I know it is a bit late but I just discovered this story about how May has been declared “Building Safety Month” in Tennessee: Governor Haslam Proclaims May as Building Safety Month. This appears to be mostly a public awareness campaign but hopefully it will (or has) gotten people in Tennessee to think about “Building science” as an important field. Another news story says “The campaign reinforces the need for adoption of modern, model building codes; a strong and efficient system of code enforcement; and a well-trained, professional workforce to maintain the system.” It seems that this is not the first year for this campaign. For example see State Fire Marshal promotes Building Safety Month. It would be interested to see if anyone has studied whether this campaign has been effective in building public awareness or not. I could not find anything on whether this has been studied. But it does seem like at least they are making the effort. UPDATE: Comment from Matt Russell on Twitter
@mattrussell_PhD I almost said that in the post …. – Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) May 26, 2014
@phylogenomics Never too late for a revision :) – Matthew Russell (@mattrussell_PhD) May 26, 2014