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The Information Dissemination Group, led by Prof. Sharad Mehrotra and Prof. Nalini Venkatasubramanian , is part of ITR-ResCUE project in Cal(IT) 2 at the University of California, Irvine .
This project will focus on information that is disseminated to the public at large specifically to encourage self-protective actions, such as evacuation from endangered areas, sheltering-in-place, and other actions designed to reduce exposure to natural and human-induced threats. Specifically, we will develop an understanding of the key factors in effective dissemination to the public in various disasters and design technology innovations for conveying accurate and timely information to those who are actually at risk (or likely to be), while providing reassuring information to those who are not at risk and therefore do not need to take self-protective action.
There are three key factors that pose significant challenges (social and technological) to effective information dissemination in crises situations - variation in warning times, determining specificity of warning information to effectively communicate to different populations, and customization of the delivery process to reach the targeted populations in time over possibly failing infrastructures. Our approach to address these challenges is a focused multidisciplinary effort that
The ultimate objective is a set of next generation warning systems that can bring about an appropriate response, rather than an under- or over-response.