No blues in this rainbow

A recent university study found that law enforcement personnel do not seem to suffer adverse effects due to raising alert levels in the familiar DHS color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS), as had been previously suspected.

While the threat level has remained Yellow (Elevated) for most of the time since the system’s 2002 inception, it has been raised to Orange (High) five times. The level was elevated to Orange in the airline sector in mid-August, even though DHS stated, “There is no credible, specific intelligence suggesting an imminent threat to the homeland at this time.” This was the fourth time the level has been raised to Orange for a single sector.

Each elevation triggers criticism that these alerts needlessly alarm the civilian population and may thus have a negative public health outcome. The study found evidence to the contrary.

“This investigation does not support that [negative] public health conclusion, at least as it pertains to law enforcement personnel in New Jersey,” said George S. Everly, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

To explore the potential psychological impacts of HSAS, the study analyzed the effects of terror alerts on the New Jersey law enforcement community (International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, Vol 9, No 4, 2007).

“In the case of terrorism, not only do police respond to terror events, they play a significant role in preventing subsequent attacks,” Everly said. “Their physical and mental well-being is therefore critical.”

Everly and colleagues analyzed call volume from an internal police asset called the New Jersey Cop 2 Cop crisis intervention hotline. “Cop 2 Cop is known to reflect psychological discord within the law enforcement population in response to environmental stressors,” Everly said.

While the daily hotline call volume increased substantially near the second anniversary of 9/11, there was no perceptible pattern corresponding to increases in alert level.

Everly cautioned that the study has limitations, in that it sampled only one subpopulation. “It nevertheless begins to provide data,” he told Homeland1, that alert levels do not have adverse psychological effects.

For those with an interest in being among the first to know when the threat level is changed, the Firefox browser provides a free add-on that displays the current HSAS threat level as an icon on the status bar. The icon changes colors automatically whenever DHS adjusts the level.