Understanding culture in crisis behaviour
Safety experts have long suspected that people from different countries and cultural backgrounds react to disaster in different ways. In an earthquake, for example, the Japanese instinctively run upstairs while the Greeks tend to run downstairs. Understanding cultural reactions to crisis situations could help develop better emergency policies and procedures. The EU-funded project BESECU aimed to achieve this goal. By studying how different people react in emergencies and identifying what impact culture has on behaviour, the project laid the groundwork for improving security-related procedures, instructions and communication protocols. To achieve its aims, BESECU brought together a group of researchers, concerned businesses and first responders such as fire fighters from eight countries. It undertook the largest-ever study on the topic by interviewing over 1 000 disaster survivors and over 3 000 first responders in these countries. The project also conducted three building evacuations in the Czech Republic, Poland and Turkey and compared the results with a similar evacuation conducted previously in the United Kingdom. The evacuations enabled the project team to identify a set of behaviours that are unique across cultures, highlighting significant differences in response among the four populations. Moreover, the project team gathered data on non-verbal communication by first responders, such as using hand signals to aid victims, representing another important angle in streamlining emergency response during crises. In essence, these promising project results can improve evacuation procedures and help train first responders. Importantly, the findings have already been exploited in other EU projects and have helped integrate important cultural components into safety and crisis management. Key messages have been disseminated to stakeholders through a variety of means such as conferences, seminars, publications and press releases. In yet another demonstration of the EU's focus on the safety of its citizens, these results could ultimately diminish suffering, save lives and help manage disasters more smoothly.
