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THIS PROJECT ENDED MAY 2025.
Jeannette Sutton (PI) with Ramon Gil-Garcia and Derek Werthmuller (Co-PIs).
A significant gap remains for most alerting authorities in local jurisdictions across the United States, where the focus has been on technology for message distribution (that is, how to get the message to those at risk) rather than education, training, and tools to improve message design for imminent threat communication. Indeed, the need for message templates, including appropriate content to populate templates for a range of hazards, has been reinforced by emergency managers and risk communicators across the U.S. (see, for example the DHS S&T Report on Alerting Tactics, August 2018).
This project will address this gap by developing a tool - the Message Design Dashboard (MDD) - to help emergency managers to write effective messages for public alert and warning, and develop presentations, training materials, and workshops to educate alerting authorities on how to develop effective public alert and warning messages. At the conclusion of the MDD design, project team members will conduct training seminars/workshops at events and conferences as directed by FEMA.
Sutton, J., Cain, L.B., Waugh, N., & Olson, M.K. (2024). Message canceled, orders lifted: An examination of post-alert messages sent as Wireless Emergency Alerts. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Olson, M. K., Sutton, J., Cain, L. B., & Waugh, N. A decade of wireless emergency alerts: A longitudinal assessment of message content and completeness. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
Cain, L. B., Sutton, J., & Olson, M. K. Wireless Emergency Alerts and organisational response: Instructing and adjusting information in alerts. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
Sutton, J., Olson, M. K., Walpole, H., Cain, L. B., Waugh, N., & Wood, M. M. (2025) The complete message is the best message: The case for standardizing Wireless Emergency Alerts. Natural Hazards Review. 26(3).
Walpole, H.D, Sutton, J., Olson, M., Cain, L., & Wood, M.M. (2025) Burning
Doubts: Effects of Jargon in Wildfire Emergency Messaging on Receivers with Differing Experience. Risk Analysis.
Walpole, H. D., Sutton, J., & Olson, M. (2025). Are we safe yet? Experimental
analysis of emergency post-alert messages. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Cain, L., Sutton, J, Olson, M., Waugh, N., Bertola, E. J. (2025). Evaluating AMBER
Alerts: Developing the Missing and Endangered Persons Message Framework. Police Practice and Research.
Olson, M., Walpole, H., Sutton, J., Cain, L. B., Waugh, N., & Wood, M. M. (2025) The impact of hazard naming in Wireless Emergency Alerts: Enhancing protective
action decision making and organizational attitudes. Journal of Risk Research
With Co-PI, Michele Wood
THIS PROJECT ENDED DEC. 2024
When people choose to discontinue using Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and other alerting systems by opting out or deleting them, there can be a devastating impact on ability of mobile warning systems to alert members of the public about earthquakes and other imminent threats. Unfortunately, little is known about how alerting authorities, who are empowered to issue formal Wireless Emergency Alerts, and members of the public define, understand, and respond to the notion of “over-alerting.” Thus, understanding how implementation of our alerting systems may be considered “over-alerting” by alerting authorities and members of the public, and how this may relate to “opting out”, is essential.
Sutton, J. & Wood, M.M. (2025). Opting Out: Over-alerting and Warning Fatigue in an era of Modern Emergency Alerts. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
THIS PROJECT ENDED APRIL 2025
Nick Bassill (PI) with Jeannette Sutton, Eric Stern and Chris Thorncroft (Co-PIs)
When one imagines deadly weather conditions, hurricanes, snowstorms or tornadoes are generally the first phenomena to come to mind. However, extreme heatwaves (and extreme temperature in general) are significantly more deadly on an annual basis. Extreme temperature impacts are also modulated by a variety of factors both socioeconomic (e.g. access to air conditioning) and geographic (e.g. proximity to water bodies, sea-breezes, etc.). Despite these characteristics, extreme temperature products issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) are rarely more granular than county-sized. The New York City (NYC) urban environment is the embodiment of many of these challenges given its high-density population, varied urban landscape features, proximity to many water bodies, and the presence of socially vulnerable groups.
In this project, Jeannette will focus on communicating extreme heat to non-expert users and members of the public. Her research team will conduct card sorting interviews, quantitative content analysis, and user interaction studies.
Olivas, S., Sutton, J., & Olson, M.K. (2024) Unlocking Potential: Analyzing the
content, style, structure, and interactivity of Mesonets as operational dashboards. Weather Climate and Society. 16(4) 681-690.
Olson, M. K., Sutton, J., & Waugh, N. (2023). Tweeting the Heat: An Analysis of the National Weather Service’s Approach to Extreme Heat Communication on Twitter. Weather, Climate, and Society, 15(4), 963-977.
Sutton, J., Waugh, N., & Olivas, S. (2023). Communicating about Extreme Heat: Results from Card Sorting and Think Aloud Interviews with Experts from Differing Domains. Weather, Climate, and Society.
THIS PROJECT ENDED SEPTEMBER 2025
Headed by PI, Micki Olson, this project investigates how the public understands and interprets extreme heat risk communication from the National Weather Service and NOAA.
Olson, M. K. & Sutton, J. (2025). Bridging the gap between National Weather Service
heat terminology and public understanding. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.