NEWS
RELEASE
For Immediate Release Contact: Glenn Newkirk
30 January 2006 Phone:
919.838.8570
A recent national opinion survey
of
M. Glenn Newkirk, President of InfoSENTRY Services, Inc., and research director for this national opinion survey conducted in mid-January said, “The survey shows that the American public has overall higher confidence in the abilities of hospitals and medical clinics to respond to emergencies and take effective steps to recover from disasters than it has in those capabilities of other key institutions listed in the survey. This finding is consistent with our other opinion research that reflected positively on information system security practices in hospitals and medical clinics.”
InfoSENTRY Services, Inc. contracted Opinion Research Corporation, a leading national opinion research company, to ask a random sample of 1004 US respondents who are 18 years old and over the following question in its CARAVAN® survey:
“Now I am going to read you some types
of organizations that have to deal with emergencies and disasters. As I read each one, using a scale of 1 to 5,
where 1 means very low confidence and 5 means very high confidence, please tell
me how confident you are that each organization can keep itself in operation
during major emergencies or can recover from serious disasters.”
Table 1 contains a summary look of the research project’s
findings.
Table 1
Public Attitudes on Institutions’ Response and Recovery Capabilities
|
Institution |
Positive
Response and Recovery Score (4 or 5) |
Negative
Response and Recovery Score (1 or 2) |
Net Response
and Recovery Confidence Score (Positive minus negative) |
|
Hospitals/medical
clinics |
56% |
10% |
46% |
|
Local
Government |
55% |
16% |
39% |
|
Federal
Government |
55% |
23% |
32% |
|
Schools/Universities |
48% |
20% |
28% |
|
State
Government |
48% |
21% |
27% |
|
Large
corporations |
43% |
17% |
26% |
|
Small
businesses |
31% |
31% |
0% |
Newkirk, a Certified Business Continuity Professional, noted, “The public also expressed relatively high confidence in local government’s abilities to respond to major emergencies and recover from serious disasters. Local government came in with a 39% Net Response and Recovery Confidence Score, second only to the 46% score achieved by hospitals and medical clinics.”
The survey pinpointed that there is a clear second-tier of net confidence scores given to the Federal government (32%), schools and universities (28%), state government (27%), and large corporations (26%). The public’s net confidence in the response and recovery capabilities of small business lagged far behind the other institutions at 0%.
Newkirk
commented, “The American public clearly places greater overall confidence in
the ability of local, on-the-ground institutions such as hospitals, police,
fire, and rescue squads to continue their operations in extreme circumstances.
It is likely that media images of the front-line responders’ actions after the
“On the other hand,” Newkirk said, “confidence in Federal government agencies to respond to major emergencies and serious disasters appeared to suffer from an opposite effect. While the positive image (55%) of the Federal government’s ability to respond is high, so is the negative image (23%). That situation results in an overall Net Response and Recovery Score of only 32% for the Federal Government. The net score for state government was even lower at 27%.
Large corporations, many of which have spent considerable sums on emergency preparedness plans and business continuity efforts, clearly have not established trust and confidence in the American public that they can respond and recover in times of crisis. “While many large telecommunications, financial, insurance, and manufacturing organizations have developed business continuity plans and made them work in actual catastrophes, public attitudes rank them more closely with state government, schools, and universities than with higher scoring local governments, hospitals, and medial clinics. This lack of general confidence in large corporations’ ability to respond and recover could have an immediate, negative effect on shareholders’ perceptions of corporate value in the event of serious, widespread disasters. The public view of small business preparedness is, simply put, equivalent to a vote of no confidence on this issue.” Newkirk concluded.
This
report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national
probability sample of 1004 adults comprising 502 men and 502 women 18 years of
age and older, living in private households in the continental United States.
The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage (±3%) points. InfoSENTRY
Services, Inc. will publish more detailed results of the survey on its website
at www.infosentry.com .
Interviewing
for this Opinion Research Center CARAVAN® Survey was completed during the
period January 12 – 15, 2006.
InfoSENTRY
Services, Inc. is an independent information technology services firm based in
The survey questions, response set, and data associated with this
opinion survey are Copyright 2006, by InfoSENTRY Services, Inc. All rights
reserved. The InfoSENTRY logo and InfoSENTRY® are registered trademarks of
InfoSENTRY Services, Inc. CARAVAN® is a registered trademark of Opinion
Research Corporation.
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