Canadians' Representation of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) Terrorism: A Content Analysis

ABSTRACT

The global threat of terrorism raises questions about preparedness and risk communication in the context of public health and security. Although experts discriminate between chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CNRNE) terrorist events, little is known about how the Canadian public represents these forms of terrorism. A stratified random sample of 1502 Canadians participated in a telephone survey on CBRNE terrorism. A word association technique was used to assess first words or images that came to mind while thinking about different types of terrorist scenarios. Content analysis of this data revealed a number of potential uncertainties and misconceptions regarding different types of terrorism scenarios. Despite most frequently providing agents in response questions surrounding chemical or biological terrorism, respondents frequently confounded agents of biological and chemical nature. Similarly, different aspects of nuclear events were not consistently distinguished. Most notably, however, a sizable proportion of respondents had difficulty providing word associations to the different types of terrorist events or only provided vague responses that closely mirrored the scenario in question. Finally, images regarding the potential impacts of scenarios were infrequent. Implications for risk communication and preparedness are discussed; in particular, the need to provide the public with more detailed information regarding the nature of different forms of CBRNE terrorism and how to best prepare for a potential event.

Key Words:

• chemical
• biological
• nuclear
• radiological
• explosive terrorism
• Canada
• emergency preparedness

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Funding for this project was provided by the CBRNE Research and Technology Initiative (CRTI) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We thank respondents for their time and opinions. We also thank Stacey Gibson, Mélanie Clément, and Wayne Corneil for their help with the project. Finally, we especially express our gratitude to Marie-Pierre L. Markon for her help with the validation of content categories.

Notes

¹We thank anonymous reviewers for these suggestions.