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Pepperdine, DRJ: 2006 Pandemic Preparedness
Survey Results

By ROBERT C. CHANDLER, Ph.D., J. D. WALLACE, Ph.D.,
& W. TIMOTHY COOMBS, Ph.D.

In an effort to learn more about the current efforts of preparedness planning for pandemic threats we conducted the Pepperdine University/DRJ Avian Flu Preparedness survey at DRJ Spring World 2006. We wanted to know how these threats were regarded, what steps (if any) were being taken to prepared for these risks, and what were the key “motivator” factor that are correlated with these activities. This survey gives us some insight into the perspective of a wide range of disaster recovery managers and business continuity planners.
Approximately 80 percent of the survey participants represented companies with over a 1,000 employees. Larger companies were primarily represented with more than half of those surveyed being affiliated with companies with more than 5,000 employees and 45 percent of those surveyed representing companies with more than 10,000 employees. These companies represented a diverse cross section of industry.
Seventeen distinct different business categories were profiled. The most prominent categories were financial/banking, insurance, government, manufacturing, healthcare, telecomm, data processing/IT systems, retail/wholesale, education and miscellaneous businesses. These are represented slightly more than 90 percent of those surveyed and were the only categories with sufficient size for corporate comparison. Four categories had extremely low representation. These were transportation, utilities, entertainment, and petrol/chemical companies. Noticeably absent was representation from companies that dealt with property management, events/amusements, lodging/food services, and suppliers.

General Findings
Some very clear trends appeared in the majority of the survey responses. Most organizations view the Avian flu risk as serious. They also see their specific organization as being at risk from Avian flu. Furthermore most organizations represented in the survey claimed that there were clear benefits to adherence to governmental avian flu preparedness guidelines. Lack of adherence was shown contribute to some kind of harm to the organization. Remarkably most of those same companies have not yet started with actively preparing for the pandemic risks by implementing the government recommended preparedness guidelines.
Apparently being at risk for Avian flu is not a sufficient catalyst to move corporations to action. What emerged was a complex risk assessment pattern that tended to indicate who was and who was not preparing. Those who have started their preparations had to see the risk as very serious, the potential for harm as high and a clear benefit implementing the government guideless for pandemic preparedness.
While these perceptions profile the early adopters other factors were also significant in determining if governmental recommendations were being utilized. These included 1) awareness of governmental guidelines (highly significant), 2) ease or difficulty of implementation (significant), 3) having a comprehensive written crisis management/business continuity plan (highly significant).
This suggests that to increase levels of pandemic preparedness efforts should be made to increase the awareness of the existence of the government guidelines (that is proactive publicizing rather than relying on private sector companies to seek out such guidelines), making preparedness plans simple and easier for companies (and continuity/disaster managers) to implement, and promote general levels of continuity/disaster recovery preparedness (e.g. having a written continuity or disaster recovery plan). Benefits should be emphasized for corporations. Risks while important were not sufficient to motivate companies to action. Risk assessment appears to be encompassed within a more complex perspective.
There appears to be two dimensions of the perceptions of the pandemic threat risk. One is the likelihood or probably (risk) of the occurrence of a pandemic and the other is the impact (harm) of the pandemic.
The stronger the perception that pandemics are harmful the more likely that companies are engaged in implementing the preparedness guidelines. This suggests that it is important to communicate the range of potential impacts of pandemics of various severities.
This was a fundamentally different position from the corporations perceiving harm. There was no observable relationship between the perceptions of corporate risk and preparedness efforts. Given that pandemics are considered inevitable by the scientific and medical communities this finding may be one of the most important for this study. These communities must make it a priority to communicate to businesses, continuity planners and disaster recovery managers that a pandemic is an inevitable disaster that will occur at some point in the future.

Specific Areas of Preparation and Awareness
Several specific areas concerning risk and contingency planning were utilized in the survey to evaluate preparedness. Items are listed in Table 1 and ranged from business impacts to coordination with external organizations and community.
These areas were developed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Service as a checklist which businesses can now use to help plan for flu pandemics and other emergencies. Table 1 color codes these six categories and the remainder of tables in this article follow these colors coding consistently for ease of comparison of the focus on the different dimensions of preparedness. These six broad (Table 1) areas cover 35 different categories.

