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298 Disaster Research Topics & Essay Titles + Examples

Are you looking for a good idea for your presentation, thesis project, dissertation, or other assignment? StudyCorgi has prepared a list of emergency management research topics and essay titles about various disaster-related issues. Below, you’ll also find free A+ essay examples. Read on to get inspired!

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• Earthquakes’ Impacts on Society
• 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami
• Chernobyl Disaster and Engineering Ethics
• Forest Fires as a Global Environmental Hazard
• Disaster Management in Nursing Practice
• A Natural Disaster Preparation Plan
• Flooding and Ways to Survive in It
• Floods: Stages, Types, Effects, and Prevention Flood is the most regularly occurring and the most destructive natural disaster. The most flood-prone area in the world is Asia, but the US has its own share of floods.
• Earthquakes: Effects on People’s Health Earthquakes are one of the global environmental health issues that hugely impact people’s lives in certain geographical areas and communities.
• Decision-Making in the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster The decision-makers in the case of the Hillsborough Disaster were the event organizers, road engineers, and policemen handling the crowd.
• Strategies Applicable to the Hurricane Katrina The Mississippi Crisis Plan many focuses on public information in order to ensure more communities and populations are aware of possible disasters.
• Community Health: Disaster Recovery Plan Healthy People 2020 is a government initiative aimed at improving health for all groups. Its objectives are raising length and quality of life, achieving health equity.
• Disaster Planning and Health Information Management This paper discusses promising measures and practices to help the organization to avoid situations with loosing all health information in case of future disastrous events.
• Natural Disasters: Rebuilding and Recovery Using the case of Hurricane Sandy, this paper explores some of the best approaches that can be used to address social justice and multicultural issues related to rebuilding and recovery.
• Natural Disasters and Disaster Management in Katmandu This paper identifies the major disasters in the Kathmandu valley, suggested strategies to mitigate them, and the government’s move toward disaster management.
• The Tohoku Earthquake: Tsunami Entry The paper discusses the Tohoku earthquake. The tsunami evacuation can be described as one that was preceded by warning, preparation, and knowledge.
• Stop Disasters Game: Learning, Entertainment, or Both? It is worth mentioning that the game seems to be informative in helping the player understand how to get prepared for natural calamities.
• Earthquake Resistant Building Technology & Ethics Foreign engineers aimed to replace Japanese architecture with a more solid one with masonry houses, new railroads, iron bridges and other European technological advances.
• Nurse’s Role in Disaster Planning and Preparedness Public health officials play an important role in disaster planning and emergency preparedness. Nurses are involved in disaster planning, preparedness, response and recovery.
• Human Factors In Aviation: Tenerife Air Disaster The probability of mistake linked to the issue estimates around 30%, which is too high for aviation. For this reason, there is a need for an enhanced understanding of the problem.
• Dell Technologies Company’s Disaster Recovery Plan The goals of Dell Technologies include not only succeeding in its target market and attracting new customers but also demonstrating that its technology can be safer.
• Valero Refinery Disaster and Confined Space Entry On November 5, 2010, a disaster occurred at the Valero Delaware City, Delaware. Two workers succumbed to suffocation within a process vessel.
• Natural Disasters and Their Effects on Supply Chains This paper identifies emerging global supply chains and uses the cases of Thailand and Japan to explain the impacts of natural disasters on global supply chains.
• Hurricane Katrina: Government Ethical Dilemmas Hurricane Katrina is a prime example of government failure. That`s why the leadership and decision-making Issues are very important at every level: local, state and federal.
• Emergency Operations Plan During Earthquake Timeliness and quality of response to environmental challenges are the primary factors that can save the lives of thousands of people.
• A Report on Earthquakes Using Scientific Terms The current essay is a report on earthquakes using scientific terms from the course. Moment magnitude or moment magnitude scale refers to the relative size of an earthquake.
• Comparison of the Loma Prieta California Earthquake and Armenia An earthquake is a tremor in the earth’s crust that results to seismic waves as a result of the sudden energy realized from the earths bowels.
• Geology: Iquique Earthquake in Chile This paper describes the Iquique earthquake that took place on 1 April, 2014 in Chile and explains why living near an active faultline is better than on an active volcano.
• Consequences of Northridge Earthquake The paper discusses Northridge Earthquake. A blind thrust fault provoked an earthquake of a magnitude of 6.7, which is high for such a natural phenomenon.
• Earthquake: Definition, Stages, and Monitoring An earthquake is a term used to describe the tremors and vibrations of the Earth’s surface; they are the result of sudden natural displacements and ruptures in the Earth’s crust.
• Drought as an Extremely Dangerous Natural Disaster On our planet, especially in places with an arid climate, drought itself, like the dry winds that cause it, are not uncommon.
• India’s, Indonesia’s, Haiti’s, Japan’s Earthquakes In 2001, the major tremor hit the Indian state Gujarat. It was reported as the most significant earthquake in the region in the last several decades.
• Disaster Triage and Nursing Utilitarian Ethics Utilitarian moral principles are applicable to a wide range of extreme situations. One of the most relatable ethical issues in this context would be disaster triage.
• Disasters and Emergency Response in the Community The onset of a disaster prompts the nation, region, or community affected to depend on the emergency response team.
• Hurricane Katrina: Improvised Communication Plan This article seeks to highlight improvised communication plans adopted by the victims in the shelter at the Houston Astrodome.
