Exploring the Use of Wireless Emergency Alerts for Notifications Regarding COVID-19: Initial Lines of Inquiry

Abstract

US and international officials have sought ways to effectively use mobile technology to communicate health information to help thwart the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study offers a preliminary exploration into the use of the state-level (N ¼ 6) and local-level (N ¼ 53) Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) for notifications regarding COVID-19 in the US. The study compares changes in reported rates of infections and deaths between states and localities that issued WEA messages in March and April of 2020 with states that did not. Small sample sizes and differences in the rates of COVID-19 spread prohibit robust statistical analysis and detection of clear effect sizes, but estimated effects are generally in the right direction. Combining statistical analysis with preliminary categorization of both WEA message content and social media themes suggests that WEA messages might play an important role in instructing people to take protective in response to COVID-19. These initial lines of inquiry will be further developed in subsequent research.

Testing the public’s response to receiving severe flood warnings using simulated cell broadcast

“…If awareness of hazards correlates to exposure to hazard narratives, and thence to hazard preparedness, our results support previous arguments for public education as part of emergency planning across a wide range of emergency warning scholarship (Heath and Palenchar 2000;Gow 2009;Bean et al 2014Bean et al , 2015Bean 2019). The public health crisis brought about by the emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019 only emphasises the strong relationship between public responsiveness, emergency planning and crisis resilience (Bean et al 2021). If similar workshops were repeated with a post-COVID-19 cohort, we would anticipate a wide range of differences in risk sensitivity, behavioural expectations and perceptions of message authenticity.…”