Protective Action Decision Model

The Protective Action Decision Model (PADM), developed by Michael Lindell and Ronald Perry, is a multistage behavioral framework explaining how people at risk decide whether and how to protect themselves when warned of an environmental hazard. Synthesizing decades of disaster warning-response research, PADM traces a chain from environmental and social cues and warning messages, through predecisional processes of exposure, attention, and comprehension, to three core perceptions — of the threat, of the candidate protective actions, and of the social stakeholders involved. These perceptions drive a structured decision sequence — identifying the risk, assessing it, searching for and evaluating protective actions, and selecting a response — that, together with situational facilitators and impediments, determines the behavioral outcome. The 2012 statement refined the model and connected it to applications including risk communication design, hazard-adjustment adoption, and evacuation modeling.