What information do people use, trust, and find useful during a disaster? Evidence from five large wildfires

The communication system through which information flows during a disaster can be conceived of as a set of relationships among sources and recipients who are concerned about key information characteristics. The recipient perspective is often neglected within this system. In this article, we explore recipient perspectives related to what information was used, useful, and trustworthy in a wildfire context. Using a survey (n = 873) on five large wildfires in 2009 and 2010, we found significant gaps between the sources that were used by the most respondents and those that that they rated as useful or trustworthy. The sources that were used most before the fires were highly correlated with the sources that were used most during the fire.

Duke Scholars

Author Toddi Steelman Environmental Sciences and Policy