candid – yet calm and balanced – picture of the threat and how they can best help. The Department of Homeland Security is expanding “See Something, Say Something” nationally, which is a positive development. However, there is still a need to better explain to citizens their role, particularly at a local level. One important question is how much of what new information and training given to law enforcement about terrorism prevention should also be provided to the public.

12) MEDIA SHOULD COVER PREPAREDNESS AS WELL AS DISASTERS – While the press does wall-to-wall coverage on natural disasters and has covered practically every aspect of terrorism story closely, it has largely overlooked advance public preparedness. By contrast, during the Cold War, magazines ranging from Life to Modern Farmer dedicated entire issues to civilian readiness. Obviously, the press’ role is not to serve as a publicity arm of the government, but it is a topic that deserves more attention. And without more media coverage, it will be difficult to break through to the public. One great example of the press as a unique asset is the list of preparedness tips and lessons learned from the disaster survivors that was collected by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

13) GOVERNMENT PREPAREDNESS OUTREACH NEEDS TO BE FAR MORE INTERACTIVE — Right now, if a member of the public has a question about the preparedness process, there is nowhere to go. And, as someone who does a lot of public outreach on street fairs, radio or in community meetings I hear a lot of questions from average citizens about emergency readiness — ie. Shouldn’t buildings have mandatory emergency drills? Shouldn’t everyone have a solar charger in your ‘go-bag’ to be able recharge a cellphone or radio? Shouldn’t you have an evacuation family meeting spot outside of the City in case there is major disaster? In case of an emergency, where should we go for information? The emergency management community on a national, state and local level must overhaul its public information operations to be able to address those questions directly and lead the public through what can be a challenging process to undertake.

14) ‘DO ASK, DO TELL’: MAKE “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY” MORE CENTRAL TO PREPAREDNESS MESSAGING — Instead of telling people to prepare because it is a responsibility (you need to do this), government has used a softer ask when it comes to trying to get the public to prepare. To me, the it is time to try to do more “telling” and less “asking”. I don’t believe the government should be afraid to explicitly tell the public that each of us can either hinder or help relief efforts by what they decide to do before and during a disaster. And, that it’s up to each of us to choose.

If indeed preparing for disasters is a responsibility of citizenship (which I think it should be), then it should been positioned that way. PSA’s saying that people are imperiling the lives of first responders and their fellow citizens, particularly the vulnerable (ie. the elderly, disabled) not to mention your own family might be treated with a little more urgency. Another potentially useful messaging approach was suggested to me by former Miss Utah Jill Shepherd who used citizen preparedness as her pageant platform. It can (and should) be included in the preparedness pitch that readying yourself and your family for disaster at home is a way civilians can contribute to the nation’s resilience and complement the work and sacrifice of those serving in the military. Preparedness may be the most important contribution most citizens can make to their nation’s security. Not only will civilians likely be the first on the scene of a major emergency, but the nation’s response will only be as strong as the readiness of the weakest link. We have entered the ‘pro-am’ preparedness era where the government needs to hand off some responsibility and the public needs to take it.

15) INTEGRATE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS INTO OTHER COMMUNITY ISSUES — Emergency preparedness is an important issue, particularly during crises. However, it has a better chance of becoming ingrained into American society if it is viewed as part of other preparedness topics that are a more central part of Americans daily life, including public health (immunization), security (Neighborhood Watch), infrastructure and climate change, part and parcel of just being ready for any situation.

For example, the global warming campaign can and should be a model for civilian emergency preparedness in a variety of ways. The two efforts are complementary and should be linked closer together in the public’s mind — and actions. In both, society is being asked to mobilize in order to avert or mitigate potential disasters, and both are part of strengthening the nation’s general national resilience. Yes, global warming has some skeptics, but so does emergency preparedness — ironically they are often not the same people which may conveniently add to its complementary synergy.

16) EXPAND EMERGENCY DRILLING OPPORTUNITIES TO PUBLIC –Increase chances for citizens to participate in disaster drills, which would help people focus on the issue and work through the key questions everyone should ask before a disaster (ie. How will you get information and communicate with your family? Do you know the emergency plan of your children’s school?). Most every top homeland security/emergency management official I have interviewed has told me that broader public disaster exercises would be helpful in a number of ways, but there has not been a concerted effort to expand drilling opportunities to the public.

17) DETERMINE BEST USE OF CIVILIAN DISASTER VOLUNTEERS – Craig Fugate said recently that FEMA would be reevaluating the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). I think that as part of that review government and non profit officials should be looking at how best to recruit and deploy disaster volunteers. Post-9/11 and Katrina — as well as with international incidents such as Haiti — there has been great interest among the public to be involved in crisis response. A key question is how that asset should be managed. Should it be the government? The Red Cross? Other non-profits and faith-based institutions? Business? Or a combination of the four? One hugely promising initiative is CrisisCommons which over the past year has created groups of volunteers throughout the world to bring technology to bear on disaster response issues.

