Strengthening public preparedness - Best practices and an analysis of efforts in Sweden
Abstract: The urban human of today is becoming increasingly dependent on different functions of the society to survive, such as electricity and communications, functions which are sensitive to e.g. storms. The on-going climate change is and will further put a pressure on these functions. Concerns have risen that today’s public is limited in its ability to independently deal with the consequences of societal crises. Therefore, this thesis has examined how public preparedness can be strengthened according to research, if efforts to build public preparedness in Sweden are in line with the research, and how these efforts can be improved. To answer the problem statements, a literature study on risk communication and participatory approaches to disaster management was performed in order to craft a best practice of the area. The best practice then formed a framework to analyse efforts to build public preparedness launched by Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, Swedish Civil Protection Association, and the Cities of Malmö and Gothenburg. The analysis revealed that the efforts partly corresponded to the best practice, but that there are many possibilities of improvement. The main finding of the thesis is that public preparedness and the matter of strengthening the same have to be discussed on a political level in order to set clear responsibility (public – municipality – state) frameworks in place.
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