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Why People Ignore Emergency Warnings — Even When They Understand Them · The Alerting Authority

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Jeanette Sutton.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Eddie Bertola.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we welcome you to another episode of the Alerting Authority.
• 0:12
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• 0:20
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• 0:30
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• 0:34
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• 0:39
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• 0:52
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• 0:58
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• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh today we have a fantastic professor, a fully tenured professor, joining us.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm very excited about the work that she's been doing.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Her background is really intriguing, bringing together all kinds of areas of research.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what she's doing now is really breaking new ground.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're gonna hear all about it today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But let me introduce to you first Dr.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Dee Dee Bennett Gale.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: She is an full professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity, CEHC, at the University of Albany in New York, at SUNY, which is the State University of New York, um, where she is the lead director of the Extreme Events Social Equity and Technology Lab.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in disclosure, Dee Dee and I are colleagues together on the faculty in the college.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So Dee Dee's research broadly examines the influence and integration of advanced technologies on the practice of emergency management and for use by vulnerable populations, in particular older adults, persons with disabilities, as well as racial and ethnic minorities.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Her studies have also focused on workforce development and participation in disaster management fields.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Bennett Gale has led several research grants and contracts, including from the National Science Foundation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: She employs experimental designs, qualitative one-on-one and focus group interviews, and quantitative survey analysis.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And her research explores ways to increase disaster preparedness, reduce vulnerability, and shorten recovery, primarily in the United States.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: She is an alumni of an alumnus of the SUNY Leads program.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: She holds a PhD in fire and emergency management from Oklahoma State University and an MS in public policy and a BS in electrical engineering, both from Georgia Institute of Technology.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just fantastic uh qualifications to lead the kind of study that you're going to hear about today.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we are thrilled to welcome Dr.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Dee Dee Bennett Gale.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Dee Dee, welcome to our show.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so I will be honest, Jeanette has told me, and well shall let's just say she has talked about you even as we're doing our meetings for the last week and we're talking about things coming up.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: She's been very excited to get you on the podcast.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm looking forward to getting to know you too.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and aside from your bio that was read to us, do you mind giving us, well, first, I want to know more about you and how you became a disaster scholar?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and congrats, by the way.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: I heard you reached full professor this last academic year.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, in May, in March.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I always like to break it down for all of my practitioners as I drop stuff, all my practitioners out there who don't understand the significance of attaining full professor.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's like a super big deal.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: That does not come easily here.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: So take what she says as something even more, give it more weight because she has earned it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: So with that said, I'd love to hear a little bit more about yourself.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: And do you mind talking just a little bit more about that award that you got from the state?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: And before the podcast, she was telling us about what it represents, and I'd love for you to hit some of those points.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I have a little bit of a unique start to emergency management in general.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started my career as an electrical engineer, and I was doing a lot of interesting work with um the public safety spectrum band, if anybody remembers the changes that were happening there.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was working as a lab manager for a bunch of professors, full professors at the time, who were who had uh tons of students and they were looking at um sharing the the spectrum with uh with uh what was it broadcast?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I believe Amazon, not Google and the like were interested in in having access to that as well.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept thinking that this would be a very unique case study to see if this would actually work.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh just to refresh your memory, after 9-11, uh we could not get access uh to our first responders, they couldn't get access to each other.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there was talk about how can we fix this, and one is to take out the UHF band and to use that as a public safety spectrum band.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: But since we don't have disasters like 9-11 all the time, we could um, I guess, parse it out, so to speak, to uh those who could pay for it, like broadcasters.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the time came, they're going to let our uh practitioners use it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, how do we know they're gonna do that?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we know that they're gonna actually like how we really thought that through?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, we fast forward, we didn't actually do that, but during that time period, we did move everybody from analog to digital television in anticipation for that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and a lot of technologies came out during that time.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it would be a great idea to go and get a law degree and to be on the side of looking into this.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But since I was working uh at a research center tied to Georgia Tech at the time, I said I'll do the science policy and that will get my foot in the door.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I did that, I ended up working for someone who spent several decades at the FCC and was looking at the exact same problem, but was doing it with um with the with the unique interest of people with disabilities.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: What are gonna be their challenges?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: What challenges will they face during that time period?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in working with her, Helena Mitchell, um, she introduced me to the emergency management space because she'd been working with um the folks at FEMA and IPAWS, FCC.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: She already knew all the people there and the players, and um she introduced me to this kind of world and literally twisted my arm and said, No, you don't need to get a law degree, you need to get a PhD and do research in this space because there's a there it's just a wide open space for research.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's so many things that you can do, and you have your background, you'd be able to do so much.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um I ended up going to uh Oklahoma State and getting a one of the few that have the fire and emergency management PhD degree in the US, because that was rare at the time.