Hank C. Jenkins-Smith

• PhD
• Managing Director at University of Oklahoma

Continued research of severe convective storms has enhanced the forecast capabilities of products like the Storm Prediction Center’s (SPC) convective outlook. Since 2003, the outlook has presented information about the likelihood of convective hazards within 25 miles of a point, as well as a “hatched” area where a 10% or greater chance of hail larg...

Our ability to forecast the spatial and temporal patterns of ecological processes at continental scales has drastically improved over the past decade. Yet, predicting ecological patterns at broad scales while capturing fine-scale processes is a central challenge of ecological forecasting given the inherent tension between grain and extent, whereby...

This study investigates the effects of issue framing on public support for programs encouraging farmer adoption of soil health practices. While extensive research exists on farmer adoption of best soil management practices, this study uniquely examines public willingness to support such initiatives. Using data from a survey of Oklahoma residents, w...

Public knowledge and awareness about radiation (both natural and manmade) tend to be low, while perceived risk of radiation tends to be high. High perceptions of risk associated with radiation have been linked to the affect heuristic and general feelings of dread, which are often not proportionate to actual risk. For example, studies routinely show...

Numerous changes to information technology and media consumption over the last two decades have facilitated a fundamental shift in how people receive information, including weather forecasts. Historically, weather information was generally vetted through experts (often broadcast meteorologists) to members of the public in a relatively top-down syst...

Using data from a nationally representative survey of 2,036 U.S. adults, we analyze partisan perceptions of the risk disinformation poses U.S. government and society, as well as the actors viewed as responsible for and harmed by disinformation. Our findings indicate relatively high concern about disinformation across a variety of societal issues, w...

Broadcast meteorologists are the primary source of weather information for the public, and thus are key to messaging the multiple weather hazards that can occur during simultaneous tornado and flash flood, or TORFF, events. Due in part to the challenge and cost needed to study broadcast coverage, there has been limited study into how broadcasters p...

Research has demonstrated that members of the public recognize anomalous weather patterns, and that subjective perceptions of the weather are related to beliefs about the occurrence of climate change. Yet despite two decades of scholarship and dozens of studies, inconsistent and insufficient data have made it difficult to credibly identify the caus...

National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters have many roles and responsibilities, including communication with core partners throughout the forecast and warning process to ensure that the information they are providing is relevant, understandable, and actionable. Although the NWS communicates to many groups, members of the emergency management commu...

Utilizing a random sample of Oklahoma, USA residents, this paper examines the factors that are 1) associated with concern for the current state of the electrical grid in Oklahoma, and 2) associated with willingness-to-pay (WTP) for electrical grid improvements in the state. We develop a conceptual model using a risk perception framework and based o...

Recent work has shown that the words used in the Storm Prediction Center’s convective outlook are not easily understood by members of the public. Furthermore, Spanish translations of the outlook information have also been shown to have interpretation challenges. This study uses survey data collected from the Severe Weather and Society Spanish Surve...

Abstract The overuse and expansion of artificial light at night (ALAN) has emerged from complex social, economic, and political factors, making it a societal problem that negatively impacts wildlife and people. We propose that a convergence research approach combining ecological forecasting with community engagement and public policy is needed to a...

As the abundance of weather forecast guidance continues to grow, communicators will have to prioritize what types of information to pass on to decision makers. This work aims to evaluate how members of the public prioritize weather forecast attributes (including information about location, timing, chance, severity, impacts, and protective actions)...

Light pollution is a global threat to biodiversity, especially migratory organisms, some of which traverse hemispheric scales. Research on light pollution has grown significantly over the past decades, but our review of migratory organisms demonstrates gaps in our understanding, particularly beyond migratory birds. Research across spatial scales re...

Alarming increases in average global temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have motivated efforts to transition energy production to clean energy – especially renewable energy sources like wind and solar. While nuclear energy has the potential to provide significant amounts of zero‑carbon, baseload energy...

