Facts and figures aren’t enough in times of crisis
The Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption and the South Island flooding illustrate the challenge of communicating complex data, writes Daniel Laufer.
Crisis situations often require complex information to be communicated to the public. However, it can be a challenge to do this in a way that is easily understandable.
It is particularly difficult when it involves a specialised area, such as medical information. How can organisations effectively communicate in these types of situations?
A good example of this challenge was the Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption in 2019, which killed and seriously injured visitors to the island.
Doctors treating burn victims in the aftermath of the eruption wanted to convey the severity of the injuries to the public. However, they needed to convert data communicated in percentages into information that the public would be able to easily understand. For example, how serious is a 20 per cent burn injury?
An effective way to describe the severity of burn injuries to the public is to further elaborate on what the percentage means, and to describe the impact of the injury on the victim.
Heather Cleland, a plastic surgeon and director of the Victorian Adults Burns Service, did this effectively during the crisis.
She described the meaning of a 20 per cent burn in the following manner: ‘‘In an adult, 20 per cent burns equates to about two arms.
That’s when you start to get all those general effects on the body – your immune system weakens, your heart doesn’t work too well and you can go into shock.’’
An explanation like this creates a better understanding than only the percentage.
In addition to elaborating on the meaning of specialised information during a crisis, it is also important to provide context.
The White Island eruption left 23 people with critical burn injuries. But without context it is difficult for the public to understand the enormity of the crisis for the healthcare system. A useful statistic would be the number of victims as a percentage of the total of cases treated in New Zealand in a month or a year.
That information is easier to grasp, and highlights the magnitude of the disaster.
It is also worth noting that the New Zealand public is not the only audience to consider.
The Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption also generated headlines overseas because the victims included international tourists. With a global audience, providing context becomes even more important because people overseas are even less familiar with the local situation than a New Zealand audience.
Without providing context, the number of victims would not appear very large to countries with populations that are much larger than New Zealand, for example the US, India, or China.
Another example of the importance of providing context is during a flood or forest fire.
Whereas images of these natural disasters are powerful in conveying the severity of the situation, describing them as a one-in-100 or one-in-1000-year event is also an effective way to communicate the magnitude of the crisis.
During the recent flooding in Westport, West Coast-Tasman MP and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor mentioned that this was the biggest flood event he had seen in Westport over his lifetime, adding that it was a one-in-100-year event.
Effectively conveying a sense of scale is of great importance because it has implications in how people respond. For example, during a flood the public will be more likely to comply with an evacuation request if they are aware of the urgency needed. So providing context can help save lives.
Finally, context can also be provided by a third party that may have more credibility than the organisation dealing with the situation.
An example is the way law enforcement officials in the US described the hacker attack on Sony Pictures in 2018 as unprecedented in its sophistication.
The public would have been more sceptical if Sony had made this claim. But the description by a credible third party would suggest that the situation was beyond Sony’s control.
Effective communication during a crisis involves more than providing raw data to the public. What does the data mean? Most people will not seek out additional sources to provide context and meaning to information of a specialised nature such as medical updates.
It is incumbent on the organisations involved to explain and help the public interpret the information.
Organisations also need to view the situation through the eyes of stakeholders in determining the best way to communicate. Ask: What type of information is relatable and understandable to stakeholders? This will help organisations convey the actual meaning and magnitude of a crisis, which has important implications in how the public responds.
Most people will not seek out additional sources to provide context.
– Daniel Laufer is an associate professor of marketing at Victoria University of Wellington, and an expert in crisis management. He has previously provided commentary on best practices in crisis management for the Wall
Street Journal in the US. In this monthly column for Stuff, Laufer discusses issues in crisis management.