From the Homeland Security News Wire:

During a disaster, many people turn to social media seeking information. But communicating during disasters is challenging, especially using an interactive environment like social media where misinformation can spread easily.

Now, University of Georgia researchers have developed a social media tool to better help local emergency managers disperse information to community members during a disaster.

Led by recent graduate Dionne Mitcham, a team from the Institute for Disaster Management at UGA’s College of Public Health has developed a communication framework that local emergency managers could adopt to support crisis communications.

The proposed framework is a spoke-and-wheel design that utilizes community-based public information officers (PIO), emergency management professionals, and/or trained volunteers to communicate information from the operations team and command and control team to the public, traditional media and other stakeholders.

Read this entire post, including details on the full framework is detailed in the team’s paper, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health here.