Citation

Adame BJ, Miller CH. Health Commun. 2014; 30(3): 271-281.

Affiliation

The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication , Arizona State University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10410236.2013.842527

PMID

24837442

Abstract

In recent years, the United States has recognized an increasing need for individual-level disaster preparedness, with federal, state, and local government agencies finding only limited success in instituting campaign-based disaster preparedness programs. Extant research indicates Americans generally remain poorly informed and badly unprepared for imminent disasters. Vested interest theory (Crano, 1997) is presented as a framework for designing and testing the effectiveness of television-based disaster preparedness campaign messages. High- and low-vested versions of an extant control message are compared to assess message efficacy as indicated by behavioral intentions, message acceptance, and preparedness related attitudes.

RESULTS indicate television-based video public service announcements manipulated with subtle message variations can be effective at influencing critical preparedness-related attitudes. The high-vested condition performed significantly better than the low-vested and control conditions for both behavioral intentions and perceptions of self-efficacy, two vitally important outcome variables associated with disaster preparedness.

Language: en