Spotlights

Redesigning Emergency Alerts for a quicker response
Despite the widespread use of mobile phones for delivering emergency alerts, current systems do not prompt recipients to take protective action. By examining people's responses to alerts, the researchers propose several measures to enhance the effectiveness of alert systems.

Kazuya Nakayachi, a Professor at the Faculty of Psychology, and his colleagues propose improving phone alerts to enhance emergency response times based on their study of Japanese earthquake alert reactions.

The effectiveness of emergency alerts delivered to our phones depends on how quickly we take protective actions upon receiving them. In this study, Nakayachi and his colleagues examined the actions of people who received earthquake warnings on their phones and found that most did not take protective actions. They suggest that most people are not adequately trained to respond to such alerts and propose measures to improve the effectiveness of earthquake alerts.

Reference
Kazuya Nakayachi, Ryosuke Yokoi, James Goltz, Human behavioral response to earthquake early warnings (EEW): Are alerts received on mobile phones inhibiting protective actions?, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 105, 2024,104401, ISSN 2212-4209
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104401

For more details, please see the website of Organization for Research Initiatives and Development, Doshisha University.  
[Research News] Improving the Effectiveness of Earthquake Early Warning Systems

This achievement has also been featured in the “EurekAlert!.”
NEWS RELEASE 21-MAY-2024, Improving the Effectiveness of Earthquake Early Warning Systems

Image Credit:Flash Flood Warning- Cell Phone Wireless Emergency Alert by Tony Webster
License type: CC BY 2.0