Wurster et al. Cardiac arrest and benefits of crowd tasking apps Short Paper – Planning, Foresight and Risk Analysis Proceedings of the ISCRAM 2016 Conference – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 2016 Tapia, Antunes, Bañuls, Moore and Porto de Albuquerque, eds. Sudden cardiac arrest and the role of crowd tasking apps for risk mitigation Simone Wurster Technische Universität Berlin simone.wurster@tu-berlin.de Frank Fiedrich Bergische Universität Wuppertal fiedrich@uni-wuppertal.de Michael Klafft Fraunhofer FOKUS & Jade University of Applied Sciences michael.klafft@fokus.fraunhofer.de Andreas Bohn Ärztliche Leitung Rettungsdienst Stadt Münster BohnA@stadt-muenster.de ABSTRACT Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is among the three most prominent causes of death in industrialized nations. Therefore, experts are calling for solutions, including smartphone-based systems to mobilize volunteers. German researchers are developing a crisis response system with a crowd tasking app. It aims to help reduce the effects of large-scale events, but also of ad-hoc incidents including SCA. This paper describes an approach to determine the potential of the system to increase the survival rate of SCA illustrated by an example. Its concept was analyzed by five experts from three countries and benefited from their feedback. Keywords Risk mitigation, crowd tasking, benefit analysis, warning apps, sudden cardiac arrest INTRODUCTION Modern societies are increasingly threatened by a wide range of natural and man-made risks. In this context, ‘mitigation’ is an important concept (Van de Walle and Turoff, 2008). According to Labaka (2013), mitigation/prevention ‘refers to the actions taken to identify risks, avoid their occurrence and reduce possible negative effects on human life and personal property’. Van de Walle and Turoff (2008) consider specific large- scale events with a significant impact on life and property. Labaka‘s (2013) definition also allows for referring to large numbers of small risks whose significant impact results of high incidence rates. Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is among the three most prominent causes of death after cancer and other cardiovascular diseases in industrialized nations (see Van Aken and Böttiger, 2015). Consistent with Labaka’s definition of mitigation, ‘actions to reduce possible negative effects on human life’ are required, in particular because attempts of cardiopulmonary resuscitation are very often unsuccessful in those SCA incidents that take place out of hospital.