Fugate said that FEMA is considering major changes in the CERT program, including creating a shorter training course which could be offered to more Americans and significantly expanding training for schools and other youth groups in order to better imbed preparedness into society for the long-term. I’ve always felt that CERT training is less about the skills you learn and more about awareness about the community and the various emergency authorities (and identifying citizen crisis organizers in advance). To me, CERT is just basic citizenship training for the 21st Century, which I think every American should get a chance to receive. I might suggest that the smaller reduced curriculum be called something along the lines of “Citizen Resilience Training”.

18) ESTABLISH AN OFFICIAL PREPAREDNESS DAY — Create a National Preparedness Day to focus public attention before disasters, including briefing citizens, conducting drills, and filling emergency kits. A helpful model is Japan’s Disaster Prevention Day held on September 1st, the anniversary of the catastrophic 1923 Tokyo earthquake. Earlier this month, 670,000 Japanese participated in emergency drills around the country. China, since its 8.0-magnitude 2008 Sichuan Province earthquake, has also held two national disaster prevention days with nationwide drills.

If we as a nation feel it is really important for the public to develop emergency plans, it would be far more effective if everyone was doing that at the same time — rather than asking individuals to do it on their own. This ‘preparedness day’ would also be the time that we all asked the questions about planning then practiced and updated those plans. It would be useful for both responders and the public. I might suggest September 11th be made the U.S.’s official Day. It would seem to be appropriate to honor the memories of those who died by action, particularly something aimed at making sure America is never as unprepared again.

19) CREATE CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS OFFICE – Establishing a national citizen preparedness/resilience office to highlight and help coordinate efforts around the U.S. and ensure citizen preparedness remains a priority. Right now, there is not an identifiable place in the federal government that has responsibility for coordinating the public’s role in preparedness. Work with American Red Cross to create an effective advocate for the general public on emergency preparedness in the same way disabled and pet groups have done for the disaster needs of their communities over the past several years.

20) BUNDLE CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS PROPOSALS TOGETHER INTO “CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS INITIATIVE” – For too long, well meaning public preparedness efforts have gotten lost or have been ignored by the public. That’s in large part because they have not been packaged and presented as being specifically directed to citizens. But if the government would assemble these small disparate proposals listed above into an overall citizen preparedness package it would have a better chance of getting attention and gaining some traction. Ultimately, making inroads on citizen preparedness is less a matter of money than it is of focus and attention.

It may help explain why many Americans still do not prepare for disasters (and, by contrast, Japan and China hold special disaster preparedness days for its citizens). It also may underscore the challenge — as well as the need — of building community preparedness in the U.S.

According to the study reported on the Emerging Health Threats Forum website:

People from different parts of the world rate differently their risk of dying or getting injured in a disaster, and this has more to do with cultural factors than actual exposure to an event, suggests research published online in Risk Analysis. It also indicates that people across cultures share a belief that they are less prone to harm than others around them…

Unlike risk assessment, which is based on objective information, risk perception tends to rely on a person’s psychological state, personal experience and socio-cultural factors. Cultural values influence which hazards are believed to be relevant to a group, the authors explain. “Members of a group construct shared meanings to explain the reasons behind hazardous events to promote a sense of stability and allegiance within the group.”

Researchers measured and compared risk perceptions between 365 mental health workers from Japan, Argentina, and North America — countries that represent different degrees of interdependence and histories of exposure to disaster:

During a four-hour disaster preparedness training run by one of the study’s authors, the participants were asked to complete a risk perception survey after being presented with information describing a tsunami and a terrorist event. The survey included questions about the probability of themselves or other people suffering a disaster-related fatality or injury. Risk scores were calculated based on answers to these questions, and differences between groups were analysed statistically.

“Japanese groups had the highest risk perceptions for both types of hazards and North Americans and Argentineans had the lowest risk perceptions for terrorism,” report the authors. They also found that participants in all groups rated their own risk in either type of disaster as lower than that of others.

“The strongest and most robust findings were of an optimistic bias that was especially prevalent in the US samples,” add Gierlach and colleagues. Although participants from the USA had a higher exposure to terrorist events than those from Japan and Argentina, they believed they were least vulnerable to them.

This may be explained by the country’s position of power in the world, the authors speculate. It also indicates that cultural factors have a stronger influence on risk perceptions compared with the frequency of exposure to disaster events. Similarly, participants from Japan, where terrorist events were least frequent, had the highest perceived risk, possibly because of the region’s instability and a history of other disasters such as atomic bombs and tsunamis.

It’s an interesting piece about how this potential growth of domestic-based terrorism, but in this post I wanted to highlight a specific aspect of the article — why it is that U.S. officials when they warn the public about specific terrorism threat often feel they need to do it anonymously and as a result why they are generally unwilling to talk directly?

