Risk Communication and Risk Management

John M. Barry has written award winning books including the Influenza pandemic of 1918, and the great Mississippi flood. Being invited by 2 presidential administrations, Bush and Obama, to advise on preparedness for pandemics and pandemic response. Having also advised on state, federal, UN and world health organizations on influenza, water disasters, risk communication and crisis management Barry is more than qualified to talk about such a topic considering his past of assisting the world with disaster prevention and response.

Timely and accurate information is essential during a terrorist attack and a natural disaster. Therefore, the government must inform the public of all events. However, officials need to be mindful of the information that is released could expose intelligence in an ongoing investigation and put lives at risk. Crisis communication is a fine line of keeping the public informed and placing them harms

The various local, state, and federal emergency management systems of the United States suffered a crude awakening in the decade of the 2000s. Systems expected to hold up were put to the test and failed to prepare for disaster, mitigate the damage, and, in some instances, actually hampered responses in life-or-death situations. Worse, all failings were highlighted in an age of global communication and mass media, on display first whether a man-made incident like September 11th attacks or natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. The decade found the complacent government failing to maintain modern emergency management practices, stimulating began a series of doctrinal upgrades and training improvements. Yet, no matter the bureaucracy, writings, or money thrown at a problem, the first responder to the incident has and will continue to influence the outcome. While the individual responder stands as the most important part of

According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.

The emergency events caused by infectious disease, natural or anthropogenic causes with the potential to overwhelm or otherwise disrupt routine local capacities due to their timing, scale or unpredictability should be communicated properly and routinely which requires rapid knowledge transfer and uptake (Khan et al., 2017, p. 2).

Communication is widely regarded as one of the most essential elements in successfully managing an emergency situation. The dissemination of information, which is both timely as well as accurate, to the parties concerned goes a long way to lend a hand in ensuring that the recovery activities in an emergency situation, together with its management takes place effectively. For that reason, five critical assumptions are used to provide the basis of disaster management strategy.

Communication is also very critical in the case of a catastrophic event. Thus, the first respondent need to be a good communicator for communication is an essential part in response to a catastrophic event (Pope, 2005). It is also the responsibility of the first respondent to have a practical plan to implement in case an emergency erupted following the catastrophic event. The aftermath of a catastrophic event is highly unpredictable and emergencies cannot be overlooked. It is, therefore, the

Chapelhow et al. (2005) have created a framework to enable a person-centred approach to be taken in all care situations. It outlines six key areas which are fundamental to excellent care delivery. These are: communication, assessment, managing risk, documentation, professional decision making and managing uncertainty.

Emergency management faces many challenges in today’s modern society. In the years prior to 9/11 emergency management was primarily focused on natural disasters. That has since changed; we now face a diverse variety of risks and hazards on a constant basis. As we continue to grow in population current and newer have compounded into more problems that emergency planner must face and find solutions for.

Risk for disasters is a part of life; emergency situations occur more frequently than many people believe. A wise person plans for the worse, and hopes for the best. After a disaster, how well a community can recover will depend largely on how well they prepared in advance. Risk management includes identifying any potential risks to a community and proactively planning to minimize the threat. Proactive organization of resources and people to respond to emergencies can mean the difference between a community’s ability to regroup and recover, and the loss of life. To better

The response to any emergency is considered to be very critical and therefore should be as efficient as possible. In the healthcare sector, responses to situations are counted by the seconds. From natural disasters to epidemics, the only chance left to respond to any of this occurrence could only be counted in seconds. That means life is either saved or lost in a matter of seconds. Putting in place certain responses to these unexpected occurrences, such as crises management communication plan, help save lives and arrest crises from aggravating. Failure to have crises management communication plan is considered by many commentators to be a crisis in itself. Accepted medical care is highly dependent on effective communication between healthcare providers and the patients; among healthcare providers and the outside world. The characteristics of crises make it necessary for prior planning and effective communication among stakeholders in the health sector (Klaene and Sanders, 2006; Ronen, 2006).

The National Research Council (NRC) (NRC, 1989) defines risk communication as an interactive process of exchange of information and opinion among individuals, groups, and institutions. The primary role of risk communication is to provide information to the public to induce appropriate levels of concern and actions (Covello, McCallum, & Pavlova, 1987). The American National Academy of Science (NAS, 2010), further develop that it involves multiple messages about the nature of risk and other messages, not strictly about risk, that express concerns, opinions, or reactions to risk messages or to legal and institutional arrangements for risk management. As the definition of risk is broad, this paper refers to the risk of foodborne illness outbreaks specifically applied in hotels. Within the hospitality industry, the exposure of operators to food safety incidents has increased their need to create effective risk communication strategies to prevent from financial loss and to maintain their brand image. In this paper we will address the increasing importance of risk communication in the daily responsibilities of hotel managers and define a risk communication strategy and the steps to follow in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak.

Concept of risk, risk assessment, risk management and how uncertainty affects the process will be discussed.

Risk management is the term applied to a logical and systematic method of establishing the context, identifying, analyzing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and communicating risks associated with any activity, function or process in a way that will enable organizations to minimize losses and maximize opportunities. (Lecture notes)Risk Management is also described as 'all the things you need to do to make the future sufficiently certain'. (The NZ Society for Risk Management, 2001)

One well accepted description of risk management is the following: risk management is a systematic approach to setting the best course of action under uncertainty by identifying, assessing, understanding, acting on and communicating risk issues. In order to apply risk management effectively, it is vital that a risk management culture be developed. The risk management culture supports the overall vision, mission and objectives of an organization. Limits and boundaries are established and communicated concerning what are acceptable risk practices and outcomes. Since risk management is directed at uncertainty related to future events and outcomes, it is