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We now give out a lot of these degrees, um, and and started my career in looking at um issues that were specific to disasters, um, the uh management of the disasters, the impacts on the people, and for me in particular, the ways in which we leverage technology um to help or hurt, unfortunately, um, in this space.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been really exciting because I've been able to pull and draw from all the different aspects of my background.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh throughout that, I started realizing that one of the better spaces is that we tend to see the same populations at risk, most at risk for every single type of disaster, and regardless if it's natural or human-induced.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The impacts seem to be more salient for people with disabilities, older adults, certain racial and ethnic minorities, children.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the list goes on, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, low-income populations, rural populations.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: We see this all the time.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at it, for me, that is the majority of the populations in the United States.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: When I add that up, it's like that's more than 50% of our population.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't we looking at things that are going to solve the concerns for the majority of our populations?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um so interesting enough, there's a uh a uh colleague in Sweden, Sternholm, who who coined this turn, and I thought it was great, that we operate often on the mythology of an average citizen.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that average citizen doesn't typically look like those that we keep seeing at risk.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we have to do something to switch our mindset about that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's kind of the the way in which I entered this field.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've been doing a lot of work for SUNY, you Eddie, you asked about that award.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So uh in one of the leadership institutes, I learned about a 92-year-old woman named Hazel Dukes, Dr.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hazel Dukes.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's actually won a number of honorary doctorates throughout her career.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she is a civil rights advocate, really big here in New York.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: She was the NAACP chair for the New York State chapter.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was also very highly connected with SUNY Um and with the state legislation in New York.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: She got a chance to, um, she's the person who swore in our current um governor, Kathy Hokel.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um really tied in to the community here.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And one of her things that she told me, well, she's now passed away, but she told me and a bunch of folks that were there, is that um education is super important.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm paraphrasing because she didn't say super, but education is super important.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's critical in changing the mindsets of individuals who are often marginalized in our society.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she was really big on that aspect of it and that it can open doors in which doors were previously closed before.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not just closed because of you know, nefarious reasons, but just because of not knowing, like just not being aware.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um there was an award created in her honor, in which I won for the 2026.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I was honored with that award, which is the Hazel Duke's Dr.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hazel Dukes Fellowship.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: For that fellowship, I got a chance to be mentored by a university president from within SUNY, and I had to create my own kind of capstone about what I was gonna do.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And for my capstone, I interviewed 10 SUNY presidents from all different aspects of uh of university life to ask them about what's happening with the perception, public perception of higher education and where it's going and what they thought were the challenges.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because at least one of the presidents, the one for you, Albany, is a disaster scholar, and said that uh he draws a lot on his research to be able to deal with some of the challenges of being a university president.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they all had something very similar in in mind.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um, even though they were separated, they didn't know each other's comments.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: There is a unique thread, and that is in the university system, we do a very poor job of providing the public information about what it is that we do and the research that we do and what the impact of those research is.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a long way to say thank you for having me on here.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that I'm able to convey a little bit more about my research as it relates to uh disasters and um and uh hopefully the impact of that work.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think it'll be good.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, so 2026 has been a pretty good year for you so far.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, a lot of accomplishment.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I am I'm looking forward to it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I said, I've been read into different things that you have have studied, and I am looking forward to seeing how it ties in not only on the research side, but down at that practical level to see what we can do to make our operations more efficient.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so so let's dig in because this is gonna get really good really fast.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um yes, oh, and for the people who are wondering what SUNY is, SUNY is the acronym that stands for State University of New York.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you hear SUNY or if you hear UAlbany, that's the university at Albany, that is the university that Dee Dee and I both work at, and um and where she is an associate dean and does all of her amazing things.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um we are gonna dig right in and talk about your most current study, because this is the one I'm most familiar with.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it is preparing older adults, communicating threat risk in virtual environments.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And there are so many things about this study that I want to ask you about, like uh, including things like what do we know about older adults and their vulnerability and disaster, how you study communicating threat risk to older adults and the specific threats you're focused on.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps most exciting and most interesting of all of this is how you're using virtual reality with older adults to study communicating threats, because there's all these different threads that are running together, which makes this an interesting research topic, research method.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, let's start with what do we know about older adults in disasters?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is an understudied topic, and yet our US population is aging.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: I looked it up.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's estimates of 67 million baby boomers living in the US.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Its oldest members are turning 80 this year.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is just a commute, a group that is continuing to grow.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm aging into older adult.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am, everyone is.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're all becoming more vulnerable as we as we age.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the facts.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the prominent studies that are guiding your current research around older adults in disasters?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do we need to know?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And what do we not know?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for one, it's a privilege to to age because what's the alternative, right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Second is again, like I mentioned earlier, um, I I study, I try to study the majority of the population.