In the article, Hsu writes:

…attack plots against the United States have proliferated and grown more diverse. Over the past 18 months, the federal government has charged 34 U.S. citizens with direct involvement in terrorism. The Fort Hood, Tex., shootings in November, the May 1 Times Square car bombing attempt, and last year’s New York subway plot were each allegedly carried out by Americans inspired from or trained abroad.

The killing of many of al-Qaeda’s senior operatives has weakened the group, but the growing role of Americans may reflect the inability of its core leaders to mount more effective operations, authorities said. Still, even less sophisticated attacks can be deadly.

“The threat is complicated and diverse and in many ways more difficult for us to figure out,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity so he could freely discuss counterterrorism analysis. [my italics] “The training is quicker and tolerance [for less spectacular and successful plots] are much greater . . . but the likelihood of a mass 9/11-style attack is a lot smaller.”

Reading this struck me: why does that U.S. intelligence official need to speak on a “condition of anonymity” when all he or she is doing is informing the public and the media about the government’s best guess about future terrorism here. It would seem that this type of briefing would be best done by top leaders — including sometimes the President — who could bring attention to the subject, best instruct the public on what (if anything) they should be doing and thinking about the changing threat, and establish an open and trusted line of communication/dialogue with citizens on terrorism prevention and preparedness. Using anonymity makes it seems as somehow there is something wrong or secret about broadly informing the public about the nation’s terror situation

I’m not saying there necessarily is a lot of information that has to be disseminated to the public on this right now, but there is news (positive and negative) here on the changing scope of the terrorist threat, and I don’t understand why it cannot be done in a more planned, open and straightforward way rather than anonymously in response to a newspaper reporter.

My sense and hope is that Obama Administration as part of its development of a national See Something, Say Something” campaign and promise to provide a “clear appraisement” of terror threats will be providing more high profile briefings to the public and the media without the need for a condition for anonymity.

The senior class photo of terror suspect Zachary A. Chesser, 20, from Oakton, Virginia, arrested last month  (credit: Washington Post)

In the game, Quake players are:

presented with a little icon of a house on a map of a hypothetical country. They also get a pot of digital cash—$20,000. Players are told at the start of the game that at any time, an earthquake can hit, either severe or mild, and that three to five quakes will hit during the course of the game. Then all the players have to do, it turns out, is decide what to do with their money: they can pump it into their homes, making them safer by purchasing a series of structural upgrades (to the chimney, the door frame, the roof, etc.) or they can leave it in the bank and earn 10 percent interest. The game unfolds in real time, and up to 10 people can inhabit the same Quake world at one time. Players can see other people’s houses and observe their decisions.

Kanreuther who wrote the excellent book, At War With The Weather, last year with his Wharton colleague Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, has run the simulation in his class for the past four years:

By now, about 500 students have played the game, and every time, they play it essentially the same way.

They tend to begin the game cautiously, spending money to build stronger roofs and walls. But as the game goes on, they take more risks. Instead of spending their money to avoid disaster and death, they keep it in the bank to earn interest.

“They think, ‘Can I get away with the next 30 seconds in the game?’” says Meyer. “‘What are the odds of getting destroyed in the next 30 seconds? Well, probably very little.’ So they think, ‘OK, I’ll go a minute.’ And of course eventually they get destroyed.”

Meyer and Kunreuther have found that there’s nothing they can do to prevent the students from destroying themselves. Even if one of them pulls a student aside and explicitly tells her how to “win” the game—i.e., by building the strongest house possible, as quickly as possible, and then just sitting on it—the student still won’t do it, preferring to rack up those sweet interest payments.

It’s not like the students don’t know what’s coming, either. When asked if they understand what’s going on, they always say, yeah, they get it: they’re about to get hit by an earthquake. So if it’s not stupidity or ignorance, why do the students keep losing? Kunreuther and Meyer believe the game demonstrates a psychological bias toward short-term maximization instead of long-term planning—a psychological bias all humans share.

Meyer has tried out the Quake simulation with groups of corporate executives, and the results are the same. The players always see the quake coming, and they always “have a difficult time translating that belief that it’s going to happen to a short-term action”—much the same way, in fact, that the government of Haiti failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a major earthquake.

The Quake players derive a sense of security from observing the flimsiness of one another’s houses. If everyone around you has a house of straw, having a straw house yourself seems somehow safer.

Of course, this is wrong.

The full article can be found here.

I think the fear of being accused of fearmongering has put a significant crimp in the ability of our leaders to communicate with and prepare Americans for terrorism. That’s a problem since the public’s current level of emergency readiness, is, in the words of a top federal preparedness official, “very concerning and frankly very frightening.”

Almost nine years after 9/11, government officials at federal, state and local levels have still not determined how best to communicate with the public on those threats. What is already a difficult task has been made even more challenging, I would argue, because officials are worried about being accused (by political opponents amplified by the media) of scaring the public.

