A study released today shows most Americans would not cooperate with government’s attempts to protect them in the aftermath of a domestic terror attack.
Conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine, the research suggests government has not adequately addressed Americans’ concerns about its ability to deal effectively with homeland terrorism.
The study included a survey that questioned U.S. residents on their likely response to both a smallpox incident and a dirty-bomb attack. It found only two-fifths of Americans would follow instructions to go to a public vaccination site during a smallpox outbreak, and just three-fifths would stay inside an undamaged building other than their home after a dirty bomb explosion.
Rather than citing independence or stubbornness as the cause for disobedience to government, researchers believe respondents were making logical judgments and that planners need to better listen to the public about what they need during a crisis.
“It’s not that the rest of the people want to be uncooperative,” said lead investigator Roz Lasker, M.D., director of the center, in a statement. “The problem is that current plans unwittingly put them in extremely difficult decision-making predicaments. So even if first responders work out all of the challenging logistics, far fewer people would be protected than planners want or the public deserves.”
Added Lasker: “Our study shows that if planners listened to and learned from the public, they could protect many more people.”
The researchers conducted discussions with government and private-sector planners, with residents from around the country, and did a national telephone survey of 2,545 randomly selected adults.
In preparing to respond to a smallpox outbreak, planners have focused almost exclusively on protecting people from catching the potentially fatal disease, the study notes. But the research shows this isn’t the only risk Americans face. Three-fifths of the population would be seriously worried about the vaccine – that’s twice as many people as would be seriously worried about catching smallpox. Vaccine worries would keep many people away from the vaccination site, the study found.
“The public’s concern about the smallpox vaccine is well-founded,” said study co-investigator Alonzo Plough, Ph.D., director of public health in Seattle and King County, Wash. “Concerns about the vaccine’s side effects were a major reason that so few health-care workers agreed to be vaccinated in CDC’s recent Smallpox Vaccination Program.”
In the event of a dirty bomb explosion, the study shows that people need to know they and their loved ones would be safe and cared for in whatever building they happen to be in at the time of an explosion. Three-quarters of the people who said they would not fully cooperate with instructions to stay inside a building after a dirty-bomb explosion would do so if (1) they could communicate with people they care about or (2) if they were sure they and their loved ones were in places that had prepared in advance to care for them in this kind of situation. But the study found three-fifths of Americans know only a little or nothing at all about how people would actually be cared for in these places.
Researchers believe if government can better assure people the plans and preparations officials have made will be effective, Americans will be more likely to cooperate with them.
“To find out what would matter to the public in other kinds of emergencies, planners will need to work directly with the residents of their communities,” said Mayor Otis Johnson, of Savannah, Ga., in a statement.
The study documents that over a third of the American people have a strong personal interest in participating in community and organizational planning.
