Crisis‐Ready or Crisis‐Prone? Segmenting Public Risk Perception Patterns for Multi‐Hazard Crisis Communication in Korea

ABSTRACT Contemporary societies face cascading threats – from pandemics to nuclear incidents and natural disasters. While research has increasingly examined public risk perception across multiple hazards, whether people evaluate different risks independently or according to stable perception patterns – and whether such patterns can be systematically identified within the general public – remains underexplored. Here we address this question by examining whether distinct groups of individuals exhibit consistent risk perception patterns across multiple hazards. Using latent class analysis on South Korean survey data ( n = 1019) measuring perceptions of nuclear power, natural hazards, COVID‐19, and other risks, we identify three distinct public segments: crisis‐prone (perceiving all risks as extremely dangerous), crisis‐cautious (moderately risk‐aware) and crisis‐ready (generally perceiving risks as manageable). Group membership was significantly associated with demographic factors: women and older individuals were more likely to belong to the crisis‐prone segment, while higher education increased the likelihood of being crisis‐ready – patterns consistent with the ‘white male effect’ literature and extending these findings to a non‐Western context. Our results demonstrate that multi‐hazard perception is organized around stable individual patterns rather than varying independently across risk types, supporting a methodological expansion toward analyzing people alongside risk variables. This segmentation offers a practical framework for identifying how risk concerns cluster within the public, and suggests the need for crisis communication strategies that can accommodate diverse risk orientations within the public.