The Risk Dialogue Foundation identified recommendations for improving training, information and communication for emergency response teams for a project of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. This concerns, among others, emergency workers who have a central role in managing the crisis situation in the event of a radiological emergency.

A past study by the Risk Dialogue Foundation on radiological emergencies illustrates how great the uncertainty is among the population that is associated with radioactive radiation. Depending on the task force, people are differently prepared for such missions. Concerns about one’s own health and that of one’s relatives, dealing with the unsettled civilian population, as well as physical exertion make a mission in this setting particularly stressful. Accordingly, it is important to support the forces in dealing with so-called psychosocial stress. Therefore, the research project investigated the protection, information and communication needs of emergency workers who are professionally deployed in a potential radiological emergency. These findings should help to better understand what helps the emergency workers to remain operational despite high stress and to better process their experiences after the mission. This is particularly important to prevent the development of long-term stress-related illnesses.

With the involvement of all relevant organisations of emergency forces, information and protection needs were collected and then initial approaches and measures to address these needs were developed in a workshop. From this, the project team derived recommendations in the areas of training, information and communication to support emergency responders in dealing with psychosocial stress. Different conditions for different groups of emergency workers who are deployed during such an emergency were taken into account. The aim of the project was thus to formulate as concrete and group-specific measures as possible on a primarily conceptual level in order to ensure recommendations that are as close to the situation as possible. The full report can be downloaded here.