Probabilistic forecast information is rapidly spreading in the weather enterprise. Many scientists agree that this is a positive development, but incorporating probability information into risk communication can be challenging because communicators have little guidance about the most effective way to present it. This project endeavors to create suc...

While previous work has shown that the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) convective outlooks accurately capture meteorological outcomes, evidence suggests stakeholders and the public may misinterpret the categorical words currently used in the product. This work attempts to address this problem by investigating public reactions to alternative informati...

Forecasters are responsible for predicting the weather and communicating risk with stakeholders and members of the public. This study investigates the statements that forecasters use to communicate probability information in hurricane forecasts and the impact these statements may have on how members of the public evaluate forecast reliability. We u...

This study combines insight from discourse network analysis (DNA) and the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to develop a new approach to studying narrative discourse within and across policy coalitions. The approach facilitates examination of narrative cohesion, which may impact the stability of coalitions and the impact of narrative discourse on po...

The book discusses the results of our surveys through 2020 about trust in health agencies related to COVID-19 information. As the US faced its lowest levels of reported trust in government, the COVID-19 crisis revealed the essential service that various federal agencies provide as sources of information. This Element explores variations in trust ac...

Extant research has demonstrated that public support (or lack thereof) is a primary driver for the expansion (or decline) of the use of nuclear reactors as a significant source of energy. This study uses a national survey to explore the dynamics of public support for nuclear energy in India, which remains understudied. In doing so, the study also b...

Although severe weather forecast products, such as the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) convective outlook, are much more accurate than climatology at day-to-week time scales, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms claim dozens of lives and cause billions of dollars in damage every year. While the accuracy of this outlook has been well documented, less wo...

Nocturnal tornadoes are challenging to forecast and even more challenging to communicate. Numerous studies have evaluated the forecasting challenges, but fewer have investigated when and where these events pose the greatest communication challenges. This study seeks to evaluate variation in confidence among US residents in receiving and responding...

Investments in new weather forecasting technologies and communication products can be costly and serve the ultimate purpose of protecting life and property. The Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) paradigm attempts to improve technology and communication through the provision of probabilistic hazard information (PHI). The rese...

As the United States is at historic lows of trust in government, various agencies are seeking to convince members of the public to take key protective actions and to support novel policy actions intended to reduce the spread of COVID‐19. This article assess the status of trust in key organizations relevant to pandemic information based on a nationa...

Public health officials dealing with pandemics like COVID-19 have to evaluate and prepare response plans. This planning phase requires not only looking into the spatiotemporal dynamics and impact of the pandemic using simulation models, but they also need to plan and ensure the availability of resources under different spread scenarios. To this end...

On the Ground •We surveyed residents across Oklahoma about their awareness of prescribed fire. •Most respondents expressed support for prescribed fire for managing rangelands. •Although there was support for prescribed fire, few individuals implemented it. •Of the several reasons given for not burning, the most common were lack of training, lack o...

Objective Cultural Theory (CT) has attracted significant attention across the social sciences and is increasingly being used in survey research. We assess the construct validity of three CT survey operationalizations to help interpret and improve these measures. Methods A coding protocol for face and content validity of survey items was developed...

Weather and climate disasters pose an increasing risk to life and property in the United States. Managing this risk requires objective information about the nature of the threat and subjective information about how people perceive it. Meteorologists and climatologists have a relatively firm grasp of the historical objective risk. For example, we kn...

When the National Weather Service (NWS) issues a tornado warning, the alert is rapidly and widely disseminated to individuals in the general area of the warning. Historically, the assumption has been that a false-negative warning perception (i.e., when someone located within a warning polygon does not believe they have received a tornado warning) c...

Trust is a key component of democratic decision‐making and becomes even more salient in highly technical policy areas, where the public relies heavily on experts for decision making and on the information provided by federal agencies. Research to date has not examined whether the members of the public place different levels of trust in the various...

