Strategies

The strategies I propose are in the form of an answer to my central thesis question: How can agencies better inform communications in water contamination events?

There are many potential suggestions and recommendations coming from this work. Some are very specific and not very generalizable, so I shall focus on two main areas

1. communicating during the response to the event
2. communicating before the event.

There are two pressing needs facing agencies in a water contamination event:

1. the immediate need to respond to the contamination
2. the longer term need to both educate and relate to the contaminated community

The three components of this work, taken together, show that neither of these needs can be neglected or set aside in order to prioritize the other if communication, and ultimately agency-community relations, are to be successful.

My main strategic recommendation is to incorporate these two needs, the immediate need to respond and the longer term need to educate, into an overall communications plan. This plan needs to consist of a framework which can

• expand to deal with different contamination events
• reflect community needs and concerns
• utilize community knowledge and awareness
• respond to different scientific and technical issues
• use a variety of different media to communicate and relay messages
  

1. During the Event
Much of the literature on risk communication offers advice on how to appropriately communicate during an event. Much of this advice is aimed at agency or industry members.

Recommendations from the literature on communications:

• Lose the technical jargon. Not only do people not understand it, but it can lead to confusion and loss of trust. But don't oversimplify to the point that the importance of the message is lost.
• Release information as early as is possible. It helps to maintain propriety and trust.
• Recognize outrage. Knowing what it is makes it easier to respond to and control (27).

The ES 126 study of residents in Pascoag underscores the importance of not only timely, technically appropriate, complete information, but also relevant information. Information is relevant if it reflects and responds to community concerns. The data from Pascoag shows that the communication present doesn’t contribute to or constitute an appropriate communications strategy if it doesn’t deal with or try to answer the questions that people have. In Pascoag, this meant responding more to residents’ concerns about health. Though the Department of Health did offer accurate and appropriate information about other aspects of the contamination, these components of their communication were not effective because residents perceived that their concerns about health were largely ignored.

Moving from the ES 126 study to the focus groups and the hypothetical water contamination, it seems that consistency and release of as much information as possible up front are crucial to achieving good communications. Of course, the nature of a toxic event means that not all the information will be known at first. New information will continually be gathered and added during the course of the event. There needs to be a framework for communication established so that new information can be fit in without the appearance on inconsistency. But releasing information early in the course of a contamination event seems to help to establish a trusting relationship between communities and agencies.

An important question here for regulators and agency communicators is: How much data should be released? Looking at the three pieces of this work helps to provide an answer.

• In Pascoag, where there was always a lag between the actual contaminant levels and what information was released, the ability to know the actual contaminant levels--to have all the data--became a major issue for some residents. Others said that they didn't understand the data when it became available.
• In the focus groups, some individuals said that they would want hard numbers so that they could see for themselves how bad the contamination was, while others said that they wouldn't understand what those numbers meant and that they would leave it up to the scientists.
• Going to the literature, a study was conducted in 1993 that shows that increasing technicial detail, in terms of data, available to residents through the media does not increase their level of outrage (23).

So--what's the recommendation here?

Agencies and regulators should make as much data as possible available. While it doesn't seem that releasing it all in the media or reading out contaminant levels at a public meeting is necessary or appropriate, residents should know that they can have the data if they want it, and they should know where they can get it. Those who need to have the data to feel personally safe will access it, and those who rely on the experts will also feel safer knowing that there is transparency in the process. This is another way to let the issue be about the contaminant levels themselves, and not about who gets to know what the contaminant levels are.

2. Before the Event
Certainly, not all interactions between communities and agencies before a water contamination event can be planned or can serve an educational or trust-building purpose. However, there are some strategies, which the Pascoag data, the literature, and the focus groups reveal to perhaps aid in promoting effective communications when a water contamination event occurs.

Bioterrorism offers a good example of where the current public interest and perception of risk coincide with the current regulatory interest and perception of risk. The pubic does not often agree with the regulators about what merits attention. Since they do agree in this case, perhaps this could be used to foster discussion about water contamination, in terms of agencies informing the public as to what actions would be needed in the case of different bioterrorism-related water contamination events, and in terms of the public telling agencies what they would be most concerned about if a water contamination event were to occur.

The time before the event is also a time to establish the framework for communication. This is where community participation can be especially valuable in increasing community knowledge of about water contamination, increasing agency knowledge of important local issues, and improving the effectiveness of agency communications.

• the ES 126 Pascoag study
• a review of the literature on risk, communication, and community
• the results of the focus groups in the Pawtuxet Village

• Need for a framework

  In a water contamination event, regulators will likely face some of the issues discussed in the communications section--there might be issues relating to literacy, to risk communication, to public outrage, to emergency situations. A framework can help to plan for these outcomes in advance.

• Need to find out what actual community concerns are, so that information can reflect and respond to these concerns

• Need for information to be consistent

• Need to make specific data available as much as possible

• Need for ongoing dialogue and community participation to educate and prepare a relevant communications framework