6.1. Understand your Audiences

Understanding the cultural background, history, location, primary language, values, accessibility needs, etc. of your community’s various “audiences” is key to designing an effective communications strategy for any crisis or emergency situation.⁴⁹ To maximize lifesaving and minimize community disruption following a chemical release, each individual audience’s needs must be met during advance message preparation and approval. In-the-moment, there may not be enough time to translate, simplify, or rephrase a message. Therefore, the characteristics of the whole community – across all population segments (audiences) – should be defined before a chemical incident public messaging campaign is developed. Tools such as community-wide surveys can be used to:

Review population data
Identify locations to focus pre-planning efforts
Gain insight into the needs and concerns of specific populations
Identify populations that may benefit from different or more specific instructions, including individuals with disabilities and those that support them
Determine whether additional outreach efforts may be required to reach certain groups
Collect actionable planning data related to information access and availability during catastrophic incidents
Identify businesses, neighborhoods, or groups with existing emergency communication plans
Identify common sources of information/preferred methods of communication for the population

These surveys should identify non-traditional community groups that live, work, and gather in the community, such as farmers, the homeless, workers from other towns, people shopping, tourists, and people commuting to schools. In addition, the surveys should strive to reach traditionally undervalued, underrepresented, and underserved (U3) populations including elderly, disabled, non-documented, and homeless populations, racial and ethnic minorities, people with limited English proficiency, those impacted by the digital divide, LGBTQI+ communities, etc.

Information collected from such a survey will help public communications staff develop successful whole-community messaging campaigns. Such campaigns can be expected to include a variety of messaging types for use during a chemical incident to ensure that all persons have equal access to the information. For example, schools will need more focused messaging than the general population, and large groups of people with limited English proficiency will need messages translated into their native language(s). Audiences such as parents of schoolchildren and people with disabilities, limited mobility, and others may have questions about protective action directives that the general public does not. Farmers may require specific instruction about how to best protect their livestock, or what they may need to do with their crops. In addition, discussing the specific considerations needed by different groups with first responders (police, fire, EMS, etc.) will help them understand the different audiences within the community and any additional instructions they might receive before or while responding.

Thinking more broadly, a list of anticipated public questions from wider audiences can be formulated; these should address the concerns of both affected and non-affected localities as well as the regional, national, and international community.

Figure 45: Involving the community in chemical incident planning builds public trust.

Community surveys are also a good place to start building public trust in chemical incident planning efforts. Initially, many people and organizations (businesses, schools, etc.) will be frightened by being asked to consider the possibility of a chemical release scenario happening. Surveys that explain why they should plan for a chemical incident will go far toward gaining their trust. Existing emergency plans can be shared among similar facilities and used as a starting point for chemical incident-specific planning. These discussions present an opportunity for preparedness outreach and trust building within the community as organizations work together to plan for local risk scenarios.

6.1.1 Communicating With Underserved Communities

Recall that underserved populations, including populations of color, have faced disparate, historic and ongoing burdens and impacts from industrial chemicals, chemical facilities, chemical waste disposal, and chemical disasters. As a result, the responses of such populations to information regarding new incidents may differ from those of the larger affected community. Addressing the special concerns of these populations may require non-conventional messaging strategies, vehicles, and messaging. With this knowledge, and pursuant to the 2021 Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (EO 19385), the authors understand that these communities are less likely to have access to the resources or expertise needed to support such non-conventional approaches. As federal and SLTT agencies work to address past inequities, the development of capabilities for chemical incident communications that adequately serve all communities is hoped for and expected.

Take Action

Work with other agencies and organizations to develop, design, promote, and deliver a community survey
Analyze survey data to determine which locations may need additional support in planning for large-scale emergency responses, including chemical release scenarios
Identify populations with specific accessibility, messaging, and operational needs and note what types of messages and message delivery systems will be needed for these groups
Work with community groups to ensure messaging plans are based on a diversity of opinions and have been checked for unintentional bias
Work with community groups to formulate anticipated public questions based on the interests and needs of the community and draft messages to address these questions
Work with schools to create effective emergency response drills for their students
Determine which public-preferred news sources are among top choices for use in your jurisdiction. Include emergency notification software such as Everbridge, Emergency Alert Systems, and other programs.
Identify which news outlets, social media platforms, and community leaders are the preferred sources of information in your community

Consider

What Will You Need to Know?

Where do populations live, work, and gather?
Who works in the community, and who commutes into the area?
Does the community have places of worship that meet or gather on different days of the week?
Where are schools, daycares, assisted living facilities, shopping locations, and other community gathering locations?
Where are the most densely visited locations during the day?
Where are people during the day, evening, or at night on a typical weekday? What about over the weekend?
What non-traditional groups and special populations live, work, and gather in the community?
Where are traditionally undervalued, underrepresented, and underserved (U3) populations?
Which groups need specific or tailored instructions?
What tools are available to ensure communications are accessible to all, including those with hearing or vision impairments?
Which local venues have existing emergency plans (for any incident)? Do they have communications plans for large-scale catastrophic incidents?
What are the community’s preferred communication channels?
- Do they generally get news on a social media platform?
- During an emergency, do they look for email blasts or text alerts from official organizations?
- Do local media outlets have trusted reporters, anchors, or influencers who are well known to members of the community?
Which platforms are most frequently visited and used?
- What are the community’s preferred social media platforms?
- Which cellular providers are used in the community?
What languages are spoken, preferred, and understood in the community?

Footnotes

49. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2006). Terrorism and Other Public Health Emergencies: A Field Guide for Media.