A Study on the Responsiveness of Local Health Departments that Use Facebook
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L. Fleming Fallon
und
Hans D. Schmalzried
Abstract
Local health departments (LHDs), in concert with many other organizations, have begun to explore the potential of social media sites during emergencies. The most widely discussed and adapted social media site is Facebook. Apparently, once a decision to include Facebook is made, the Facebook logo is displayed on the organization’s homepage. The focus of this study was to assess the presence of Facebook on LHD websites and then determine whether LHDs actually used them as tools for communicating with the public or planned to do so during emergency or disaster situations. Secondary objectives were to test for the presence of two-way communications and to measure how quickly LHDs with two-way Facebook walls responded to a request for information received after regular office hours. We looked at 1970 LHD websites. Of those, 489 (24.6%) displayed the Facebook logo; 458 (93.7%) had a wall; 208 had walls with bi-directional (inbound and outbound) capability. A message was posted on each of the 208 bi-directional Facebook walls. Of the 208 LHDs receiving a message, 25 (12.0%) sent responses. The mean time for a response was 77.7±94.2 h.
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©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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- Masthead
- Masthead
- Research Articles
- Integrating Federal Approaches to Post-Cyber Incident Mitigation
- Cybersecurity and US Legislative Efforts to address Cybercrime
- The Military’s Response to Domestic CBRNE Incidents
- Building Public Health Preparedness and Food and Agriculture Defense Capabilities Using Whole Community and One Health Concepts
- Situated Response and Learning of Distributed Bushfire Coordinating Teams
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- “Of Gods and Men”: Selected Print Media Coverage of Natural Disasters and Industrial Failures in Three Westminster Countries
- Spontaneous Planning after the San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion: A Case Study of Anticipation and Improvisation during Response and Recovery Operations
- Understanding Incident Response to Unplanned Releases at Chemical Facilities
- A Study on the Responsiveness of Local Health Departments that Use Facebook
- Texas takes on the TSA: The Constitutional Fight over Airport Security
- The Gulf Oil Spill and Economic Impacts: Extending the National Interstate Economic Model (NIEMO) to Account for Induced Impacts
- The Economic Value of Water: Providing Confidence and Context to FEMA’s Methodology
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