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- Title
Miscommunication during the Anthrax Attacks: How Events Reveal Organizational Failures.
- Authors
O'Neill, Karen M.; Calia, Jeffrey M.; Chess, Caron; Clarke, Lee
- Abstract
This study of the anthrax attacks of 2001 treats risk communication as a series of events that can be analyzed to discern the strengths and weaknesses of organizations charged with responding to emergencies. To investigate how organizational practices shape risk communication, we use a method developed primarily for comparative-historical case studies called event-structure analysis. We analyze events leading to false media reports of anthrax infections in one New Jersey town soon after an infection by a potentially lethal strain of anthrax was confirmed in a nearby postal facility. This analytic method highlights the failures of organizations to institutionalize public health practices, which allowed contingent events to determine risk messages and responses.
- Subjects
NEW Jersey; HEALTH risk communication; RISK communication; RISK management in business; RISK assessment; COMMUNICATION in human services; ANTHRAX; PUBLIC health; PREVENTION of communicable diseases
- Publication
Human Ecology Review, 2007, Vol 14, Issue 2, p119
- ISSN
1074-4827
- Publication type
Article