The 2006 Pepperdine University/DRJ Pandemic Preparedness Survey substantially incorporated these governmental pandemic preparedness categories to provide initial feedback concerning the current levels of preparation across these dimensions. Respondents were asked about their knowledge of these government pandemic preparedness guidelines.
Results were somewhat disheartening in that only 44 percent of business continuity and disaster recovery workers indicated that they were aware of these governmental guidelines. The majority of those surveyed reported that they had not started preparation in about 80 percent of the categories recommended by the CDC. The data revealed a fundamental pattern where there were a relatively few categories where the majority of companies had started preparing.
However, lack of preparation ruled the day concerning corporate response. There were more categories where the majority of survey respondents indicated that their company had not started preparation and even more categories where a super majority of companies had not started.
The most prevalent trend was the similarities between industries. In the overwhelming number of categories there was no significant difference in levels of preparation among industries represented in the survey.
However there were eight categories where some industries lead the pack and nine categories where laggards trailed the pack.
While leading or trailing does not remove you from a need to be better in terms of preparation it does give you a sense of position relative to other industries.
In this regard, financial/banking sector was the dominant pandemic preparedness leader in five of the eight leading categories. Two industries were consistent laggards 1) retail/wholesale trailed in five categories and 2) manufacturing trailed in six of the nine trailing categories.

Hierarchy of Preparedness
Unfortunately the hierarchy of preparedness is similar to the title of an old western movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” where the truth is that “good” is a fairly relative term. In the preparation context good was measured against a backdrop where no business that had a high rate of completion in any category.
The best levels of preparedness were where businesses had just started to prepare. Therefore the most salient indicator of levels of preparation was considered to be the percentage of companies that had not started a category. The best news available is where the majority of companies had started preparation or under the current metric where the minority of companies were found in the “not started” category.
Only seven categories (Table 2) had more than 50 percent of companies conducting some form of pandemic preparation. Three of these categories had industries break away from the pack with significant differences.

Leaders included financial/banking, data processing/IT systems, insurance and telecom. The financial/banking sector had a much higher level of establishing an emergency plan. The financial/banking, data processing/IT systems and insurance sectors had a much higher level of finding up to date pandemic information. The data processing/IT systems and telecom sectors had a much higher level of establishing a flexible worksite.
Laggards in preparing for pandemics included retail/wholesale, education, manufacturing and healthcare sectors. Retail/wholesale and education sectors had a much lower level of establishing an emergency plan; Manufacturing and retail/wholesale sectors had a much lower level of finding up-to-date pandemic information; and manufacturing and healthcare sectors had a much lower level of establishing a flexible worksite plan.
The bad news, in this case, is where 13 categories (Table 3) had a clear majority (50-59 percent) of companies not having started pandemic preparation work. Two categories had industries break away from the pack.

Leaders included data processing/IT systems, financial/banking healthcare and telecom sectors. Data processing/IT systems and financial/banking sectors had a much higher level of developing and disseminating programs and materials covering pandemic fundamentals while the healthcare and telecom sectors had much higher levels of developing platforms (e.g. hotlines, dedicated Web sites, automated notification, etc.) for communicating pandemic status.
Laggards included education, retail/wholesale, healthcare, data processing/IT systems, and manufacturing. The retail/wholesale, healthcare and education sectors had a much lower level of developing and disseminating programs and materials covering pandemic fundamentals. One-hundred percent of education, retail/wholesale, data processing/IT systems, and manufacturing had not started developing platforms (e.g. hotlines, dedicated Web sites, automated notification, etc.) for communicating pandemic status.
The really discouraging news was found in 15 categories (Table 4) where a substantial majority (60-80 percent) of companies had not started preparation. Four categories had industries break away from the pack. Only financial/banking and government sectors were identified as leaders in this group. Financial/banking and government sectors had a much higher level of coordination of their plans with federal, state, and local health and emergency response agencies. The government sector had a much higher level of disseminating their preparedness and response plans to employees.

Laggards included retail/wholesale, data processing/IT systems, manufacturing, healthcare, and government sectors. Retail/wholesale, data processing/IT systems and manufacturing sector had a much lower level of coordination of their plans with federal, state and local health and emergency response agencies. Manufacturing and data processing/IT systems sectors had a much lower level of disseminating their preparedness and response plans to employees. Healthcare and manufacturing sectors had much lower scores for identifying employees and key customers with special needs. One-hundred percent of government organizations surveyed had not started to ensure availability of medical consultation and advice for emergency response.
As might be noted by the color variation in the graphs presented, there were commonalities in the general areas where companies were generally preparing and where they were not. Three areas of the preparedness strategies had almost universally not been started by companies. One hundred percent of the categories concerning coordinating with external organizations and helping the community were in this category. Also the majority of the categories dealing with planning for the impact on employees and customers had not been started. There is a clear need to emphasize these dimensions as “need” areas for planning focus and preparedness attention.
The only areas where the majority of corporations have started pandemic preparation were in the “business” category. Concerning business, most of these items such as “establishing an emergency communication plan” and “finding up-to-date information” had to do with current environmental scanning activities that naturally subsumed what would be used for pandemics. It is good that this scanning is ongoing, but it needs to mature into action. This action should be becoming increasingly important given the recent emphasis on integrating public and private response capabilities to emergencies

