26 August at 14:30 CEST: Designing effective emergency messages: Tools and insights from the U.S. WEA system

What makes an alert message truly effective, and how can we make sure people take action when it counts? Join us for a webinar exploring how to create effective emergency messages through the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system in the United States. Drawing on over five decades of empirical research, Dr. Jeannette Sutton will walk us through essential strategies for delivering timely and actionable messages, whether for imminent threats, missing persons, or post-event notifications.

The webinar will showcase tools, such as message templates, software, databases, and documentation, that support alert and warning providers in creating standardised, consistent, and clear communications. The latest innovations in public warning systems that aim to reduce delays in public response and improve outcomes in crisis situations will also be presented. If you work in public safety communications or emergency management, this session will give you concrete strategies and tools to improve how you design and deliver alerts.

Recording

Presentation

Download the presentation

Presenting

2020_Jeannette_Sutton_Headshot_Color

Jeannette Sutton, PhD

Associate Professor and Founder of The Warn Room, University at Albany, State University of New York
Jeannette Sutton, Ph.D., is an expert in disaster and risk communication, with a focus on public alerts and warnings delivered through short messaging systems like Wireless Emergency Alerts. Her work involves designing and testing messages across various hazard types, including natural, technological, and human-induced. She recently led the development of FEMA-IPAWS’s Message Design Dashboard, creating workflows and lexicons for 48 hazard types, including All Clear and Missing Persons alerts. Dr. Sutton is an associate professor at the University at Albany and founder of The Warn Room, which offers evidence-based guidance on alert messaging. Her research is supported by agencies including NSF, FEMA, DHS, USGS, and NOAA, and has been published in leading journals such as PNAS, Risk Analysis, and Natural Hazards Review. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder and completed postdoctoral training at the Natural Hazards Center.