Responses to a WEA Tornado Warning Text Message: A Health Belief Model Approach

Abstract

This investigation utilized the health belief model (HBM) to examine perceptions of a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) tornado text message, in relation to secondary crisis communication and shelter-seeking intentions. Participants were presented with a mock WEA text message, followed by measures of HBM variables (perceived severity, susceptibility, benefits, barriers), message perceptions (message credibility and message directness), secondary crisis communication, past tornado experience, and shelter-seeking intentions. In general, HBM variables predicted message cues, secondary crisis communication, and shelter-seeking intentions. Past experience predicted shelter-seeking intentions. Secondary crisis communication was positively correlated with shelter-seeking intentions. Implications for understanding responses to WEA tornado warnings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Health Belief Model
• Secondary Crisis Communication
• Tornadoes
• WEA Text Messages

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The decision to collect two waves of data was based on balancing financial considerations against the subgroup sizes of the various states.

2. Two participants were eliminated for being outliers (i.e., more than three standard deviations from the mean) on multiple variables.

3. Research suggests that MTurk samples can be more varied than a college student sample (Bartneck, Duenser, Moltchanova, Zawieska, & Voracek, 2015; Buhrmester, Talaifar, & Gosling, 2018). Further, data obtained via MTurk can be as reliable and valid as data obtained through other data collection procedures (Sheehan, 2018; Thomas & Clifford, 2017).

4. This response is taken from our qualitative data.

5. We would like to thank a reviewer for directing our attention to the second imperative in the warning message.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zachary Riel

Zachary Riel is a GIS Analyst at NV5 in Sun Prairie, WI. His research interests include examining the intersection of weather, communication, and public interpretation. He continues doing research in social science by working with professionals across the country and through various conferences.

Nathan Miczo

Nathan Miczo is a Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication at Western Illinois University. His primary area of teaching and research is interpersonal communication. He also teaches courses in health communication, research methods, and message production.