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look, especially here in the Northeast, we're kind of a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the United States, and that there's more older adults that are than there are 18 and under at this point.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're grow we're aging uh at a rapid pace and we're not seeing as many babies at that time, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this is our population.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make sure that they're safe for disasters?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the research right now is mixed in terms of if you pick up some of the studies, it'll say older adults are more prepared than anybody else.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You pick up others, they're saying they are super vulnerable and they tend to be um impacted the worse in every type of disaster.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think our study is kind of parsing through what they mean, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've done surveys to kind of establish what's happening with disasters and comparing that with older and younger adults.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so one survey that we've we've done, we started to, we did it three years in a row, and we're starting to see that it's not just that they are prepared, it's the type of activities that they're deciding to prepare, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ask them if they're prepared, they may not have been to a drill, but they have insurance, and so they're saying, I'm prepared.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they may not uh uh, you know, have a kit all together, but you know, they might have been through a hurricane in the past and kind of know some things and they may say that they're prepared.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you start digging in a little bit more, um the activities that older adults are doing far um outweigh some of the activities that younger adults are doing.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to the operationalizing the preparedness, it's different.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's where our great, our game kind of comes in.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have a virtual space, and the reason why we chose virtually is because how else do you test what people are going to do in the moment outside of simulating some environment for them?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh everything that we are studying currently, um, to my knowledge, 90% of it or so is based on what people remember that they did or what they think they're going to do.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's how we collect that data.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's even the the annual FEBA surveys that we're doing uh information on preparedness.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and even the AARP does a survey on preparedness.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and their survey, of course, is is they started to notice the same thing.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's not it's not if they're prepared, it's how they're prepared and what they're prepared for.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so we noticed that there's a vastly different perception of preparedness if we ask people if they are prepared for a landslide versus prepared for flooding versus prepared for chemical spill, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those are different.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even though you have uh, I want to say, like a um familiarity with one type of disaster, it still didn't account for much change in how people perceive their preparedness.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that was interest, that was a start for us.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we created a game um that is a virtual reality game on uh which we hope to have um accessible in the metaverse for anybody to pick up.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we are collecting data from people using the game.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: It allows you to test out your preparedness skills across different hazards.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: In our research, we tested it out with two hazards, which is a hurricane and a chemical spill.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we wanted the hurricane to be at least three days in advance, in which they were receiving some sort of order that would help them to evacuate the area that it was really close to it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: The chemical spill was something that they could look out the window and start to see the plume coming from a nearby um industrial area.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea was one was supposed to be sort of a shelter in place, and one was supposed to be an evacuation.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we had experiments with older adults across the north of across the uh East Coast.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we went all the way down to Georgia, had some folks in uh New Jersey, in um Atlanta.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: We also took our game and our demo to the National Hurricane Conference in both New Orleans and in um Orlando so that we can get some information from practitioners.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So at every stage, we had uh we had a practitioner input on what we should be included in there, what should work, but also testing it out for them so they could see what the people were going to see and how much would this be of use to them.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the information that we have on older adults, we should be able to, I guess, increase that body of knowledge shortly.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I think we're seeing emergency management groups and actually beyond emergency management, we're getting calls now from the fire groups and from a lot of other folks that can see some usefulness in the design of what we've what we've created.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that they would be able to use the data that's coming out of the game.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we're able to now tell you what people did first, um, how long it took them to make a decision, how many decisions they went through before they before they decided to take some action.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can also tell you a little bit more about um things along the protective action decision-making model.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, since we use that as sort of a theme to like how we're gonna lay everything out, we could tell you if they're going to the window and looking out the window to see anything, or if they're making decisions solely on their phone.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Are they using social media more than television?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or the people that use television make a completely different decision than those that are using no weather radio.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we're able to tell a lot more information to emergency managers about how this population is making decisions.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: That that's hopefully being collected on the other end.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we'll hopefully use some machine learning to start spilling this out and being able to say what's happening at certain populace as they are connected to each other.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know that was a lot.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm taking notes because it kind of tips into the other question.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: That we want to ask you.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but you're specifically putting older adults into these VR contexts.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's we are going to learn a lot about their decision making in particular, the timing, the order, the kinds of tools that they're using to get digital information to make their decisions.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I I I love that you figured out how to study a population by putting them into an environment that is safe for them, but you can actually observe their real-time decision making, which is has been a gap and inaccessible to anyone who conducts surveys, experiments, interviews, anything that's retrospectively looking back or like what you said, prospectively looking forward.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would do this.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: You actually able to observe them in real time.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that um bridges a gap that has been present for a very long time in our research.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: So well, well done.
• 23:03
  unknown: Thank you.
