Communicating Risk to Student Populations

Campus emergency managers often face challenges in encouraging participation by student populations. Students are often unconcerned about hazard mitigation on college campuses and are limited in the range of personal actions they can take. Communicating risk is complicated by social, cultural, linguistic, and technological barriers. Unlike crisis communication which is often acute, time sensitive information that dictates a sense of urgency or need for self-protection, risk communication usually requires long-term outreach and message saturation to prompt changes in behavior. Since student populations have little vested interest and usually only spend a few years on campus, risk communication requires early intervention and sustained messaging on a level at which students can relate. This session focuses on tools to engage student populations in disaster resistant university planning, programs, and actions