GCRI · Campaigns
Community preparedness
Preparedness is what households, neighbourhoods and institutions know and have arranged before a hazard arrives: how warnings reach them, where to go, who needs help, what to keep. Information alone does not create it; it develops through trust, rehearsal and local organisation, and it decays between events. This page sets out how preparedness information travels, where it fails, which safeguards protect people who are hard to reach, and what evidence civil protection and community organisations can use.
Community preparedness in seven parts.
- 01The questionCommunity preparedness: how the risk develops
- 02In the five domainsPreparedness campaigns reach households for every domain’s hazards
- 03IndicatorsWhat is measured, and how well
- 04SourcesWhere the evidence comes from
- 05DecisionsWho decides, and what the evidence serves
- 06Core questionsWhat experts ask
- 07MechanismsWhat drives the outcome
Community preparedness: how the risk develops.
Preparedness information and community safeguards. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
A warning is a chain
A warning works only if it is received, understood, believed, personalised and acted on, as the protective action decision model describes. Each link can fail: a siren unheard, a message in the wrong language, an instruction that conflicts with what neighbours are doing.
Readiness decays between events
Plans, kits and knowledge of evacuation routes erode over quiet years. Residents move, contact details change, and people who came through a smaller event may expect the next to be similar. Normalcy bias then delays action when a warning arrives.
Exposure follows inequality
People with disabilities, older people living alone, migrants, people without connectivity and residents of informal settlements are reached less often and have fewer means to act. Preparedness information that assumes a car, a smartphone or a fixed address excludes them.
Silence fills with rumour
When authority information is slow or absent during an event, people seek it from each other. Crisis informatics research shows information voids filled with speculation, outdated posts and deliberate falsehoods, which then compete with the authority message once it arrives.
Campaign wave tracker.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Campaign wave tracker
Community preparedness · Wave 2 · Campaign area North
- People reached423812Active
- Consent complete, % of participants98Normal
- Knowledge score change0.6pointsNormal
- Open feedback items10Watch
Preparedness actions by area
Messages under test
| Prepare a water reserve | A | 49 | Revise |
| Know your warning levels | B | 60 | Keep |
| Check on neighbours | A | 40 | Keep |
Safeguarding and consent
- S-1Minor enrolled without guardian recordPause and verify1 d
- S-2Withdrawal requestData deleted, logged2 d
Preparedness campaigns reach households for every domain’s hazards.
- WaterIn practiceFlood plans and household water storage.What a reader can checkPlans in place
- EnergyIn practicePlans for outages, especially for the medically dependent.What a reader can checkRegistered vulnerable customers
- HealthIn practiceKnowing where care is available in emergencies.What a reader can checkAwareness surveys
Findings are designed for the Evidence Brief series. The Sendai Framework calls for people-centred preparedness; communities lead.
- Community plans shared with consent.
- Exercise participation records.
A threshold model of collective behaviour.
Each agent acts once enough of its contacts have; small changes in the mean threshold or the early movers decide whether the behaviour stays local or cascades through the population. Teaching model with stated illustrative values, not a prediction.
Controls
- Mean threshold (share of neighbours)
- 18%
- Spread of thresholds
- 8 points
- Early movers
- 2.0% of people
- Contacts per person
- 8
Readouts
- Share who acted in the end
- 100%
- Global cascade
- Yes
- Steps to settle
- 10
Numbers, methods and sources
| Step | Share who have acted (%) |
|---|---|
| 0 | 2.8 |
| 1 | 9.0 |
| 2 | 24.3 |
| 3 | 42.8 |
| 4 | 62.7 |
| 5 | 80.3 |
| 6 | 90.8 |
| 7 | 97.0 |
| 8 | 99.8 |
| 9 | 100.0 |
| 10 | 100.0 |
Methods
- Threshold models of collective behaviour Granovetter (1978), American Journal of Sociology 83
- Global cascades on random networks Watts (2002), PNAS 99
- Complex contagions Centola and Macy (2007), American Journal of Sociology 113
- One-at-a-time sensitivity (tornado) Saltelli and others (2008), Global Sensitivity Analysis: The Primer, Wiley
Data
No observed data enters this model: it runs on the teaching values set by the controls, to be replaced with a programme’s own evidence.