• 23:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, we used a number of different models um from not just disaster theory, but also information science theories, um, psychology theories, so that we're testing a bunch of different things.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you asked about how older adults are taking to the idea of being in virtual reality.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a question that we've received from so many practitioners.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: How does this act?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do they actually like it?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: My my group would never do this.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I will tell you, um, we started out with um the AARP study on the technology use for those of us who are 55 and older.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and at every stage, older adults, and I know 55 isn't what we consider older adults, are using technology at very similar clips uh as the younger adults.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: The difference is that they typically are more selective with the technologies that they use.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one thing that showed up in the ARP study that we were kind of testing, because you know, that's just a a nationwide survey of like 15 plus thousand people, um they want to do things that are gonna help their health and well-being.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So using that as a as a model, we said if we pitch this as this is going to help you be more prepared, it'll help you um weather different storms or um get through different disasters.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have had success in just the sheer enjoyment that older adults have with one being targeted, having people to talk to, having someone that's going to help them through this new technology.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a lot of people that are just interested just because of that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're you're taking the time to be interested in us.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our average age of participant was 78.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we created the the game thinking that um most had never been in virtual reality, and we were wrong.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, several of them have used virtual reality before.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the most popular that we heard is a specific game called Barfight.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, our older adults are using barfight on virtual reality because it is really cool because you just walk up to the bar and you start a fight, and I was just like, Are you serious?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: They've moved from bowling, virtual bowling to virtual bar fighting.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Bar fight.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the information science theories we use was um the technology acceptance model, in which we tested the pre- and post after our experiment, whether or not there was a change in how they perceived technology, especially older adults.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually had significant results in that um they changed their perception on how they thought technology worked, if it worked the way the mind worked, um, on their perceptions of themselves, if they thought they were more technically savvy on their use and knowledge of knowledge, uh the knowledge that they gained in there.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: They felt like it was going to help them.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also in um helping them to reduce the stigma of shame of not knowing uh about a technology and the their convenience, the convenience of the technology.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them were like, I don't, I am going to mess up your experiment because I've never used this before and I don't do games.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a lot of people said the same thing before they got in there.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then we gave them the controls, we put the headset on them, and once they got the rhythm of it, um, it was after because they went in three different times.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the first time they were all like, Wow, oh my gosh, I can't believe I was inside this game.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's so cool.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know how to move yet.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: But by the third time, they were like, now I got the hang of this.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do more of it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um the idea of using older adults, we have not had a problem with that at all.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: And now they're ready for bar fights.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're ready for bar fight.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, if they're already doing bar fights, then this is not because we're dealing with preparedness of a disaster.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're not actually throwing people in the midst of a disaster, not like a roller coaster ride.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are in a seated position the entire time.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've put everything that we could think of, but anytime someone hears about it, they're concerned, like for the well-being of the people that we play in this game.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it's not, it's, you know, it's no more than using your phone.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: It literally is not that that big a deal.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we haven't had any any major concerns at all with using because people were concerned about like balance and and like you feel like you're spinning around inside of a game, and you or when you've seen those videos of people who put on the VR goggles and then they're inside a roller coaster, and when it's going up the hill, they lean back, and when it's going down, they're like scared.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not like that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: People are seated and they're just engaging in some other activity that doesn't require them to feel like they're off balance.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And for our viewers, I was just acting out, or for our listeners, I was acting out going on a roller coaster in VR.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you're welcome.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: What's gonna be funny is if in post-editing our our editor starts putting in a roller coaster behind that just to show how to work.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: No, I you know it's interesting.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: So my dad is in his in his mid-70s and uh baby boomer, and you know, his ability to utilize technology, I mean, it's as good as me, if not, I would say even even better, has been able to adapt.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: What I think is one of the big differences is not necessarily the the use of it, but the dependence on technology.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: And my my comparison, and I'm sure it's gonna sound snarky, but we'll go with it, is if if someone needs to change a tire, I can depend on my dad, and I mean they can go out there and they can change a tire.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: If I look at some of maybe the more younger population, they're gonna have to watch a YouTube video of somebody commenting on another video of them changing a tire to then make that decision.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, do I want to do this?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's I I think it's gonna be fun.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: I love the fact that you put them in a virtual reality situation.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I honestly want to play the game at some point.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: And if I make it up to Albany again, I may I may just ask to participate, um, and then I will do a commentary on how cool the game was.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um But for our I I want to I want to transition this to things that we've learned for alerts and warnings.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I have some stuff for you guys.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: I need it.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I am I've always been a big proponent of trying to leverage technology to not only find um if if we're talking about our older adults, right, but to provide them with enough information so that they're empowered to make decisions on their own safety, on actions they need to take.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: But one thing I I would love to hear from you is what hazards have you found that they're more susceptible to, that we as practitioners should know?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then how do their communication needs, how how is it different than the other population?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you for mentioning the fact that we always say like the average and the majority of the population, the fact that our minorities are greater than that fake majority.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um so can you give us some insights in that?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm I'm telling you, it will probably um impact how we're moving forward.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we have not we created the game All Hazards.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um it has spun out into its own um startup in which we're literally building out more hazards um and testing it out.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't have the answer for you on on all the different hazards because we only did the two for uh the research to prove like proof of concept.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can tell you is that given that I went to our is my esteemed colleague Dr.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sutton here and asked, can you give us the best messages so that that can be one of our controls within the game?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um her group created wireless emergency alerts for us.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what pops up inside of the game.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we actually use the NOAA weather radio readout, and we have um the emergency alert system that shows up on the TV screen.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have a whole host of everything else.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we have social media feed that has a bunch of AI created stuff that people can look through and see what's going on.