Promoting Seismic Safety: Guidance for Advocates

Course Description:

This course is centered around a project that represents a collaboration among social science and policy researchers at the three Earthquake Engineering Research Centers: Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAE) Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). FEMA asked researchers at the three centers to distill the findings of previous social science and policy research in order to provide guidance to seismic safety advocates in hopes that the lessons of prior research will help advocates be more effective at promoting seismic safety actions.

Learning Objectives:

Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Learn effective risk communication to help seismic safety advocates achieve their goals
• Learn the seismic building codes to increases building integrity and ensure the future safety of communities.
• Learn how to work with policy-makers to champion seismic safety
• Learn the basic characteristics and risks of earthquakes and the key concepts that commonly arise in discussions about seismic safety.