The inability to raise the topic of potential threats in any detail has not only hurt the country’s citizen preparedness. But it has also made things more difficult for the government to get public input and buy-in on how best to allocate the nation’s resources and find the right balance of risk when it comes to disasters.

From the beginning of her tenure, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has said that she wants to better inform Americans about the threats facing the nation and highlight the citizen role in the homeland security enterprise. She believes that addressing public complacency is one of the biggest challenges for her Department. When asked by the Washington Post what keeps her up at night, she said:

“Complacency…The fact that it has been eight years since 9/11, and people just assume the government is going to take care of that. . . Safety, security is a shared responsibility. It doesn’t take much for everybody just to take a deep breath and say, ‘Okay, what would I need to do to be prepared?’

In an another interview in the Post, the Secretary was asked “if the American people could see what you see — if they were privy to intelligence reports and they saw the whole spectrum of what was out there, do you think they would have a different view of preparedness?”

Her reply: “Oh, yes, perhaps. But on the other hand, I think what is important for them to recognize is that we have hundreds of thousands of people working on this every day.” Even as she would like to get the public’s attention, the Secretary understandably does not want to unnecessarily stoke concern.

Napolitano has pointedly emphasized that she does not want to scare people, rejecting what she calls the “politics of fear.” Finding that balance is key. Yet to address “complacency,” officials will have to find ways to better illustrate what is “out there.” And there is absolutely no way to do so without explaining in some detail why Americans shouldn’t be complacent. To me, being scared and being prepared are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the former is a necessary part of the process to achieve the latter.

In their recent books, both of Napolitano’s predecessors, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, make the need to address public “complacency” by explaining the terrorist threat a major theme. Chertoff warns of returning to a “September 10” mindset” urging the government “be candid with American people, sharing as much information as possible about dangers we face.” Both acknowledge that they were not able to accomplish that goal. Both men have told me in interviews of their frustrations with the inability to communicate threats and engage in a more frank sustained dialogue with the American public about post-9/11 homeland security.

Their inability to do so was in large part due to the fact that the Bush Administration was viewed — sometimes fairly and sometimes unfairly — as using terror communications as a political tool. As a result, no Administration official could discuss any type of potential threat without it being seen as suspect by the media and the public.

President Obama has the chance to start over in this area tabula rasa. But to date, the Administration while expressing an interest of doing so has not done it. That’s understandable. This is not easy stuff. There’s nothing to pull ‘off the shelf’ for preparing the public for all the threats of the 21st Century, a number of which have never been faced by anyone let alone Americans. In addition, new technology has also changed message delivery. It will take some real thought in designing both the content and distribution of the information.

Both one thing is clear: if officials are going to have a discussion of potential disasters, they cannot avoid communicating some level of fear. Explaining what citizens would need to do in the event of a biological or chemical attack cannot be done without contemplating dire possibilities. But just for a moment. These are scary, unfamiliar topics. But the objective is to do so in a responsible and constructive manner — not stirring up more fear than is necessary, handling it with perspective, and providing concrete things people can do to prepare themselves and communities.

And, ironically in some cases, the threats — e.g. a ‘dirty bomb’ — is not as serious as most Americans currently perceive it is. However, that fact has to be communicated in advance to the public, because — due to general public distrust about government and instances such as the health precautions and reporting during the World Trade Center cleanup — Americans will be skeptical about anything said during and after such an incident.

One of the reasons I think we need to (and can) rehabilitate the word “fear” is that officials are already using it in other areas. In fact, currently there is a preparedness double standard. Officials are not allowed to talk about terrorism threats without being accused of scaring people. But we seem to have no problem when it is used to generate public interest in more traditional disasters.

For example, with hurricane season beginning this week FEMA’s Twitter feed sent out this message: “In an average 3-year period, roughly 5 hurricanes strike the US killing 50-100 people anywhere from TX to ME” Isn’t that fearmongering? But the ‘tweet’ makes the important and fair point that Americans shouldn’t be complacent during storm season since hurricanes can kill people, and they should prepare for them. The fact is that fear can be a useful lever (as one part of a communications effort) to encourage constructive behavior. So, why are officials allowed to use it for natural disaster preparedness and not for terrorism?

Further, why has the campaign against global warming been successful and grabbed public attention? In large part, it is because proponents have made the case that if we don’t do something the planet will become inhabitable. That’s a ’scare tactic’ if I’ve ever heard one. Why isn’t that labeled fearmongering? To me, it’s just presenting the public the facts, offering government’s response and providing ways people can contribute towards dealing with the problem. And, by the way, I think the effort on climate change is very much related to disaster preparedness.