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um most of our older adults uh looked at the alert on their phone first.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um majority of them had to look at three different items before they made a decision on whether to leave or to go.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the second thing was either TV or cell phone.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So for those who didn't do the cell phone first, they looked at the uh the TV.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then uh we had a number of trying to get more information from a different from different sources.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: So either they went out and looked outside or they scrolled through something else on their phone.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: We even had a contact a friend on there, my family friend.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we had um they could go to TV.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we we tracked who was going to the news source or who was going to look at, and yes, it was pre-populated in there.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: We put bonanza.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So some people did watch bonanza instead of instead of something else in there.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what we found was something very unique in that um when we compared across the hazards, people tend to do what they're most familiar with.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: It may not have anything to do with the message itself.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm familiar with a this type of disaster and this is what I do, and so they kept doing that thing.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think one of the key takeaways from, and I'm gonna say a relatively small subset of people because we are still trying to collect more data, but you know, we've got 52 older adults and we're still looking for more.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: This it's kind of a lot, you know, that's that's more than 52 hours of work we're collecting this data.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there is a there is a clear, distinct pattern and that they're selecting the same thing for each each um hazard that they're in.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So those that are familiar with sheltering in place, select shelter in place for both of them, no matter which one they receive first or not, because we randomized that as well.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they will, if they evacuate, they evacuated both.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: The least amount of protective action decision making, I'll say, was the correct one in our study.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were very few people who actually said, I'm going to shelter in place for this chemical spill and I'm going to evacuate for this hurricane.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like significantly late.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we also have a biased sample, and we know that because we have people who self-selected to be in this study.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have people who said, you know, I who are are when we look at their income level and education level, it kind of skews high.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: They understand the messages very clearly.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when we ask them why did they do what they did, it often fell back to, I was more familiar with this thing, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or I sheltered in place because I looked out the window and I didn't like what was there.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Shelter in place was the most important, the biggest thing that they did.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I shelter in place.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go outside with that chemical spill.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to go outside because it was raining.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I just did inside.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the end result.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like they understood everything that was on the messages, but they decided something else.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'm getting to a point where there's a gap at knowledge or gap in our understanding to say, what is what is it that we're missing?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an understanding of the message.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's something else that we need to get to in terms of getting people prepared.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what to call that yet, but it's, I got the message.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I understood it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it three times, and I still decided to do this other thing because of something more internal.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we have some research that we still we're still analyzing research because we asked some fatalism questions.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to see if maybe that had something to do with it.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have um information about um self-efficacy, risk perception, that sort of thing.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even their perception on um trust in practitioners and trust in the government.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have all of these things that we have to pair with what we're seeing from the actual study and their decisions going through.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that's probably not the answer.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, wait, what?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I like it a lot.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like one thing that that I've just seen out in the field is they're more comfortable in their home.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: And stepping outside their home for any reason can can be uncomfortable, even if it may be the right decision.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like if we're asking them to leave, the home is where that that is where they feel they're safe.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so no, I think there's a lot of good information out there.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: There's so many questions.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: The thing I wrote down that I know I'm gonna look at for policy and and for how we do it.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned the three different sources.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because we we've talked about that on the show.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: We've talked about, but for for this population, if if they are looking at three different things before they make a decision, then we as practitioners need to do our best to provide multiple avenues for them to get it from a trusted source.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's great.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's still confirmed, very much so.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, I very few people made a decision right after the first prompt.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's milling.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's information confirmation.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's milling.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have more information about milling than a little bit.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And our audience knows milling.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you so kind of walk me through the scenario real quick about hurricane and chemical?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the time that they received the message, because you're talking about the environmental cues, they can actually choose to go and look out the window and see uh crews that are coming to clean up the chemical spill, or they can see bad weather coming.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think that the I mean hurricane has a tends to have a much longer onset period?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Chemical tends to be like, you don't know it's coming.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: So exactly.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is it do you think that the timing of the message for hurricane that if the message was issued um, you know, two days in advance before they start to see the rainfall, they would choose to evacuate.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Does that timing thing make a difference in your study?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So for hours it was three uh uh we had 36 hours at one advance more.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a 36 hours coming kind of thing.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that changed is they just started to see a little bit of rain, um, but it was not hurricane level rains in there.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was just to signify something happening outside.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um but so it looked like just any other maybe inclement, slightly inclement day, but not necessarily um there was no winds or any of that stuff happening.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I don't know.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then we because we talked about that and said, hey, you see that it said um was it the message said uh yeah, 36 hours.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's like there's a warned, like there's a hurricane kind of coming.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, Yeah, but I just didn't want to be outside.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be upside.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this this warning is up issued up to 36 hours before conditions could begin, is what it said.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you also have to be collecting their prior experience with that hazard to know if they've chosen to evacuate in the past.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if they have, then they know what goes along with evacuating for a hurricane.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't want to do it, yeah.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh the second highest was a lot of people evacuating for the chemical spill.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we did have that happening too.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they decided to leave because they saw it and wanted to get out of the way or something, you know.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to like yeah.