In the circumstances when human life is intensively affected by many harmful environmental factors resulting from large-scale disasters of different origins and types, the issues of population training in emergency preparedness and response as well as public safety culture development in general are of great importance. According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, in 2018 168 people were killed and 839 were injured because of emergencies. In comparison with the same last year period, there is a steady death toll increase despite the fact that the total number of emergencies in Ukraine has decreased in contrast to the previous period. In addition, rescuers have considered fire safety and hygiene violations along with low-level control over the epidemic prevention measures implementation as main causes of natural and man-made emergencies in the country during recent years.
Such state of affairs may indicate that very often the loss of life during emergency results from the lack of knowledge and failure to comply with the recommendations on life safety, and that the existing system of civil protection training is not able to cover all segments of the population. In addition, the complex technogenic and environmental, and military and political situations significantly increases the risk of dangerous incidents occurrence with casualties. Thus, modernization of knowledge dissemination system on the civil protection and life safety issues among the population are of particular relevance.
The problem of mobile technologies for educational purposes is analyzed by the Ukrainian and foreign researchers, namely: V. Bykov, A. Struk, S. Smerikov, D. Kigan, A. Andreeva, etc. At the same time, the analysis of scientific and methodological literature and online sources shows that the problem of the use of mobile training for raising public awareness on civil protection issues has not been considered as a separate research subject before.
The purpose of the article is to determine the peculiarities of the mobile technologies used for population emergency preparedness, as well as to present the developed social mobile application “SES Alphabet” and the prospects of its usage for population training.
Under the rapid civilizational development of humanity, there will always be the possibility of various natural and manmade threats, and a certain part of the population will suffer from dangerous factors of the external environment. Therefore, the issue of citizen’s safety competence development and the culture of society safety in general will always remain urgent. According to the Ukrainian Constitution, human life and health, its protection against the impact of harmful man-made, natural, environmental and social factors are the highest social values, for which a unified state system of civil protection was created. One of the system’s components is the preparing of the population to behave properly under the conditions of potential emergencies.
Taking into account the fact that the main task of public policy in the civil protection field is emergency prevention, preparing people to act under special circumstances is an effective form of prophylaxis, first and foremost, of human casualties caused by disasters. The basics of human behavior in extreme situations are formed because of constant training, which provides an adequate level of preparedness in case of emergency. Therefore, the training of the population on civil protection issues should be standardized and widespread.
There is a natural question about effective tools for such training. In our opinion, it is possible to solve this problem by developing a suitable mobile application. Using of mobile devices for outreach activities on civil protection issues with the civilians and promotion of a safety culture in society have wide prospects because it addresses the major problem of accessibility and rapid provision of the adapted, easy-to-read educational information material. Mobile learning offers great opportunities for self-education of the population because the application allows you to remotely study in the field of life safety regardless of place and time. The high concentration and multimedia of the training material make it possible to focus on the main points, while the user-friendly interface allows you to navigate the vast array of civil protection information material very quickly.
Considering the opportunities and advantages, mobile education, in our opinion, in the long run can be the most effective outreach activity for the population on socially significant issues, in particular informing citizens about emergency response. The use of mobile devices will create the conditions for accessible, inclusive and continuous education of the population on civil protection issues.
International experience in the mobile applications in civil protection systems used to inform the public about emergency demonstrates the effectiveness of the mobile technologies in achieving the key tasks in the field of civil protection, namely the protection of life and health of citizens. The mobile application will provide useful and easy-to-read information about emergency procedures, which will help to avoid loss of human lives among the affected population.
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