If the government isn’t allowed to discuss serious threats, there is no way that we can have the important discussion about what we expect the government to protect us from and what risks are we willing to accept. It would have been useful to have a debate on the costs/benefits of building levees before Katrina or an unprecedentally large oil well in the Gulf before the recent spill. Again, it may not have prevented worst case scenarios but it would have at least laid out for the public, elected officials and the media the real risks and the financial tradeoffs. In fact, the media has a major role in both explaining the threats more fully and not reflexively calling officials who talk about it “fearmongers”.

One way to mitigate the fearmonger attack is to offer people something they can do rather than place them into a victim, dependent mentality. The more information given will better empower the public and also underscore that citizens have a role in disaster preparedness. There is a role for fear. But it needs to be part of a broader effort of strengthening communities and citizens and making more resilient. (This blog attempts to find that balance. I don’t shy away from difficult or scary topics, but I try to handle them in a way that is responsible, have a purpose and offer suggestions on how citizens can become involved.)

Carrie Lemack from Families of 9/11 told the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism in 2007 she knows from first hand experience that offering Americans information about terror threats does not engender fear but confidence:

I was told by one senior government official that marketing and communication professionals had determined that the best course of action was not to discuss the issue publicly, since it might scare Americans.I disagree.I spent 18 months traveling from Des Moines to Columbia, South Carolina. St. Petersburg to Manchester, New Hampshire. And in all the talks and forums I attended, not one person left in fear.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Once they knew that the threat could be prevented, there was hope, even optimism.When Americans see a solution to a problem, though it may be difficult to achieve, they are quite capable of reaching their goal.I hope the next Administration is willing to talk candidly with the American public, to engage them, and to trust that they can accept the realities of the world we live in today.

As Lemack points out from her own work, officials have to give the public more credit for dealing with scary topics. With apologies to Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan Jessep in A Few Good Men, “We can handle the truth.” Here in New York City, after the Times Square attack New Yorkers may have been frightened briefly, but then we moved on and went back to worrying about quotidian urban concerns like being hit by a taxi running a red light. And, as someone who is currently dealing with a life-threatening disease, I want to be told the truth however scary it might be.

What adds to the communications challenge is that security officials sincerely do not know how, when, and where future attacks will occur? But again, Americans can handle that uncertainty if we’re told that and are able to develop a trusting, transparent and ongoing dialogue with the government. Again, officials using fear frequently and irresponsibly is very wrong. But let’s not throw the baby out with bathwater. But fear does have a role public preparedness.

…the real lesson of the oil spill may be how bad we are at dealing with unlikely but disastrous events. “We deal with them by ignoring them until they happen, and then overreacting,” says John Harrald, a professor at George Washington University’s Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management. It’s one thing to look back and figure out how the oil spill could have been prevented. It’s another to grapple with the combination of poor foresight and 20/20 hindsight that makes preventing these meltdowns so difficult.

Beam outlines several reasons for the difficulty we have with these high impact, low probability incidents:

The problem begins with the way we assess risk. The less likely an event, the less a company—or a government, or an individual—feels the need to guard against it. No one knows yet what exactly caused the BP spill. But it does appear to be an example of several systems failing at once. We know is there was an explosion (Failure No. 1) that caused the whole oil rig to collapse (No. 2), at which point the blowout preventer—a valve designed to seal off the well near the ocean floor—did not activate properly (No. 3). The chances of one of these things happening are not insignificant. The odds of all three happening at once are vanishingly small.

“Look at the expected value of a blowout of a well,” says Harrald. (”Expected value” of risk is a mathematical term that means probability multipled by consequences.) “It’s all the way down there with natural seepage and road runoff. It’s a meaningless value.” Any cost-benefit calculation would therefore ignore or heavily discount the possibility—even if the consequences are monstrous.

Another problem is that some precautions only make sense hindsight. Before 9/11 and the shoe bomber, for example, the precautions that the TSA now takes—locking cockpits, banning fluids, requiring that shoes be removed—would have seemed absurd. “It’s hard to get the public’s attention,” says Greg Shaw, also at George Washington. “It’s hard to inconvenience them based on the idea that this may happen.” Likewise, the precautions necessary to prevent the BP oil spill—some are blaming the absence of a sonar device used on rigs in Norway and Brazil to shut off the flow of oil—would probably have been dismissed as overly draconian. Now we’d be crazy not to require it. “It becomes very emotional after the fact,” says Matthew Kotchen, an professor of environmental economics at Yale University.

Then there’s the difficulty of cost-benefit analysis when it comes to low-probability, high-consequence events. The full costs of an oil spill are difficult to estimate—even decades later. After the Exxon-Valdez spill, Exxon paid more than $3.8 billion for clean-up and damage, plus half a billion dollars in punitive damages. But some lawyers argue that the true cost of the spill is much greater. There are many different ways to assess environmental damages—you could calculate it as cost to local fisheries, harm to the tourism industry, or even how much the average American would pay to keep the ocean unpolluted. If a company wanted to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of whether to pay for a particular safeguard on each of its oil rigs, where would it start? Plus, a well isn’t like a tanker; you can’t always tell how much oil it contains. So calculating the costs of an accident would that much more difficult. That doesn’t mean oil companies shouldn’t take precautions against spills. It’s just hard to calculate the value of those seemingly excessive precautions ahead of time.

