Emergency Alert and Warning Systems

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has released Emergency Alert and Warning Systems. This consensus study considers new possibilities for realizing more effective alert and warning systems, explores how a more effective national alert and warning system might be created, and sets forth a research agenda to advance the nation’s alert and warning capabilities. 

Congress passed the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act in 2006 following a series of natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, that revealed shortcomings in the nation’s ability to effectively alert populations at risk.

More than 60 years of research on the public response to alerts and warnings have yielded many insights about how people respond to information that they are at risk and the circumstances under which they are most likely to take appropriate protective action. Some, but not all, of these results have been used to inform the design and operation of alert and warning systems, and new insights continue to emerge.