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when we were when we designed this and chose these two scenarios, um, it was just after um, I can't remember which hurricane that was.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: There was a hurricane that came through and it actually touched Georgia and it caused um a chemical plant to malfunction, and it was a plume.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was like two or three competing kind of things happening.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: There was a tail end of the pandemic, uh, there was the hurricane, and then there was this um plume that was outside.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, having previously lived in Georgia and have a lot of friends and family that live there, I kept hearing uh from friends that they would go outside and they were coughing.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe it.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why are you outside?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're coughing in the smoke, you're you're pretty close to wherever this is.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what sparked us to say, let's do something that's definitely not a natural hazard.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um and something that could happen anywhere, right?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because so many, so many of our research studies focus either on natural hazards or on human-induced.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be a little bit confusing and lead to some misunderstandings about, I believe, about preparedness, about what people understand.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And combining the two in this study has often given us something else is that, yeah, it's not about the hazard as much as it's what are people understanding.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: They read this, what did they understand, and what else are they adding to it?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's the part that I'm really trying to get out in a research standpoint.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that we are adding to it?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're getting deeper into a psychological kind of profile of people more than you know, factual details of we've issued this warning and you trust that it's more something else that's happening.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's with other populations.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, it's pretty prominent with the older adult population.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um you remind me so this has been a while ago, Eddie, that I contributed with the messages, but um, can you remind me if the chemical spill message told people about the potential impacts of being exposed to the chemical?
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it says a chemical release has occurred in the area.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Exposure may cause difficulty breathing, loss of coordination, burning in the eyes, and possibly death.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people still left the house.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: They all read the message and we watched them read it.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and some still left the house.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some of them were like, Well, I don't want to be in that area.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was literally like they understood it, but then they were like, I just don't want to be there.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, it says if driving, go inside and stay indoors, close the doors, lock the windows, that kind of thing.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Check the websites.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: We actually gave them other information, you know, um taping windows and things like that.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: But that's so interesting.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Eddie, I see you have a question.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know you gotta wait.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: I got two questions.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm waiting for time with the full professor, with the other time from the professor, and like, okay.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm being really good.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, please hold your questions until we've completed our conversation.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, uh uh Didi, we did a recent a recent study that showed how important that impact information is in people's ability to make a decision.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: But what your research is showing is that there's more to it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's there are more things going on that impact information is still information they really need for making a decision.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: But in this case, it may have been maybe they needed more about protective actions about how to protect themselves.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't feel like they needed to get out of the area.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean maybe something like you could be you will be safe indoors, do these things.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Follow something, right?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I I don't know.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was so, but at least 20% of our population evacuated.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Still trip to evacuate.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yikes.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we gotta get to the bottom of this one.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, Eddie, what are you No, I I have I'm really enjoying this, and I'm thinking that I'm going through real life scenarios that I've been through and thinking how we did it and wondering if that was the right way or if it could be done better.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously the answer is hopefully everybody listening, it can always be done better.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why that's why you continue to learn, right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so a couple just like Jeanette, I take notes on all these things because it's it's real.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, first, the cart rights from Bonanza, I mean, they're a trusted source.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: So the fact you had them on there, I would trust what the cart rights said.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if they were providing anything.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um two, I can hear um director, uh, the iPod's director, Manny Centeno.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've ever met him, worked with him.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: I can literally hear a voice in my head right now from him saying, Yes, this is it, because you mentioned the emergency alert system.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it's one that is often avoided by so many practitioners because we can't geotarget it very well.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: And and whereas, you know, everybody is, you know, married to the whole wireless emergency alert as the latest and greatest switch.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: In theory, it it's very nice.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: But a tried and true is the emergency alert system, which has the scrolling on the TV with the radio.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned Bonanza, which again, why that's important for all the listeners is as people are watching a traditional broadcast TV, that is a method they would get alerts and warnings from.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's it's significant for practitioners to hear it from you that using the emergency alert system, and again, appropriately within the bounds and all of that, but is a way to get information to, again, this population that you studied.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Would that be correct?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um louder because they still go to the TV.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was a toss-up between going to see what their um local news anchor is saying, or listening to something which, I mean, I guess they would get the EAS either way, but yeah, they were they were going to the TV.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: They did because it was there.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: We put a TV, there was only one TV in the house, and they wanted to go there, and they had a choice to go somewhere else.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not as many went to the NOAA weather radio.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that was interesting to me.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when they did, it was the first choice for those people.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when they knew about it, they were like, I went to Noah Weather Radio, that would be a first choice, and then it drops off.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: No one went to it as a second or third.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: I can literally hear him going, boom, I told you.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because he's he's been trying to evangelize this.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it in in reality, it's it's really sad because what I see as a trend right now for practitioners is they're choosing to send a message.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_03: They use one method to send it, which is generally a wireless emergency alert if they choose it, and there are no other supplement uh methods to push out information to give people more.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: And your study highlights that where it took three different um to get people to make that next step.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a follow-up one I have a question on in the study.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_03: Did you guys look at the proficiency of the English language for your participants and how you know if if they could understand it?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because what what I've seen, again, from the I guess the real world side is a lot of um that population um speaks many different languages.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um a lot of them are, you know, I I have encountered amazing multilingual immigrants and others from other countries where English is everybody says the second language, but as you talk to people who move in here, folks, they're they're like on language number four or five.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so tell me, did that play into it and do you have any insight from that?