Harrald offers Beam a way we should reorient our approach to these situations:

The best responses to unlikely events take a holistic look at the problem, says Harrald. Rare events “raise opportunities to look at whole systems and get the political will and public support to do something about it.” In this case, that might mean not only examining the safety of tankers and oil rigs, but also reducing our dependence on oil in favor of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. But that might be the most unlikely event of all.

The report looks at the challenge of strengthening the nation’s homeland security strategic risk management and notes the role of the public as an important stakeholder in that effort. In its introduction, the study observes that “risk tradeoffs are often political decisions that require public input, but mature methodologies for receiving such input have not been developed.”

As a result, the authors suggest in their third of 10 recommendations that:

“The president should discuss risk priorities with the American people. Before the country faces another large scale or catastrophic domestic event, the president needs to engage with the public about the government’s strategy and resource allocation decisions. The president needs to be candid with the American people about why we need homeland security and what it can reasonably achieve.

The H1n1 emergency provides an excellent launching off point for this discussion. Americans need to understand the investments that the government has made, but also the risks that the government has chosen to accept. facing this hard truth will help to stimulate a public debate on what the ‘acceptable’ level of risk may be to a set of potential threats. This debate can then send signals to policymakers to inform their resource allocation judgments.

A public dialogue should also engage community leaders, experts, and policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels to identify the most pressing risks and develop strategies for mitigating them. These strategies will all involve tradeoffs and sacrifices, but they are necessary to deal with the risks we face today and prepare the nation for the risks we are likely to face decades from now.

A consistent, mature message on this subject will help to build long-term public support for security programs and help to reduce disillusionment with the concept of homeland security resulting either from the sense that resources are being wasted because incidents are not occurring or when serious harm occurs despite our investments.”

A copy of the report can be found here.

The finalists are all good and their entries are better produced than I would have thought. Each makes useful H1N1 points in creative ways. And, the idea of asking the public to create PSA’s allows for more pushing of boundaries than if a government agency produced them. It is unlikely that the government would be able to show a man wielding a chainsaw through the streets to illustrate a version of  ’social distancing’ as one of the finalists does.

According to the rules set out in HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ own video on YouTube, contestants were asked to: “Create a 15, 30, or 60 second video Public Service Announcement (PSA) that will inform and motivate people to take steps that will help prevent the spread of the flu. Make your video fun, smart, and entertaining.”

Though I thought all the finalists were effective, only one video can win. So, in consultation with my two young daughters (my YouTube consultants), this blog picks “H1N1 Rap By Dr. Clarke” (see his entry below). In his video, Dr. Jon Clarke, in shades, raps about H1N1 prevention before concluding a little more soberly and without the sunglasses. We thought the combination was effective. If he is chosen, Clarke could be the breakout video star of the Fall.

“H1N1 RAP BY DR. CLARKE” (ABOVE). A FINALIST IN THE FLU.GOV H1N1 PSA CONTEST

It turns out that Clarke is a family physician in New York City with a music degree — and puts both credentials to good use in his entry. His YouTube page shows that he’s also rapped on behalf of diabetes awareness.

To watch all the finalists and vote go to the entry site here.

You can also view the entire group of 242 judged entries here. Most of these provide a more homemade video feel and are filled with kids, superheroes, and pigs. Some are also pretty effective. This one (below) called “Barnyard Conference” was a favorite among my kids, and it’s pretty funny (though it may not help efforts to replace the term “swine flu” with H1N1!).

ONE OF THE FLU CONTEST ENTRIES, “BARNYARD CONFERENCE” (ABOVE)

In all, I think that soliciting, unleashing and highlighting creativity from Americans with a desire to help on flu prevention — and from of a variety of ages, backgrounds, and points of view — was a terrific idea. It is fun, citizen-driven/focused, and most importantly should be effective in raising flu preparedness among the public. By the way, if you disagree with my selection please tell me why you picked one of the other finalists (or preferred one of the other 232 entries) instead.

In the context of a global pandemic — where media networks are doing their best to spice up an already serious threat — having millions of people wrap up all their fears into 140 characters and blurt them out in the public might have some dangerous consequences, networked panic being one of them. If you think that my concerns about context are overblown, here are just a few status updates from random Twitter users that would barely make you calmer (or more informed) about what’s going on. [A couple examples: "I'm concerned about the swine flu outbreak in us and mexico could it be germ warfare?"/"Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people....beef and chicken have always been meats of choice."]

