What the Thermometer Misses: Heat Risk Perception and Trusted Intermediaries (NNLM)

About this event

Communities often understand their own hazard exposure differently than official measurements describe it, and the measurements themselves capture less than we tend to assume. This session opens with what standard heat metrics do and do not represent, then turns to recent research on heat risk perception in South Carolina, where measured exposure and residents' assessments of their own risk did not align in the ways preparedness planning expects. Participants will consider what drives that divergence, why additional data and additional alerts do not reliably resolve it, and how information reaches populations that formal channels miss. The second half of the session focuses on trusted intermediaries, including allied health leaders, community organizations, and libraries, and on what it means to work through existing relationships rather than build new ones during an emergency. Extreme heat serves as the case throughout, and the assessment approach applies to whichever hazards matter most in a given service area. Participants will leave with a method for assessing risk perception locally and for determining which intermediaries are positioned to reach the populations they are missing. For more information and to register, visit: https://www.nnlm.gov/training

Description from maine-msl.libcal.com