How would citizens react to official advice in a nuclear emergency? Insights from research in three European countries

Abstract

Nuclear emergencies confront decision‐makers, emergency actors and publics with several challenges, many of which are related to social, ethical and communication aspects. Based on empirical data from three European countries, this paper investigates citizens' potential behaviour in an emergency situation. It analyses relationships between self‐assessed compliance with protective actions and a number of variables, including knowledge about protective actions, trustworthiness of communicators, perceived social norm (expectation of other residents' behaviour), perceived effectiveness and perceived difficulty of protective actions. Results suggest that most respondents expect to follow actions advised by authorities, except for leaving children at school or avoiding the use of phones. Moreover, large fractions of local and wider publics may seek to avoid risks by rejecting food produced in affected areas even when it satisfies legal norms or taking iodine tablets when not needed. Self‐assessed compliance with protective actions is positively correlated with perceived social norm, perceived effectiveness and compliance with other actions; and negatively correlated with perceived difficulty. Higher trust in the regulator is associated with higher compliance with some actions, but mostly among the local populations. We argue that clarifying and anticipating societal concerns contributes to enhancing societal resilience and the response to nuclear accidents.

Emergency responder willingness to respond during disasters: A literature review

“…Several studies also found barriers for EMS personnel to be concerned for family safety, particularly their perceived ability to communicate with family members, especially during periods of extended shifts or events that keep them away from home (DiMaggio et al, 2005;Noble et al, 2014;Turner et al, 2020). Another study suggests that, in a nuclear emergency, most responders expect to follow actions advised by authorities, except for leaving their children at school (Turcanu et al, 2020). As we have seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, risk to first responders and healthcare workers is a primary concern due to the worldwide shortage, or PPE (D'Ambrosio, 2020; Kalkman, 2021).…”

Informing the public matters: A field experiment during an ongoing health crisis in Belgium

“…In addition, organizations and authorities in charge of managing the crisis should elicit trust from the public (De Vocht et al, 2016). Research has, for example, illustrated that higher trust in authorities can increase compliance with official advice during nuclear emergencies (Turcanu et al, 2021). Organizations must therefore know to what degree crisis information is able to increase trust.…”

Returning Home after Decontamination? Applying the Protective Action Decision Model to a Nuclear Accident Scenario

“…In a nuclear accident scenario, a major uncertainty is how citizens will act [ 11 ]. From an expert perspective, the average person tends to overreact to the risk of radiation exposure [ 12 ]. For instance, if authorities instruct citizens to shelter in their homes after an incident, many will still voluntarily evacuate [ 11 , 13 ].…”

“…This study analyzed survey data ( N = 2291) from Sweden, a country that operates nuclear power plants that supply 39% of the country’s electricity [ 24 ]. The analysis drew on one of the most well-established theories dealing with citizens’ emergency behaviors, the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) [ 12 , 23 ], which, to our knowledge, had yet to be applied to the Northern European region.…”