For the past few days, I have been closely following the unfolding H1N1 situation on Twitter through organizations and people whose Twitter feeds I “follow” and have been distributing my blog posts through my own Twitter feed. I agree with Morozov that there is a potential for Twitter to spread misinformation and fear. However,  I would argue that thus far the platform has been largely self correcting and both the government and individual feeds have been good at directing users to reliable sources of information. Yes, it is true that if you search #swineflu on Twitter you get a melange of tweets that are not hugely helpful to someone looking for solid information or advice. But to me those are just innocuous messages which most Twitterers will read and ignore. And just as likely, they will find a tweet referring users to reliable government sources of info and guidance or a new headline. Morosov is also concerned that there is not enough solid information being distributed through Twitter: 

Here is a tough question to communication experts out there: how do we reach the digital natives out there, especially those who are only accessible via Facebook and Twitter feeds? The problem is that while thousands of concerned and misinformed individuals took to Twitter to ventilate their fears, government and its agencies were still painfully missing from the social media space; the Twitter account of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was posting updates once in a few hours — and that was probably the only really trustworthy source people could turn to online.

Right now, I think there is enough information out there (see below). But to me a bigger concern is whether the current governmental social media capability — nationally and particularly locally — is robust enough to handle a major decentralized crisis such as if Swine Flu turns into a major pandemic here. To date, the important information for the public (H1N1 numbers, general instructions) has been relatively centralized and limited. But if it the flu spreads widely Americans will be going to social media applications like Twitter looking for more detailed information (as well as offering their own reports). These new methods of distribution offer both a challenge and an opportunity for officials. The question is whether they presently have the capability to deal with it. I expect that authorities at federal, state and local level are now trying to figure out how to use social media during a pandemic. One suggestion would be to engage bloggers to help them in getting information out to the public through their channels.

As far as getting the latest news and advice on the ongoing situation via Twitter, I am following the CDC Emergency Preparedness Twitter feed (which is tied to the CDC’s main Swine Flu/H1N1 site. I also follow the U.S. Health & Human Services’ Pandemic Flu feed, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the American Red Cross (and its prolific Portland, Oregon chapter) and the American Public Health Association, Veratect (a private company that tracks disease globally) as well as individuals like Greg Dworkin, co-founder of the FluWiki and David Stephenson, a social media/disasters/e-government expert. There is another popular Swine Flu information feed H1N1Info. You might add a reliable news media resource like CNN. If your local or state government has a feed, I would also subscribe to those (in addition to any text and email alerts they offer). And then you can find trusted internet experts such as Mashable which leads you to information on how to filter out noise on Twitter about  Swine Flu or how to best utilize web tools during the outbreak. Also helpful resources are the blog Homeland Security Watch and the daily reports on the Center On Biosecurity. Please tell me if you have other suggestions.

According to the article, those groups are:

more likely to make behavior changes based on terrorism fears, such as avoiding certain activities. These groups also tend to overestimate terrorism threats, believing the risk is high even when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s color-coded advisories show the threat as low.

Dr. David Eisenman, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles was the lead author on the study whose findings are published in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Eisenman and his colleagues analyzed data from a random telephone survey of more than 2,300 Los Angeles County residents, conducted from late 2004 through early 2005 and known as the Public Health Response to Emergent Threats Survey. The participants were asked what the color was at the time for the country’s terrorism alert system, how often they worried about terrorist attacks and how often they avoided activities because of fears of terrorism.

Those who were mentally ill, disabled, black, Latino, Chinese-American, Korean-American or not U.S. citizens were more likely to think that the alert level was higher than it was and apt to worry more and change their behavior because of those fears. For instance, about 14 percent of whites surveyed said they worry very often or often about terrorist attacks, but more than 26 percent of Latinos said they did. And whereas just over 1 percent of whites changed their behavior very often or often because of their fears, more than 13 percent of Korean-Americans did.

Clearly, there is a need for the new Administration — working with states and localities — to create a more effective overall public alert system. This study underscores the fact that there is not just one ‘public’ to be addressed.

The answer is there apparently isn’t one answer. The indispensable Homeland Security Watch blog has posted a new report titled “Why We Haven’t Been Attacked Again: Competing Hypotheses for Homeland Attack Frequency” based on an open source literature review by a team from the Science Applications International Corporation and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

The 200-page report offers a number of reasons and puts them into two categories potential ideas which have been nicely summarized by Homeland Security Watch’s Jonah Czerwinski: 

Capabilities – Terrorists have been unable to succeed in conducting another large-scale attack on the homeland due to the effectiveness of U.S. defenses or because of the terrorists’ limited capabilities. The authors further address this thesis as part of two different “baskets” of issues:

• U.S. and Allied Counterterrorism Efforts: U.S. and allied initiatives have decisively limited terrorists’ capabilities to conduct attacks on the homeland by driving al-Qaeda’s leaders from their Afghanistan sanctuary, disrupting several terrorist plots, and forcing operatives to focus on preserving their own security rather than training for and carrying out new attacks. At home, potential targets have been hardened, coordination between government agencies has improved, and public awareness has increased scrutiny of suspicious behavior.

