From HSNewswire, Better communication key to reducing earthquake death toll

A major problem in conveying earthquake risks to the public is that scientists are unable to predict when, where, and with what strength the next earthquake will strike. Instead, they use probabilistic forecasting based on seismic clustering. Earthquake experts have long grappled with the problem of how to convey these complex probabilities to lay persons.

The full text version of  this 31 page article is available here: The evolution of the operational earthquake forecasting community of practice: the L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal, by Deanna D. Sellnow, Joel Iverson & Timothy L. Sellnow, Journal of Applied Communications Research.

The Diva does not usually use the term “academic” to mean dense and unclear, but I do mean it this time — it would be great if someone could write a short analysis of the full article ( about 3-5 pages) with the essentials that a practitioner would like to know.