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that was part of our um exclude uh inclusion criteria.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we did have some inclusion criteria for the study.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that was just to keep us um kind of safe and know that we're gonna get what we need.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had to um have an eighth grade reading letter level.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: We did not test them on that reading level.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was self, you know, yes, I I can read at an eighth grade level.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just by uh looking at the the other demographic data week, how we don't have a concern that anybody was lying about.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some most of them have degrees, you know, college level degrees.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that wasn't as much of a concern.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them have GEDs and things like that, or at least a high school diploma.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we were not concerned because our our barrier was an eighth-grade reading level.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I believe that if you know they read and not skimmed, you know, and and we can kind of tell a little bit about that because we have eye tracking software that we were looking at inside the game, but they read the the information.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them read it out loud, so we we know because we can hear them doing it.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: But uh so yeah, it's not that they didn't know how to read.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, comprehension is another is another thing.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that wasn't a challenge.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I do think that we do have to consider the reading level for uh warning messages.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that I've mentioned to the National Weather Service because when thinking about putting all the information that they put on their website, I don't think it's at the level of our average citizen, if we're gonna go back to that.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that average citizen in the US does not have uh, you know, multiple degrees in um earth and atmospherics to understand all of the stuff coming through it.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, um, there is a website, and I can't think of it on top of my head that I go to.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: It actually breaks down the literacy in each one of our states.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've gone to that a couple of times to see where the average citizen in that state or that county what their reading level is, and then you can kind of go from there in terms of are they gonna understand this message?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have things in here like um, you know, certain things like what types of coordination.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't even see.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think you did pretty well with these, but typically we have things inside the alerts that are above people's reading comprehension.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that would be a good one.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one thing I want to say before we end is that this game is um could be very useful for emergency managers.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not just the data that comes out of it, but one of the things we noticed is with the groups of population that we were working with, they say, yeah, people come in all the time and they're handling us pamphlets or we have a workshop or something.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because at least one we went to a uh a senior center.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then it wasn't until after they played our game that they came out and said, Oh, now I want to talk to an emergency manager.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have some questions.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have I have things that are pertinent to me that now I understand better to ask them.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like it's a good pairing with emergency managers as they do, or not even just emergency managers, but anybody who's doing any sort of training on preparedness.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that could be Red Cross or it could be, you know, I I've talked to some folks that are doing it from the public health space.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: As you're teaching people about preparedness, having a game like this is actually sparking some curiosity and and questions that are more personal that would get at the heart of some of the things that are keeping people from doing whatever it is you're asking them to do in the moment.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's where I saw this as a aha moment for me was like, oh, you know, it's not gonna replace anything.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna help add to the conversation.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: But now they have better questions for you.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and your your answers are likely gonna be um more salient for them and things that they can actually take and and and and change.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the next start stage of our um design is we we did the pre and post-test survey, but we're trying to do a six-month test survey to see if it changed actual behavior um beyond you know the game.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Did they change their behavior out in the streets and in the public and in their own homes as it sparked some information for them?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where that's where we are now.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am I'm just thrilled with the work that you're doing and how much this is going to contribute to our ability to improve our alert and warning messages in general.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: I can see all kinds of new research questions emerging from the data that you're collecting.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we spend so much time talking about the importance of trying to help people to be motivated by connecting with the dangers, because it's so hard to get people to believe they're in danger.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: But how do we now balance that out with efficacy and um so that people are making the decisions that are going to truly protect themselves instead of putting themselves into greater danger, perhaps?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, that that's that's a question that health communication scholars have been looking at for a long, long time.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it, you know, it just reinforces the need for us to do that.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you for bringing that together with the population you're studying and this super cool technology and um you know, just really moving things forward in a way that um it's it's building new knowledge.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh thank you so much, Dee Dee, for joining us today.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you and for sharing.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's really terrific.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to come back and tell us what you learned six months from now.
• 54:23
  unknown: Right.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, just going back a little bit with older adults, a lot of these senior centers actually have virtual reality headsets for them.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are already using them to visit different countries and cities.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they never have to leave their area.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I realize that the whole idea of virtual reality has been used across all these different fields for older adults.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something to not be scared of.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the data that we're collecting, we also hope will help with that data-driven decision making that emergency managers are now faced with and help on the preparedness side of things.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: How can we get more funding into preparedness if maybe we can show some metrics of success there?
