Understanding attitudes, concerns and reactions of the American public is critical to emergency planning efforts and policy makers on all levels. To have effective implementation of a disaster plan, people must have confidence in the reliability of information from official sources, capability of government to perform effectively in a crisis, and the capability of response systems. Past disasters have revealed that large catastrophic events will take a major toll on basic governmental services, and that they will require individual citizens and their families to make quick decisions in order to access important basic necessities like food, water, shelter and access to communication. In this area, the NCDP focuses on: conducting national and regional surveys to monitor attitudes towards preparedness, confidence in government, and risk perception; measuring and mapping social vulnerabilities as they relate to natural and human-made hazards; exploring models of community engagement to enhance systems of community preparedness; and increasing the citizen uptake of preparedness messaging by mitigating barriers to citizen readiness and better understanding the psychosocial dynamics of preparedness. Projects: American Preparedness Project: For the past five years the NCDP has conducted an annual random digit dial telephone survey of US residents’ attitudes and behaviors regarding disaster preparedness. Findings include a decreasing trend in confidence in governmental and health care institutions; a persistent discrepancy between perceived personal risk and individual preparedness; and the critical role of psychological and social factors such as self-efficacy, exposure to past disasters, and CPR or first-aid training in explaining increased levels of preparedness, above and beyond perceived risk. Printer Friendly Format September 12th, 2008 White Paper: The 2008 American Preparedness Project: Why Parents May Not Heed Evacuation Orders & What Emergency Planners, Families and Schools Need to Know. Family and Personal Preparedness: What about the public? What should citizens do – or not do – at a time when threat levels are raised and we are painfully reminded that living with a certain level of risk is a reality of our times? Of course, this isn’t a question of terrorism, alone. We are also concerned about natural disasters or severe flu pandemics that are also capable of putting many people at great risk.