Across the six pillars, led by Nexus Consortium
- Experiments Labs
- Built in Campaigns in Foundry
- Tested at Campaigns in Universe
- Codified in Governance, Security and Society in Standards
- Published in Campaigns in Reports
- Taught in Faculty of Governance, Policy and International Affairs in Academy
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Households with an emergency plan | percent of respondents | per survey wave | Household preparedness surveys | REPORTED |
| Awareness of authority warning channels | percent of respondents naming a channel | per survey wave | Household surveys | REPORTED |
| Warning receipt in tests | share of handsets in the target area receiving a test alert | per test | Operator and alerting authority test reports | Published statistics |
| Time from warning issue to receipt | minutes | per event or test | Alerting authority logs and receipt surveys | OBSERVED |
| Drill participation | participants per resident population of the area | per drill | Organiser records | REPORTED |
| Warning material in accessible formats | count of languages and formats | per release | Audit of published material | DECLARED |
| Voluntary registers of people needing assistance | persons registered, aggregated by area | quarterly | Local authority registers | Published statistics |
| Rumours logged and answered | entries per week, by status | weekly during events | Community feedback logs | REPORTED |
How community preparedness is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
System model
The couplings between the systems in community preparedness: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll | Disaster experience, preparedness and access to warnings by country and group | Free to use with attribution |
| FEMA National Household Survey | Preparedness actions, knowledge and attitudes of households in the United States | Public domain |
| UNDRR Sendai Framework Monitor | National reporting on disaster losses and early warning coverage | Free to use with attribution |
| WMO Register of Alerting Authorities | Alerting authorities and their Common Alerting Protocol feeds | Open, per alerting authority terms |
| IFRC GO platform | Emergency appeals, operational reports and community engagement records | Free to use per IFRC terms |
| Humanitarian Data Exchange | Shared humanitarian datasets including population, language and access | Licence per dataset |
| National census tables on language, disability and household composition | Denominators for reach and accessibility planning | Open licence per national statistics office |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Campaigns prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Civil protection and national disaster management authorities | Which warning channels to use, and how to reach people who are not connected | Receipt tests; channel awareness; census denominators for language and disability |
| Local authorities and emergency planners | Where to hold drills and how to maintain registers of people needing assistance | Participation records; register coverage; feedback from community groups |
| Telecommunication regulators and mobile operators | How cell broadcast and location-based alerts are configured and tested | Receipt and timing data from tests |
| Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and community organisations | Which preparedness activities to run, and with whom | Community feedback logs; survey data on trust in local responders |
Outputs this topic produces
- Preparedness explainers adapted to local hazards, languages and formats
- Responsible participation guides for volunteers in drills and preparedness groups
- Rumour and question logs structured for handover to the competent authority
- Accessibility reviews of warning and preparedness material
What experts ask.
- 01
Which actions reduce harm?
Household plans, supplies, knowledge of evacuation routes and contact networks, and evidence on which of these make a difference.
- 02
Why do people not prepare?
Cost, time, tenure, disability, optimism and low trust, and how campaigns can address barriers rather than blame.
- 03
How do local networks help?
The role of neighbours, faith groups, schools and associations in reaching people and checking on them.
- 04
Where is the line with warnings?
How campaign material directs people to authority channels without appearing to speak for them.
What drives the outcome.
Research on disasters consistently finds that social ties and local organisations shape who is helped first and who recovers. People with fewer resources, limited mobility, insecure housing or language barriers face higher exposure and lower capacity to act, so generic advice can widen gaps.
Preparedness intentions often fail to become actions. People may understand a hazard yet delay because the action is costly, the hazard feels distant or they believe others will help. Effective campaigns make actions concrete, affordable and social, and repeat them over time rather than once.
Warnings are a separate system with legal mandates. When campaigns imitate the form of warnings, or circulate unofficial alerts, they can confuse people at the moment clarity matters most.
How evidence is gathered, and where it stops.
| Method | What it shows | Its limit |
|---|---|---|
| Household surveys | Preparedness actions taken before and after | Self-report overstates action |
| Exercises and drills | Whether plans work in practice | Exercises simplify real conditions |
| Participatory mapping | Local knowledge of hazards and resources | Requires consent and careful data handling |
| After-action review | What helped in a real event | Hindsight and recall bias |
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
Why is a warning not enough?
What is cell broadcast?
Should volunteers share warnings on social media?
Does Campaigns issue warnings?
Will Campaigns send alerts during an emergency?
How are vulnerable groups protected?
Can a community group run a preparedness campaign here?
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