One of the challenges when communicating forecast information to the public is properly contextualizing uncertainty. No forecast is ever certain, as no meteorological phenomenon is guaranteed to occur. As such, the uncertainty in forecast information should be communicated in a way that makes sense to end users. Previous studies of the communicatio...

The articles presented in this supplemental issue mark the twelfth edition of the Policy Studies Journal's Public Policy Yearbook. This issue includes three outstanding retrospective review articles that summarize recent developments in public policy research concerning health policy, defense and security policy, and policy evaluation. We provide a...

Effective risk communication in the weather enterprise requires deep knowledge about the communities that enterprise members serve. This includes knowledge of the atmospheric and climate conditions in these communities as well as knowledge about the characteristics of the people living in these communities. Enterprise members often have access to d...

Existing literature on climate change beliefs in the US suggests that partisan polarization begets climate change polarization and that the climate beliefs of those on both sides of the partisan divide are firmly held and invariable. Here, we use data from a large panel survey of Oklahoma residents administered quarterly from 2014 through 2018 to c...

Monetizing Bowser: A Contingent Valuation of the Statistical Value of Dog Life – Corrigendum - Deven Carlson, Simon Haeder, Hank Jenkins-Smith, Joseph Ripberger, Carol Silva, David Weimer

Households in the USA spend about $70 billion annually on pets. Dogs, the most common pet, can be found in nearly half of American households. An important shadow price in the analysis of policies affecting human mortality is the value of statistical life (VSL), which is imputed from how people make decisions involving tradeoffs between small morta...

Flooding is among the costliest natural disasters in the United States. Research indicates that flood risk perceptions and knowledge often shape flood-related decision making; however, relatively less is known about specific individual differences in flood risk literacy. The current study presents data from 630 participants who completed a flood ri...

This study uses aggregate polling data to develop and validate a new measure of public support for nuclear energy that allows for the identification of factors that influence the evolution of opinion over relatively long periods of time. In addition to focusing events, such as a significant accident, this new measure shows that energy security risk...

As numerical modeling methods and forecasting technologies continue to improve, people may start to see more specific severe weather timing and location information hours before the event occurs. While studies have investigated response actions on the warning time scales, little work has been done to understand what types of actions residents will...

Social criteria are important to achieving the mission of the National Weather Service. Accordingly, researchers and administrators at the NWS increasingly recognize a need to supplement verification statistics with complementary data about society in performance management and evaluation. This will require significant development of new capacities...

The concept of “advocacy coalitions” is the bedrock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), one of the most established and successful approaches for understanding policy processes across the globe. This article revisits and sharpens the conceptual definition of advocacy coalitions. We summarize the lessons from its theoretical emphases under th...

Methods for identifying relevant policy impacts for valuation in benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) have received relatively little attention in academic research, applied policy analyses, and guidance documents. In this paper, we develop a systematic, transparent, and replicable process that draws upon information contained in records of Congressional h...

Tornadoes impose enormous costs on society. Relatively simple and inexpensive enhancements to building codes may reduce these costs by 30% or more, but only one city in the United States has adopted these codes. Why is this the case? This analysis addresses this question by examining homeowner support for more stringent building codes in Oklahoma,...

Selectively focusing non-market valuation studies for operational changes in singular stretches or components of complex, coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) ignores important social and cultural dimensions of value. If economists pursue measurement of non-market values in CHANS, then an inclusive approach is required that is not biased towar...

en The articles presented in this supplemental issue mark the 10th edition of the Policy Studies Journal's Public Policy Yearbook. This issue includes three retrospective review articles summarizing recent developments in public policy research across the following focus areas: public opinion, policy learning and international relations. 摘要 zh 此增刊...

Hydroelectric dams have social, cultural, and environmental impacts on society through both alterations of riverine effects (both downstream and in reservoirs) and the production and distribution of hydropower in a broader geographical area. Management of complex dam, hydroelectric, and river systems frequently requires tradeoffs between alternativ...