• Terrorist Attack Capabilities: Limitations on terrorist capabilities that are less dependent on U.S. and allied counterterrorism activities have prevented terrorist attacks on the U.S. This treatment suggests that a number factors independent of our anti-and counter-terrorism efforts are to credit. Examples of such factors include the time needed to recover from damage done to al-Qaeda and the requirements necessary for deploying terrorist veterans of the Iraq war, the challenged of acquiring WMD capabilities, and the broad assimilation of U.S. Muslims limiting the pool of potential “homegrown” jihadists.

Motivations – While a number of terrorist groups possess the ability to attack the United States, they have chosen not to do so for a variety of reasons. These categories are further subdivided into the following four baskets:

• Another Attack is a Bad Idea: Terrorists have concluded that another strike on the United States is ill-advised. This category suggests that al-Qaeda’s leaders prefer to wait until they can perpetrate an attack that surpasses 9/11 in terms of destruction and symbolism or that terrorists are concerned that another attack on the homeland would be counterproductive/ineffective in achieving their objectives.

• These Are Busy Times: Various groups maintain a significant attack capability, but other targets (i.e. n Europe, Middle East, and apparently China) are more attractive than the U.S. homeland due to operational challenges or political inclinations.

It is my strong feeling that engaging and including the public on these big questions, like ‘Why We Haven’t Been Attacked’, is very important — first because it is somewhere on all of our minds and shouldn’t only be discussed at barbecues, but also because the government needs to citizenry to understand that there are going to be a lot of uncertainties facing us in the years to come. To me, restoring trust and two way communication between the government and the governed on these security issues is as crucial a task as the next president, no matter who it is, will face. Letting the public in on the uncertainties that our nation faces is a good way to do begin doing that.

Post reporter Joel Garreau interviewed some leading experts in the risk communication world to understand why something like anthrax which scared us so much seven years ago is no longer really registering on Americans’ fear radar screens.  I’ll excerpt some of the explanations below because I think it’s helpful that we all understand a little bit more about ourselves in these situations:

“…The human animal cares what threatens it today, not what might have threatened it in the past,” says David Ropeik, former director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. “Survival is a progressive, not retrospective issue. What could have happened to me seven years ago doesn’t worry me. What worries me is about today and tomorrow.” Today, “seeing white powder on the counter at Dunkin’ Donuts won’t freak you out. Going past the duct tape at Home Depot — the alarm bell is not readily ringable…”

“Our estimates of the probability of risk drop rapidly, says Baruch Fischhoff, the Carnegie Mellon psychologist who is a former president of the Society for Risk Analysis and the author of “Acceptable Risk.” Originally, “people were legitimately anxious. They really didn’t know what the scope of the problem was,” Fischhoff says. “They responded the way they usually do — responsibly, bravely and somewhat nervously. ”A year later, the problem looked officially small. They couldn’t remember how worried they were a year earlier. They had learned so much, they couldn’t remember how it looked different…”

“Stocking up on duct tape and plastic sheets, however, did serve a purpose, Ropeik says. “People coming out of the store would say: ‘It makes me feel safer. At least it’s something I can do.’ ” Feeling that you can exert some control over a dangerous situation matters to humans. It’s why we fear plane crashes more than car crashes, despite all the statistics showing automobiles to be vastly more dangerous. No matter. We know we’re not driving the plane.”

But staying at battle stations is bad. “If that stress lasts more than a few hours, it weakens our immune system, damages our heart, impairs our memory and our fertility, and increases the likelihood of clinical depression and adult-onset diabetes,” Ropeik says. “Policymakers need to understand, rational or irrational doesn’t matter. Stress is really bad for people’s physical health…The human animal is taking continuous soundings against evidence in the real world, maintaining stress to the extent it is needed to survive,” Ropeik says. “We adjust to the ‘new normal.’ We get used to all kinds of stress in our lives.”

I think we — which includes the public, our elected officials and the media in particular– have to find a balance for living in post 9/11, post ‘Anthrax Letters’ America. Events like this are going to happen, and look for a way to process and manage it so we don’t get mentally see-sawed from one crisis to the next, overworrying one week and then forgetting it the next. We also have to become more comfortable and knowledgeable about new and unfamiliar threats like Anthrax so fear of the unknown doesn’t exacerbate the situation. 

We have to find an individual citizen and collective national approach and attitude to dealing with the threats of the 21st Century — not always on alert but always aware  – and understanding that something major probably will happen but we can deal with it. There is a model for us — it’s how we deal everyday with the more ‘mundane’ dangers of fire and car safety. We need to be prepared but not obsessed. In fact, I would argue that being prepared actually makes you more comfortable you can handle whatever happens.