Effective and coherent public safety messaging is essential to ensuring communities are prepared and public authorities can respond rapidly and efficiently in the event of hazard events (whether extreme weather events, major traffic incidents, flooding, regional power cuts epidemics).
Coherent public safety messaging and coordinated response is particularly important for peripheral cross-border regions where authorities and first responders in each jurisdiction might otherwise be following different protocols. Working closely with Monaghan County Council (Republic of Ireland) and the Cross Border Emergency Management Group, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD) will conduct applied research with the aim of advancing cross-border public safety messaging on the island of Ireland. This six month project will assess the current delivery of public safety messaging on both sides of the border, examine how public-safety messaging is perceived by diverse sections of the community and develop proposals for the improvement of public-safety messaging through an innovative citizen panel based co-design process. The analysis will follow a Prepare-Response-Recovery Framework, ensuring that all three emergency management phases are given due attention.
For the purposes of this project, I will lead an interdisciplinary research team with expertise in spatial planning, environmental psychology, marketing and community health. The research is funded by the Department of Defence via the Irish Government’s Shared Island Initiative.