Exploring Social Science and Education Research for ShakeAlert, the Earthquake Early Warning System for the West Coast of the United States

As of May 2021, rollout of public alerting of the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System, has been completed in Washington, Oregon, and California. Critical questions remain about what people understand and expect from ShakeAlert, including if they know what to do when they receive an alert. To evaluate whether the ShakeAlert System has been successful in answering these key research questions, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collaborates with partners from universities, emergency management and other state agencies, the National Science Foundation, and USGS licensed alert distribution partners to implement a social science initiative focusing on three goals:

To understand earthquake risk perception, protective action knowledge, and basic earthquake preparedness across Washington, Oregon, and California populations.

How to apply social science research to inform the ShakeAlert communication, education, outreach, and technical engagement (CEO&TE) programs.

To develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for CEO&TE programs for ShakeAlert.

The ShakeAlert social science initiative focuses on research that is currently underway and plans future directions to reach our goals. This work outlines the various publications that have been published or are in draft, future projects, and how social science and educational research has been integrated into the ShakeAlert System to improve outcomes for users of the system.