title: Understanding public responses to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents--driving factors, emerging themes and research gaps.
abstract: This paper discusses the management of public responses to incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials (CBRN). Given the extraordinary technical and operational challenges of a response to a CBRN release including, but not limited to, hazard detection and identification, casualty decontamination and multi-agency co-ordination, it is not surprising that public psychological and behavioural responses to such incidents have received limited attention by scholars and practitioners alike. As a result, a lack of understanding about the role of the public in effective emergency response constitutes a major gap in research and practice. This limitation must be addressed as a CBRN release has the potential to have wide-reaching psychological and behavioural impacts which, in turn, impact upon public morbidity and mortality rates. This paper addresses a number of key issues: why public responses matter; how responses have been conceptualised by practitioners; what factors have been identified as influencing public responses to a CBRN release and similar extreme events, and what further analysis is needed in order to generate a better understanding of public responses to inform the management of public responses to a CBRN release.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Department of War Studies, London, UK. Electronic address: Kristian.1.krieger@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kristian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Krieger
authors.affiliation: Emergency Response Department, Public Health England, Porton Down, UK.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amlôt
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Department of War Studies, London, UK.
authors.forename: M Brooke
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Rogers
mesh_terms: D055885:Biohazard Release / Q000517:prevention & control*; D055884:Chemical Hazard Release / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002959:Civil Defense; D006801:Humans; D018788:Radioactive Hazard Release / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012106:Research / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Behaviour; CBRN; Emergency response; Human factors; Protection motivation theory; Trust; risk perception and communication