In complex systems where humans and nature interact to produce joint outcomes, mitigation, adaptation, and resilience require that humans perceive feedback—signals of health and distress—from natural systems. In many instances, humans readily perceive feedback. In others, feedback is more difficult to perceive, so humans rely on experts, heuristics...

Established as a social companion to the Oklahoma Mesonet, the Oklahoma Meso-Scale Integrated Socio-Geographic Network (M-SISNet) is a network of approximately 1500 "social monitoring stations" (geolocated households) across the state of Oklahoma that provide data on household perceptions and responses to signals that are sent from agricultural, hy...

Altering existing operations of large hydroelectric dams in the US, for such reasons as improving downstream environmental habitats and recreation, often constrain the production of hydropower. This results in increased use of electricity from fossil fuel based power plants, which emit greenhouse gases (GHG) that promote global climate change. Howe...

Survey-based contingent valuation (CV) techniques are commonly used to value the potential effects of a policy change when market-based valuation of those effects is not possible. The results of these analyses are often intended to inform policy decisions, which are made within the context of formal policymaking institutions. These institutions are...

Since the emergence of public policy as a field of study in the middle of the twentieth century, a definitive challenge has been to develop theoretical approaches for the comparative study of policy processes. One theoretical approach that has endured over time is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). With more than three decades of research and...

Amidst debates about what conservation and preservation mean for large coupled human and natural systems, survey-based non-market valuation approaches for eliciting non-use values also may confront the need for re-consideration. For example, proposed operational changes on highly-engineered river systems to implement environmental considerations (e...

Public preferences across the mix of non-fossil fuel-based energy research and development (R&D) options, including a possible development path with increased nuclear energy, are likely to be complex. Preferences may reflect information (media coverage) and proximity effects (e.g. to nuclear clean-up sites), and are potentially fraught with uncerta...

Survey-based contingent valuation (CV) techniques are often used to value the potential effects of a policy change when market-based valuation of those effects is not possible. Although policy changes often have multiple effects—some of which would generally be considered positive and others negative—most CV analyses constrain respondents’ willingn...

Amidst ongoing debates about what conservation and preservation mean for large coupled human and natural systems, survey-based non-market valuation approaches for eliciting non-use values also may confront the need for re-consideration. For example, proposed operational changes on highly-engineered river systems to implement experimental environmen...

Exploratory study dealing with the multiple dimensions of non market values that may be connected to operational changes on highly-engineered, coupled human-natural systems. Application is to possible operational changes on the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.

According to a recent report by the Department of Homeland Security, “social media and collaborative technologies have become critical components of emergency preparedness, response, and recovery” (2013). These technologies are critical because they provide a centralized mechanism for two-way communication before, during, and after disasters that a...

The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals rely extensively on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests that a two-channel science communication strategy, combining information content (Channel 1) with cultural meanings (Channel 2), could promote open-minded assessment of infor...

Scholars have been studying the concept of public engagement and its role in the policy process for some time. Scholars have argued that understanding the interests and motivations of the public and engaging them in the decision-making process can lead to better policy designs and, ultimately, better policy outcomes. However, studies of public enga...

Deep core beliefs represent an important yet theoretically underspecified concept within the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). This underspecification can (in part) be attributed to the ad hoc way in which ACF scholars have defined and measured the concept over time. To overcome this, we advocate the development and future use of a standardized m...

This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the “grid/group” cultural theory (CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory (ACF). CT would seem to be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the “glue” that binds coalitions; the resilience of core be...

In the face of the reemerging threat of preventable diseases and the simultaneous vaccine risk controversy, what explains variations in Americans’ policy preferences regarding childhood vaccinations? Using original data from a recent nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults, this research seeks to explain differing public opinions on chi...

