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The
impact of language and cognition on compliance during a natural
disaster
Improving communication with people affected by
flooding
SPONSORS:
PARTNERS/COLLABORATORS:
King's
College London
University of East Anglia
Drinking Water
Inspectorate
Health Protection Agency
RESEARCHERS:
Gabriella
Rundblad
Paul Hunter
Olivia
Knapton
Jo Van
Herwegen
Alastair Cullen
Anne Conde
PROJECT DATES:
September 2008 - Sept 2010
PROJECT SUMMARY:
The UK Water
Industry Act (1991; amended by the Water Act 2003) states that water companies
must only supply water that is fit for human consumption (Section 70) and that
if a breach of the drinking water standards occurs, they must take appropriate
action. Such action naturally includes investigating the breach, its cause, its
likely effect on public health and restoring standards. They must also decide
whether consumers need be informed about the breach, including whether special
advice needs to be issued. If public health is threatened, the three standard
notices that could be issued are: 'boil water', 'do not drink' and 'do not
use'.
The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) reports an increase in
water incidents from 92 in 2005 to 99 in 2006. In the majority of cases, only
general advice was communicated to affected consumers, and there were no 'do
not use' notices in 2005 or 2006. Of relevance here are the 13 and 12 'boil
water' notices (in 2005 and 2006 respectively) and the four versus five 'do not
drink' notices. Given the severe weather in 2007 in combination with the
potential threat of global warming, these figures are likely to increase even
further. This means that each year, public health is increasingly at risk from
potential waterborne diseases, leaving effective public health communication
the main avenue for preventing disease. Despite recent advances in risk
communication, the widespread failure to comply with suggested protective
measures such as not drinking tap water remains unexplained.
In
July-August 2007, some 140,000 households lost their drinking water supply due
to flooding of the Mythe water treatment works in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
By investigating the Mythe incident, we can explore how and why professionals
and the public differentially understand and communicate about risks and their
prevention. The combination of conventional research methods with a new
cognitive linguistics approach allow use to include a more comprehensive range
of potential factors. In particular, the largely ignored role of language will
be established. In conjunction with stakeholders, this project ultimately aims
to offer new and improved water notices.
If you would like some more information about our project, please contact Gabriella Rundblad, gabriella.rundblad@kcl.ac.uk, 020 78483136. We are happy to answer any questions you might have.
PROJECT PHASES:
PHASE
1
We sent out postal questionnaires to 1000 randomly selected households
in Gloucestershire. The aim of the questionniare is to find out what the
consumers who lost their drinking water in 2007 due to the Mythe incident
remember about the advice they received and what actions they chose or chose
not to take.
PHASE 2
We carried out
interviews with some of our questionnaire participants, and with
respresentatives from the media (e.g. BBC Gloucestershire).
PHASE
3
We carried out a very detailed language analysis of all the written
information that was supplied by the involved agencies and the
media.
PHASE 4
We carried out focus groups with consumers,
water professionals, health professionals, to name a few.
PROJECT PRESENTATIONS, REPORTS AND ARTICLES:
PRESENTATIONS
We have
presented the results from this study at the Health Protection Agency
Conference, September 2009, Warwick, UK,
the American Public
Health Association Annual Meeting & Exposition, November 2009,
Philadelphia, US,
the Society for Risk
Analysis-Europe conference, June 2010, London, UK,
the
Communication, Medicine and Ethics conference, June 2010, Boston,
US, and
the 3rd UK Cognitive
Linguistics Conference, July 2010, Hertfordshire, UK.
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFER WORKSHOP WITH WATER INDUSTRY
King's College London and the
Drinking Water Inspectorate jointly hosted a Knowledge Transfer Workshop on the
13th October 2010 at KCL's Waterloo campus, as part of this project. This event
featured talks from academics and communications professionals from the water
industry and wider stakeholders, discussing a wide range of recent
communication challenges. Copies of presentations are available here.
ARTICLES
Rundblad,
G., Knapton, O., and Hunter, P. 2010. Communication, perception and behaviour
during a natural disaster involving a ‘Do Not Drink’ and a subsequent
‘Boil Water’ notice: a postal questionnaire study. BMC Public
Health 10:641. This article was nominated for the
5th BMC Annual Research Award in Medicine for 2010.
REPORTS
A copy of the final project report is available here.
© 2008-2011