GPI Roundtable (9th, in Washingotn, DC)

GPI Roundtable (9th in Washington, DC)*
Global Issue Discussion Series (Part 1)
Risk Communications for Public Health Disasters
―Lessons from the 2001 Anthrax Incidents

Date/Time: September 10, 2009, 6:00-7:30 PM
Venue: Center for Strategic and International Studies (5F Conference Room)
Address: 1800 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 U.S.A.

"Risk Communications" is a cooperative process in which information is shared among affected groups and individuals so that the risks, and the appropriate remedial actions, are well-understood by all parties. It is especially important in "invisible" public health disasters such as a pandemic influenza or a biological attack, where the risk may not be clearly understood and where public fear may be high. This discussion will cover some of the problems that occurred in risk communications during the 2001 Anthrax incidents in the United States, and may raise questions about issues of risk communications that could occur in a pandemic influenza.

　　　Speaker
　　　Leo Bosner (former Emergency Management Specialist, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA)

　　　　　　　"Risk Communications" 　

　　　Discussant
　　　Mika Shimizu (GPI Co-Director, Visiting Scholar at the East West Center, and Abe Fellow)
　　
　　　Moderator
　　　Keisuke Nakashima (GPI Co-Director)

[Speaker's Biography]
Leo Bosner is an emergency management specialist, who has worked at Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since its beginning in 1979 and has retired in 2008. Leo previously spent a year in Japan under the Mike Mansfield Fellowship Program, and he is currently involved in researching disaster-related issues in Japan. His publications include "Emergency Preparedness: How Japan and the United States Compare," Asia Perspectives 4, no. 2 (Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs, Spring 2002). Leo has been quoted in many publications and media including CNN, CBS, and NPR.

*We thank the CSIS Japan Chair and the Policy Reseach & Analysis Network for Japan (PRANJ) for thier generous support in holding this discussion series. The views expressed in this discussion are his/her personal views only.