From "I know" to "I can": What the Latest Heat Health Alert Research Tells Us About Preparedness

A blog by Tom Watkins, Policy & Insight Lead at the Emergencies Partnership.

A recent publication from United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) found that 41% of people in England who saw a Heat Health Alert took no action to protect themselves.  

That was the headline figure, but at the Emergencies Partnership we were drawn to a different question. What about the 59% that did do something? What useful things can we learn about what enabled them to act? 

We should of course be careful not to look at 6 in 10 people doing something as a success without digging a bit deeper. What did they actually do? Were they small changes, like drinking a bit more water or spending less time in the sun, behaviour changes like being a bit more careful not to cause fire risks, or more significant steps that genuinely reduced their exposure to risk? Were these people already vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat, or people with the resources, capacity and support networks that made acting relatively straightforward? And perhaps most importantly, how many would have taken those actions anyway, even without an alert? These kinds of distinctions tell us whether alerts are genuinely changing behaviour, reinforcing decisions people were already likely to make, or simply reaching those who are already best placed to protect themselves. 

Heat is not like many other risks. Most people don't need an alert to tell them it's hot, unlike a cyber-attack they can literally feel it.  

The research acknowledges the issue isn't that people are unaware of the weather. It is that many either don't recognise the health risks associated with extreme heat, don't think those risks apply to them, don't know what actions to take, or struggle to act even when they do. 

That shows up clearly in the findings. The most common reason people gave for taking no action was that they did not believe heat put them personally at risk. Only 18% of respondents reported a high perception of heat risk. Around 30% said they knew little or nothing about protective actions they could take. 

Dr Mehri Khosravi, the lead author of UNU’s policy brief, commented: 

"People aren't ignoring these alerts because they don't care. They read them and think, this isn't about me." 

For many people, heat is associated with enjoyment rather than danger. Good weather means parks, holidays, barbecues, beaches and time outdoors. In that context, it is not hard to see why some people struggle to identify themselves as being at risk. 

But there is another group of people that we should be thinking about too. 

People who will be disproportionately impacted not because they haven't seen a warning, but because their unequal circumstances make extreme heat harder to manage. Housing conditions, deprivation, disability, existing health problems, caring responsibilities, working conditions and environmental exposure all shape both exposure to vulnerability and people's ability to act, and none can be addressed through alerts alone. 

From our perspective: 

A person can understand the risk and still lack the means to respond to it. 

A person can know they should keep cool but have no cool space available. 

A person can know they should check on others but lack the confidence and capacity to do so. 

A person can know they need support but not know where to find it. 

Preparedness is fundamentally different from awareness. 

Preparedness is not whether someone received a message. It is whether they know what action is available to them, whether they feel confident taking it, and whether support exists when they cannot manage alone. 

That is where voluntary organisations, community groups, faith organisations, neighbours, employers, housing providers and other trusted local actors make such an important contribution. 

Their role is not simply to help messages travel further. It is to help people turn information into action, make sense of advice in the context of their own lives and connect them to support when barriers exist. 

There's an important lesson here that extends well beyond heatwaves. 

As government develops its National Resilience Public Awareness Campaign for this autumn, specifically aimed at informing the public about small but important steps they can take to prepare in case of emergencies and disruption, we must work together to avoid treating visibility as the same thing as preparedness. Counting how many people saw a message only tells us part of the story. 

The more important test of the government’s campaign, and how its core messages are picked up and brought to life by others in communities, will be whether people are more able to act afterwards than they were before.  

For all its value, the UNU research leaves some important unanswered questions for us. We know 59% of people took some action, but we know far less about what enabled that action, what it was, whether it made a meaningful difference, and how experiences of the message varied for those more likely to be disproportionately impacted by extreme heat. We should also be careful not to assume that "no action" automatically means failure. Some people may not need to change their behaviour significantly in response to a heat alert. The most important factor is whether those most exposed to the impacts of extreme heat are able to recognise the risk, understand what action is available to them and access support if they need it. As government launches its National Resilience Campaign over the next few months there is an opportunity for us to collaborate, exploring these questions with communities and partners across sectors, and getting to work dismantling the barriers to genuine preparedness. 

If resilience is the ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from disruption, then the real measure of success is not evidence that the message is received, it’s not whether people can repeat the advice back to us, it's proof of the actions that people actually take.