• Links Between Natural Disasters, Humanitarian Assistance, and Disaster Risk Reduction: A Critical Perspective
• Global Warming: The Overlooked Man-Made Disaster Assignment
• Natural Disaster, Comparing Huadong and Spence Views
• Natural Disaster, Policy Action, and Mental Well-Being: The Case of Fukushima
• Natural Disaster Equals Economic Turmoil – Trade Deficit
• Disaster and Political Trust: The Japan Tsunami and Earthquake of 2011
• Minamata Mercury Pollution Disaster
• Natural Disaster Damages and Their Link to Coping Strategy Choices: Field Survey Findings From Post‐Earthquake Nepal
• Flood Forecasting: Disaster Risk Management
• Disaster Relief for People and Their Pets
• Man-Made Natural Disaster: Acid Rain
• What Spiritual Issues Surrounding a Disaster Can Arise for Individuals, Communities, and Health Care Providers
• Natural Disaster Management Strategy for Common People
• Flood Disaster Management With the Use of Association for Healthcare Philanthropy
• Disaster Relief and the United Nation’s Style of Leadership
• India’s 1984 Bhopal Disaster Analysis
• The National Disaster Management Authority
• Natural Disaster Insurance and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-off
• What the Puerto Rican Hurricanes Make Visible: Chronicle of a Public Health Disaster Foretold
• Disaster, Aid, and Preferences: The Long-Run Impact of the Tsunami on Giving in Sri Lanka
• Natural Disaster Early Warning Systems
• Disaster Preparedness for Travis County Texas
• Establishing Disaster Resilience Indicators for Tan-SUI River Basin in Taiwan
• Natural Disaster Death and Socio-Economic Factors in Selected Asian Countries
• Managing the Arsenic Disaster in Water Supply: Risk Measurement, Costs of Illness and Policy Choices for Bangladesh
• Large-Scale Natural Disaster Risk Scenario Analysis: A Case Study of Wenzhou City, China
• Hurricane Katrina: Natural Disaster or Human Error
• Disaster Relief and the American Red Cross
• Extreme Natural Events Mitigation: An Analysis of the National Disaster Funds in Latin America
• The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and Its Effects on the World
• The Review of the Challenger Disaster This essay aims to discuss the Challenger Disaster and consider the details of the mission. It examines the reasons why the mission was conducted despite the warnings of engineers.
• William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster The 1928 St. Francis dam disaster in Los Angeles, California is one of the most devastating man-made failures in the history of the United States.
• Disaster Recovery Plan At Vila Health At Vila Health, the use of inadequate protocols caused confusion, staff overload, and excessive use of resources, so an improved Disaster Recovery plan is needed.
• Teaching Experience in Disaster Management Among Teenage Students The significance of the role that a nurse plays in disaster management (DM) is often overlooked yet is crucial to the safety and security of community members.
• Mississippi’ Disaster: Hurricane Katrina Crisis Strategy The primary strength of the crisis plan adopted by the authorities in Mississippi is the commitment of the authorities respond faster than they did during Hurricane Katrina.
• Mining as a Cause of Environmental Disaster Mining does great damage to the environment and biological diversity of the planet. The negative consequences of mining indicates the gravity of the present ecological situation.
• Earthquakes: History and Studies Earthquakes are sudden movements of the earth’s surface caused by the abrupt release of energy into the earth’s crust. The earliest earthquake took place in China in 1411 BC.
• Disaster Preparedness and Recovery The paper analyzes the characteristics of public and private partners concerning disaster, their advantages and disadvantages, and the government’s role in disaster control.
• Bhopal Disaster: Analytical Evaluation The Bhopal accident occurred in India almost 40 years ago, on December 2, 1984. This disaster claimed the lives of 3800 people.
• Disaster Recovery Plan in Overcoming Disparities Health services are a social determinant and barrier that affects community health, safety, and recovery efforts.
• Ethics of the Flixborough Chemical Plant Disaster The Flixborough chemical plant disaster exposed some problematic ethical issues found in the engineering industry.
• Earthquake Mitigation Measures for Oregon Oregon could prepare for the earthquake by using earthquake-proof construction technologies and training people.
• Galveston Hurricane of 1900 The paper discusses Galveston, the 1900 hurricane. It remains the deadliest in terms of natural disasters ever witnessed in the history of America.
• The Flood in Genesis and Lessons Learnt The story of the Flood in Genesis is fascinating because it is illustrative of the new beginning and a chance to achieve a different result for humanity.
• Disaster Preparedness Experience It is essential to conduct such training for water damage, which can come from floods or even a small leak that goes undetected for some time.
• Prevention of Nuclear Disasters The paper reports on the mechanical and engineering failures that sparked a nuclear meltdown in the Three Mile power plant, its effects and the ways to improve safety.
• Destructive Force: Earthquake in Aquila, Italy A high magnitude earthquake shook Central Italy and the worst hit was the city of Aquila, the pain and sorrow were palpable but it did not take long before the people decided to move on.
• Historical Perspective and Disasters as a Process Natural disaster should be analyzed on the social level, because disasters are socially constructed and experienced in different ways by individuals or groups of individuals.
• Disaster Management and Training for Emergency A national emergency management training center’s existence ensures a higher level of cooperation, experience exchange, and knowledge accumulation.
• Nonprofit Organizations’ Disaster Management This research paper is performing an in-depth analysis of the nonprofit sector and its implications for the field of disaster management.
• Hurricane Maria and Community Response to Hazard Hurricane Maria, which took place in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Dominica on September 20, 2017, is believed to be one of the most devastating natural disasters.
• Flood Environmental Issues in the Netherlands With the current constantly rising sea levels, the Netherlands is at constant risk of floods, and those calamities were harsh incentives for the country’s development.
• Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: Causes of the Tragedy and the Measures to Be Taken On January 28, 1986, the Challenger was launched to explode 73 seconds after its lift-off. The tragedy is commonly called “the worst disaster in the history of the space program”.
• