Bridging the Equity Gap: Tools for Floodplain Managers. Part 1

This is the first in a series of articles from the Risk Communications and Outreach Committee outlining tips, tricks, best practices, and lessons learned from the Bridging the Equity Gap: Flood Resilience for the Whole Community webinar series from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco District and the National Flood Risk Management Program.

The goal of the webinar series is to begin bridging the equity gap by understanding the scale and complexity of the problem, identifying  opportunities for change, and inspiring action. In this series of articles, the Risk Communications and Outreach Committee is working hand-in-hand with the Social Justice Task Force to bring findings, guidance, tools, best practices, and lessons learned to floodplain managers. 

In the September 2021 webinar, Dr. Nnenia Campbell, deputy director of the Bill Anderson Fund and research associate at the Natural Hazards Center, gave a presentation titled, Exercises in Risk Communication: Including Socially Vulnerable Populations. Key takeaways from this excellent presentation include:

• Many historic and current practices have led to the reality that socially vulnerable populations face disproportionate disaster risk due to a variety of social, economic, and historical factors. One initial step in addressing this issue is in understanding why they exist.
• Social Vulnerability is fluid, and isn’t dependent on one variable. Being a person of color doesn’t equal ‘vulnerability’, but the policies of the past that have led to people of color being more vulnerable to natural hazards are important to understand.
• It can seem daunting to try and address this in our work, because these issues are so big, but there are tools to help us better engage and communicate flood or other risks with socially vulnerable or underserved populations.
• We don’t have to reinvent the wheel: Dr. Campbell has done a lot of work on this issue that floodplain managers can build from.  She has synthesized a large body of risk communication research into practical guidance, developed key principals that apply across diverse community settings and disaster lifecycle stages, and has documented actionable recommendations for understanding and addressing social vulnerability. All of these findings were then translated into easy-to-use worksheets to help you plan your own inclusive communications activities.  
• During the webinar, Dr. Campbell focused on the three core principals of risk communication: (1) communicate through familiar and trusted messengers, (2) provide clear, actionable information, and (3) tailor messages and information pathways for target audiences. The tools she has built were centered around these principals.
• When developing actionable information—that is, messages about the actions we want people to take—we need to keep in mind the barriers that socially vulnerable populations may face in taking those actions. Messages about evacuation without connections to local public transportation options may be useless to families without access to a vehicle. A message about purchasing flood insurance to people that are facing food insecurity is not going to hit the mark.

If you are interested in the larger body of research on this topic, Dr. Campbell has put together an annotated bibliography for those interested in for in-depth reading about risk communication best practices. For more information about the U.S Army Corps of Engineers Bridging the Gap series, and for recordings of past webinars including Dr. Campbell’s, and information about upcoming webinars, please visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site here.

Articles of interest:

Read The Kansas City Star’s apology about how their ‘negative portrayals of Black Kansas Citians buttressed stereotypes and played a role in keeping the city divided.’ This article illuminates how and why socially vulnerable populations may utilize different media sources that we as flood risk communicators may need to tap in to in order to reach our audience.

Read Looking Through Different Filters: Culture and Bureaucracy in the Aftermath of Disaster, which outlines the experiences of older adults in the aftermath of a disaster, and shows why it’s important to understand the community before you develop and deliver your messages.

Best Practice highlight:

Communicating using visuals can help cross language and other barriers. Check out the Natural Hazard Center’s Puerto Rico Landslide Hazard Mitigation Project, which is an example of a highly visual communication campaign designed to meet expressed needs and support the goals of Puerto Rico residents and professionals needing information about landslide risk.

We look forward to bringing you this series of articles every month to share information, tools, best practices, and practical advice as we attempt to bridge the equity gap through better risk communication practices that seek to address the communities we serve.

Stay tuned for more articles on this topic on a monthly basis from your Risk Communications and Outreach Co-Chairs!