Cry Wolf Effect? Evaluating the Impact of False Alarms on Public Responses to Tornado Alerts in the Southeastern United States

Abstract On average, 75% of tornado warnings in the United States are false alarms. Although forecasters have been concerned that false alarms may generate a complacent public, only a few research studies have examined how the public responds to tornado false alarms. Through four surveys (N = 4162), this study examines how residents in the southeastern United States understand, process, and respond to tornado false alarms. The study then compares social science research findings on perceptions of false alarms to actual county false alarm ratios and the number of tornado warnings issued by counties. Contrary to prior research, findings indicate that concerns about false alarm ratios generating a complacent public may be overblown. Results show that southeastern U.S. residents estimate tornado warnings to be more accurate than they are. Participants’ perceived false alarm ratios are not correlated with actual county false alarm ratios. Counterintuitively, the higher individuals perceive false alarm ratios and tornado alert accuracy to be, the more likely they are to take protective behavior such as sheltering in place in response to tornado warnings. Actual country false alarm ratios and the number of tornado warnings issued did not predict taking protective action.

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False Alarms, Tornado Warnings, and Tornado Casualties

Weather Climate and Society ◽

10.1175/2009wcas1005.1 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 38-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 76

Author(s):

Kevin M. Simmons ◽

Daniel Sutter

Keyword(s):

False Alarm ◽

The United States ◽

Probability Of Detection ◽

False Alarms ◽

Lead Times ◽

Time Intervals ◽

Standard Deviation Increase ◽

False Alarm Ratio ◽

Tornado Warnings ◽

The Impact

Abstract This paper extends prior research on the societal value of tornado warnings to the impact of false alarms. Intuition and theory suggest that false alarms will reduce the response to warnings, yet little evidence of a “false alarm effect” has been unearthed. This paper exploits differences in the false-alarm ratio across the United States to test for a false-alarm effect in a regression model of tornado casualties from 1986 to 2004. A statistically significant and large false-alarm effect is found: tornadoes that occur in an area with a higher false-alarm ratio kill and injure more people, everything else being constant. The effect is consistent across false-alarm ratios defined over different geographies and time intervals. A one-standard-deviation increase in the false-alarm ratio increases expected fatalities by between 12% and 29% and increases expected injuries by between 14% and 32%. The reduction in the national tornado false-alarm ratio over the period reduced fatalities by 4%–11% and injuries by 4%–13%. The casualty effects of false alarms and warning lead times are approximately equal in magnitude, suggesting that the National Weather Service could not reduce casualties by trading off a higher probability of detection for a higher false-alarm ratio, or vice versa.

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Migration and Food Consumption: The Impact of Culture and Country of Origin on Obesity as an Indicator of Human Health

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12187567 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (18) ◽

pp. 7567

Author(s):

Yuval Arbel ◽

Chaim Fialkoff ◽

Amichai Kerner

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Food Consumption ◽

The United States ◽

Type I ◽

Russian Speakers ◽

Conventional Measure ◽

Research Findings ◽

The Impact ◽

Overweight Prevalence

Previous research demonstrates that the 1965 American immigration wave has tended to attenuate the obesity pandemic in the United States. Based on a survey carried out by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) in 2012 and 2016, we observe the correlation between BMI, age, native language, and years-since-migration to Israel. BMI (=kgm2) is a conventional measure of obesity, where BMI ≥ 25 is considered overweight and BMI ≥ 30 as type I obesity. The results indicate that compared to 11 groups of immigrants, the median BMI among native Israelis is lower. While the prevalence of overweight (BMI ≥ 25) among Hebrew speakers is below 50%, in 11 groups of immigrants, the prevalence of overweight is above 50%. A noteworthy exception is the immigrants from Ethiopia, who exhibit lower overweight prevalence compared to native Israelis and all other population groups. Finally, while male Hebrew and Russian speakers cross the overweight benchmark at the same age (35 years), native Israeli women (Hebrew speakers) cross this benchmark only when they reach 50 years (15 years after the males) and Russian women cross this benchmark only five years after the Russian men. These research findings may be of assistance in public health and culture-oriented medicine.

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Physician Dissatisfaction in the United States: An Examination

Professions and Professionalism ◽

10.7577/pp.926 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Francis J. Crosson ◽

Lawrence P. Casalino

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Medical Practice ◽

The United States ◽

Quantitative Information ◽

Physician Satisfaction ◽

Rand Corporation ◽

Physician Practices ◽

Research Findings ◽

Physician Time ◽

The Impact

This paper addresses several root causes of dissatisfaction with medical practice among American physicians, and suggests that some, but not all, are potentially remediable. Fixed assumptions about the nature of medical practice in the United States, developed over several decades, appear to be eroding. At the same time, increasing demands on physician time, especially involving low value documentation and administrative tasks are interfering with the physician-patient interaction. In addition, physician practice structure and payment methodologies are beginning to change in the United States leading to a sense of practice instability among physicians. Recent research conducted by the American Medical Association and the RAND Corporation has provided new qualitative and quantitative information about the impact of these trends on physician practices. An evaluation of these research findings indicates that some improvements in physician satisfaction are possible. Keywords: physician professionalism, practice satisfaction, electronic health records, health care reform in the U.S.

