On the brink: Examining preemptive indicators of preparedness inequity and social vulnerability to climate change hazards in Connecticut, USA

Abstract

The current study is part of an ongoing effort to combine environmental, infrastructural, and socioeconomic data tied to specific locations to identify sites of preparedness-inequity, and generate information for crisis communication practitioners, emergency services, and state level disaster management. A cross-sectional survey was administered to a sample of 519 residents in four counties in Connecticut identified as vulnerable to climate-related hazard events using projected climate risk data from the US Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CJEST) (Justice40.gov) and socially vulnerable per the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI). Geospatial analysis was used to map SoVI data and identify the Justice 40 risk factors of individual municipalities. These data were triangulated with participant data concerning risk awareness, information needs, preferred information sources, and trust in local emergency services. The results reveal racial and socioeconomic disparities in information sufficiency, self-identified preparedness, risk awareness, and trust and underline the need for emergency management to identify the sources of information sought by underprivileged residents and residents of color at the local level. While past studies have taken a variable-analytic approach to examining risk communication, this study aimed to inform our knowledge of the most underserved individuals when it comes to emergency messages and planning. The results have implications for developing effective and equitable messaging concerning environmental risks that consider vulnerability and audience behaviors within and across municipalities; and highlight the utility of combining social and geospatial data to develop new insights into best practices to improve crisis and risk communication in advance of disaster scenarios.