Pilot Study Soliciting Expert Opinion for Developing a Pre-incident Public Education Campaign for Radiological/Nuclear Emergencies

What are the best practices for instructing the public pre-incident about how to respond to a radiological or nuclear emergency? A pilot study of six experts who had studied these and allied communication strategies agreed to be interviewed to supply recommendations for a low-budget, pre-incident public education initiative. The results are summarized in this paper. Focusing the messaging on Millennials because they are the largest age demographic, adept with social media and spreading content, is likely to be the most efficient means of dispersing content. Success is also associated with the method chosen to deliver the content (e.g., using trusted spokespersons from agencies like local health and fire departments). Live forums also have advantages. They allow questions to be asked and answered in real time and better support underserved communities with less social media access. Working in collaboration with community leaders or other trusted influencers to overcome language, trust and socioeconomic barriers is also an advantage. Although the sampling size was small (6), these results are encouraging: major strategy disagreements were not encountered.