Effective communication about severe weather requires that providers of weather information disseminate accurate and timely messages and that the intended recipients (i.e., the population at risk) receive and react to these messages. This article contributes to extant research on the second half of this equation by introducing a "real time" measure...

Measured consequence-based messages or impact-based warnings (IBWs) can have an important and desirable effect on the responsiveness to severe weather warnings. A survey experiment was designed and administered to residents of the most tornado-prone regions of the continental United States. Including the experiment, the survey contains 144 question...

Theory and conventional wisdom suggest that errors undermine the credibility of tornado warning systems and thus decrease the probability that individuals will comply (i.e., engage in protective action) when future warnings are issued. Unfortunately, empirical research on the influence of warning system accuracy on public responses to tornado warni...

Understanding non-market values affected by proposed operational changes for the Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) has been the topic of considerable prior investigation, for both recreational use and environmental non-use values (e.g., Bishop et al., 1987; and Welsh et al., 1995). In addition to their role as investigations of market impacts (Douglass & Harpm...

A comprehensive primer to the major theoretical frameworks used in policy process research written by leading public policy scholars.

Employing data from two dozen national surveys of the American people conducted between 1993 and 2011, we analyze trends in mass views on key dimensions of nuclear security. We specifically address four questions. (a) How are the risks of nuclear conflict and further nuclear proliferation assessed? (b) How does the public view the relevance and val...

For decades, public expectations of U.S. presidents have become increasingly excessive and unreasonable. Despite much anecdotal evidence, few scholars have attempted to test the expectations gap thesis empirically. This is the first systematic study to prove the existence of the expectations gap and to identify the factors that contribute to the pu...

We use evidence from a quasi-experiment – the shipping of radioactive spent nuclear fuel by train through South Carolina – to assess whether many years of incident-free transport of nuclear waste no longer negatively affects market valuation of properties along the route. Using Charleston County (SC) property sales data over 13 years we find, to th...

Objective: Social scientists from a variety of disciplines have employed concepts drawn from cultural theory (CT) to explain preferences across an array of issues. Recent research has challenged key elements of CT in a number of ways, perhaps most importantly by arguing that cultural types are simply another formulation of political ideology, and t...

This paper analyzes the changes Americans perceive to be taking place in their local weather and tests a series of hypotheses about why they hold these perceptions. Using data from annual nationwide surveys of the American public taken from 2008 to 2011, coupled with geographically specific measures of temperature and precipitation changes over tha...

We conducted a two-nation study (United States, n = 1500; England, n = 1500) to test a novel theory of science communication. The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals make extensive reliance on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests the potential value of a distinctive two-...

n the past 20 years public concern about the relationship between childhood vaccines and autism have increased. Despite scientific findings that underscore the safety of vaccines and their efficacy in preventing serious infectious diseases, public perception of risk has remained if not increased. As a result, the United States and other developed n...

Scholars have used cultural theory (CT) to explain risk perceptions and opinion formation across an impressive array of public issues, ranging from environmental, regulatory, and energy policy to public health and economics. Although disparate, all these issues concern domestic policies. This article breaks with this trend by exploring the extent t...

Numerous scholars have employed Cultural Theory (CT) to explain preferences, opinions, and risk perceptions across an array of issues. Recent research by Michaud, Carlisle, & Smith (2009) challenges the CT approach in two critical ways: first, they find that people with low levels of political knowledge are unable to recognize the latent dimensiona...

Taking positions on national security issues, ranging from nuclear war to terrorism, necessarily engages values. Perceived security threats and the preferred means for dealing with them are in part derived from people’s preferences for how basic social relationships should be structured and maintained. This paper focuses on the ways in which fundam...

Public attitudes in the United States toward spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management options are sensitive to specified policy design elements. Retrievability is generally preferred, both because the public views SNF as a possible future resource and because the public prefers to retain the option to revise SNF storage strategies in light of new learni...