Conclusions and Recommendations
In general, there is much work to be done to increase the state of pandemic preparedness based on the results of this study. While there are some positive indications that companies with existing continuity/disaster recovery plans for other threats are also likely to have initiated planning for pandemic risks, nonetheless there remains a substantial preparedness gap for the threat of pandemics.
Those who have started their preparations were also most likely to regard the risks as very serious with a high level of potential harm. They were also most likely to perceive benefits to their organization of implementing the government guideless for pandemic preparedness.
To increase levels of pandemic preparedness efforts should be made to increase the awareness of the existence of the government guidelines (that is proactive publicizing rather than relying on private sector companies to seek out such guidelines), make preparedness plans simple and easier for companies (and continuity/disaster managers) to implement, highlight the benefits of pandemic preparation, and promote general levels of continuity/disaster recovery preparedness (e.g. having a written continuity or disaster recovery plan).
This study has found perceptions of pandemic risks are directly related to whether and how companies are preparing to mitigate and recover from a pandemic. While perceptions of how likely the next pandemic do not appear to affect the level of preparation efforts, perceptions of the impact or consequences of a pandemic are related to the current commitment of pandemic preparedness.
These results demonstrate that the more planners perceive pandemics as harmful (significance of disruption) to business operations the more likely they are to be engaged in implementing the federal recommendations for pandemic preparedness.
It is imperative, given this finding, that public health authorities as well as business continuity/disaster recovery professionals to help raise the awareness of the potential impacts of a pandemic rather than merely focus on communicating the probability of the next pandemic. This strategy makes all the more sense when one recognizes that the next pandemic is inevitable and will occur at some point in future.
In short, these results suggest that it is imperative to communicate to businesses, continuity planners, and disaster recovery managers that a pandemic is not only an inevitable disaster but more important risk warning messages must focus on raising awareness of the potential consequences and impacts of a pandemic on people, processes, systems, businesses, and society.
This study has found that some areas of the government recommended pandemic preparedness are almost universally not as of yet implemented by companies or substantially not yet started to be developed.
In general terms, this study finds there is still widespread lack of preparedness for pandemics. One hundred percent of the categories concerning coordinating with external organizations and the organizations community help are in this category. There is a substantial gap in company planning and preparations to coordinate with external agencies. The majority of the categories dealing with planning for the impact on employees and customers fall into these “not started to implement.” There is a clear need to emphasize these dimensions as “need” areas for planning focus and preparedness attention. There seems to be a shortsighted, internal focus to current pandemic planning. The extensive nature of pandemics demands an external focus. Corporations will need to coordinate with public sector actors. Ignoring employees and customers, two critical stakeholders, is a strategic error. Corporations must place pandemic preparedness into a larger frame that includes external actors and agencies. Integration rather than isolation is the key to pandemic preparation. The results of this study should be a warning sign for both private and public sectors that overall we are not as of yet prepared for the coming pandemic.
H5N1 Avian flu has drawn attention to the need for pandemic preparedness. This is a positive step in the right direction. However, pandemics are not a new threat and they pose vast threats to a wide range of businesses, threats for which most companies are still not yet prepared to mitigate and recover. The results of this study should be taken as a serious warning sign for pandemic preparedness given that a pandemic is a “when,” not an “if” threat. Avian flu may not be the next pandemic, but statistics and history dictate one is coming. The government and corporations must work together to raise the level of pandemic preparedness in the United States. These results provide a viable roadmap for the next phase of that collaboration, specifically the parameters for a substantial risk communication campaign directed at those most vulnerable from the impact of the next pandemic.

Dr. Robert C. Chandler is a professor and chair in the communication division at the Center for Communication and Business at Pepperdine University. He is an expert in organizational and business communication, crisis communication, communication priorities for pandemics and other public health crises, behavioral and psychometric assessment and appraisal, leadership, multicultural diversity, organizational integrity, and business ethics. He is the author of several books including “Crisis Communication Planning,” and “Managing the Risks for Corporate Integrity.”

Dr. J.D. Wallace is a professor of communication at Lubbock Christian University. He is an expert in organizational communication, training and development techniques, computer-mediated communication, virtual teams, assessment and appraisal. His most recent publications have been in the area of data-drilling and online research methods.

Dr. W. Timothy Coombs is a professor of public relations at Eastern Illinois University. He is an expert in public relations, crisis communication, crisis teams, crisis leadership, corporate and business communication, and he is the author of several books including the award winning “Ongoing Crisis Communication,” and “Code Red in the Boardroom.” He is the 2002 recipient of Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize from the Public Relations Society of American for his crisis research.

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