Risk Analysis and Human Behavior

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PREDICTING EMERGENCY EVACUATION AND SHELTERING BEHAVIOR

A structured analytical approach

Matt Dombroski, Baruch Fischhoff, and Paul Fischbeck

We offer a general approach to predicting public compliance with emergency recommendations. It begins with a formal risk assessment of an anticipated emergency, whose parameters include factors potentially affecting and affected by behavior, as identified by social science research. Standard procedures are used to elicit scientific experts’ judgments regarding these behaviors and dependencies, in the context of an emergency scenario. Their judgments are used to refine the model and scenario, enabling local emergency coordinators to predict the behavior of citizens in their area. The approach is illustrated ...