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that's another area.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's really terrific.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very exciting.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm looking forward to learning more.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and and again, it's a population that's just increasing.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right in size.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and we honestly, your opening says it.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: And and I hope we can replay that opening too, is all these different segments that are the minorities, right?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um across you know, many different things, really are the majority.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what we need to be focusing on, and we need to do a better job of that.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: Easy.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the census.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, look at older adults, and then look at younger adults and add that number, and you're already close to 50%.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're like probably at 40, 42%, um, somewhere around there.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then you start adding in all the other groups, and you're like, how?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: How is this possible?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is not um can rapidly retain a lot of information and move very quickly during an evacuation, is gonna understand everything you're gonna what you're saying, and and has the autonomy to do so.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to think about all those different groups.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think we learned a lot.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'm saying that because we take notes and I know I reference it often, but the things that stuck out to me were the three different sources that the milling, right, that happened before an action was taken.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_03: And why it's so important for us who are sending the messages to understand that that we need to provide multiple areas where someone can grab that information or confirm it.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: Again, it's not that we're gonna provide them with the phone number of a family friend, right?
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_03: But just having trusted sources where we can may help them to make that process a little faster.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other one was I love the fact that they use the emergency alert system as a method to provide information.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because while, again, they were watching, you know, a TV show, um, it's just it's one of those things that I think, and this is just perception, and I could be absolutely wrong, is the older population, if they're watching the standard broadcast TV, um, that that's a really potentially effective way for them to be notified that something's happening.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: So, no, I really thought this study was very pertinent to what we're doing today.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: And tapping into an older population as the the study population, super important.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um not only because we're aging into that population, knowing that I qualify for the 55 and older.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: Take the discount, Jeanette.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: I get my discount.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've I yeah, I've been eligible for a little while.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, this population is growing dramatically and we're facing more hazards as our bodies continue to become more vulnerable.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we may not, we don't recognize the vulnerability until we actually encounter it and realize that we're not as as capable.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not due to our personal levels of fitness, physical fitness, it's just that our bodies are different.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I love that she's doing research with older adults.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and this question that that I started to zero in on about impact-based warnings or impact information in a warning and how important we've identified that to be, because that's the information people go looking for, but coupling that with the protective action guidance.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm sure that some of the people that we've trained will listen to this podcast and say, see, we question whether or not you should say that people could be injured or if they're exposed to something, it could lead to death.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's the language is too strong.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't believe that that's the case with what she was explaining, because people who are exposed to a message that says, if you are exposed to this, you could die, and therefore you should stay indoors, but then they choose to go outdoors.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's more about hazard literacy and understanding.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exposure means putting yourself in harm's way, going outside when you could be exposed to this toxic chemical.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the impact information remains pertinent in in terms of the information that was provided, that we need to figure out other ways to increase people's efficacy, their ability to take the action that's correct for them.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really the challenge that's that's going to remain for us as we continue to kind of crack this code of how to improve the messages.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do wonder what was included in those NOAA messages about chemical or about uh the hurricane that might have not tipped them in the direction of what protective action they should take.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_03: No, there I think that and there's definitely more to study.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the really fun part about when you get a case study like this is not only do you see the findings right, but also the gaps are identified or the future opportunities to study.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because again, whether this is someone who's just getting into this world, right, where you've lived for so long.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I have that Hollywood mindset sometimes of, well, you guys studied it, so you should know all the answers.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_03: And in reality, it it provides almost just as many questions as it does answers.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, is that a correct absolutely?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think you know, we talked about this recently on another podcast about the methods that we have to collect the data and analyze the data.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: And putting people in a VR system is one of the very few ways that we can actually introduce them to a threatening situation without triggering all kinds of institutional review board issues.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you cannot people put a person in this situation physically because it's endangering them.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: But you can have somebody sitting and looking at something and then capturing their decision making in this virtual space in a way that um is totally ethical and it gives us tremendous insight that we previously didn't have.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now, she said she spent 52 more than 52 hours gathering data for 52 participants.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is an extremely time-intensive data collection method, teaching people three different times how to get in and use the system, even those who may have been familiar with VR.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is this is why research is expensive.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's why it takes a long time to collect the data.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, setting up the stimuli, getting the participants, collecting the data, and then the analysis of the data.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's a massive undertaking.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive time-wise, it's expensive financially.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: She's got a great team of graduate students that are helping her to collect the data.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's it's a big investment and um lots of new questions coming out.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of questions.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's but bottom line is it does it will save lives.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_03: I really think it will.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's where it's it's all worth it to do.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, perfect.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, folks, you guys, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Alerting Authority with our amazing professor, in addition to our professor who is on with us all the time.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and again, the Alerting Authority is here to help share your story because every second has a story.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_03: And we hope you join us next time as we continue to share yours.