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Characteristics of Tornado Events and Warnings in the Southeastern United States

Weather and Forecasting ◽

10.1175/waf-d-18-0211.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 1017-1034 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Alexandra K. Anderson-Frey ◽

Yvette P. Richardson ◽

Andrew R. Dean ◽

Richard L. Thompson ◽

Bryan T. Smith

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

False Alarm ◽

Southeastern United States ◽

Probability Of Detection ◽

High Shear ◽

Related Literature ◽

False Alarm Ratio ◽

Tornado Warnings ◽

Tornado Warning

Abstract The southeastern United States has become a prime area of focus in tornado-related literature due, in part, to the abundance of tornadoes occurring in high-shear low-CAPE (HSLC) environments. Through this analysis of 4133 tornado events and 16 429 tornado warnings in the southeastern United States, we find that tornadoes in the Southeast do indeed have, on average, higher shear and lower CAPE than tornadoes elsewhere in the contiguous United States (CONUS). We also examine tornado warning skill in the form of probability of detection (POD; percent of tornadoes receiving warning prior to tornado occurrence) and false alarm ratio (FAR; percent of tornado warnings for which no corresponding tornado is detected), and find that, on average, POD is better and FAR is worse for tornadoes in the Southeast than for the CONUS as a whole. These measures of warning skill remain consistent even when we consider only HSLC tornadoes. The Southeast also has nearly double the CONUS percentage of deadly tornadoes, with the highest percentage of these deadly tornadoes occurring during the spring, the winter, and around local sunset. On average, however, the tornadoes with the lowest POD also tend to be those that are weakest and least likely to be deadly; for the most part, the most dangerous storms are indeed being successfully warned.

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The Impact of Chronic Ambient Exposure to PM2.5 and Ozone on Asthma Prevalence and COPD Mortality Rates in the Southeastern United States

Annual Review of Nursing Research ◽

10.1891/0739-6686.38.15 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 15-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Azita Amiri ◽

Brinda Mahalingam ◽

Anton Derbes ◽

Jordan Haney ◽

Susan Alexander ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Respiratory Diseases ◽

Southeastern United States ◽

The United States ◽

Mortality Rates ◽

Asthma Prevalence ◽

Chronic Obstructive ◽

Ambient Exposure ◽

Medical Histories ◽

The Impact

Respiratory diseases affect millions of people across the United States annually. Two of the most common respiratory diseases are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Mortality rates due to COPD have increased by an estimated 30% between 1980 and 2014, with significant variances among geographic regions. Both acute and chronic ambient exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone have been associated with exacerbations of respiratory diseases in numerous studies, and exposure to air pollutants are considered as the largest health risk factor globally. This study adds to the current literature by reporting the results of a time series analysis of the impact of PM2.5 and ozone on prevalence rates of asthma and mortality rates for COPD at regional and county levels across the southeastern United States for the years 2005–2014. While general reductions in levels of PM2.5 and ozone were demonstrated across all years, a distributed lag model showed continued strong associations between PM2.5 and prevalence of asthma and mortality due to COPD, even at relatively small increases in ambient exposure (<1 μg/m3) across the southeastern United States. The results of the study support the need for additional research that considers factors such as patient demographics, medical histories, and health disparities in combination with ambient exposures to known pollutants.

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A 5-yr Climatology of Tornado False Alarms

Weather and Forecasting ◽

10.1175/waf-d-10-05004.1 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 26 (4) ◽

pp. 534-544 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

J. Brotzge ◽

S. Erickson ◽

H. Brooks

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Population Density ◽

False Alarm ◽

Late Summer ◽

Weather Forecast ◽

False Alarms ◽

Combined Effects ◽

Tornado Warnings ◽

County Population ◽

Geographic Regions

Abstract During 2008 approximately 75% of tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) were false alarms. This study investigates some of the climatological trends in the issuance of false alarms and highlights several factors that impact false-alarm ratio (FAR) statistics. All tornadoes and tornado warnings issued across the continental United States between 2000 and 2004 were analyzed, and the data were sorted by hour of the day, month of the year, geographical region and weather forecast office (WFO), the number of tornadoes observed on a day in which a false alarm was issued, distance of the warned area from the nearest NWS radar, county population density, and county area. Analysis of the tornado false-alarm data identified six specific trends. First, the FAR was highest during nonpeak storm periods, such as during the night and during the winter and late summer. Second, the FAR was strongly tied to the number of tornadoes warned per day. Nearly one-third of all false alarms were issued on days when no tornadoes were confirmed within the WFO’s county warning area. Third, the FAR varied with distance from radar, with significantly lower estimates found beyond 150 km from radar. Fourth, the FAR varied with population density. For warnings within 50 km of an NWS radar, FAR increased with population density; however, for warnings beyond 150 km from radar, FAR decreased regardless of population density. Fifth, the FAR also varied as a function of county size. The FAR was generally highest for the smallest counties; the FAR was ~80% for all counties less than 1000 km2 regardless of distance from radar. Finally, the combined effects of distance from radar, population density, and county size led to significant variability across geographic regions.

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