Review of evacuee mobilization challenges causing time-lag: Conceptualizing a new framework

This paper explores the concept of evacuation mobilization as a protective decision-making process and builds a theoretical framework that captures the factors from the perspective of risk communication. As a critical step in the decision process of disaster evacuation, in practice, mobilization has been overlooked. This study aims to embrace the varied yet inconsistent factors to a theoretical framework built upon the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM). A comprehensive review of literature of seminal and recent studies exploring the factors of mobilization and the major risk communication studies were used to build the theoretical framework explaining the variance of evacuation mobilization. Upon reviewing the aspects and factors of evacuation mobilization, this study asserts that the PADM is the most appropriate framework among those examined to theorize this process in evacuee decision-making. Specifically, the stages of receiving environmental cues and information, pre-decision processes, and perceptions, sequentially determine the on-going decision process of mobilization. This study fully discusses the issues surrounding evacuation mobilization and invites further empirical studies on early-warning disaster evacuations and more accurate simulations for late or no-warning evacuations. It also offers suggestions on how to mitigate the potential harm caused by extended mobilization.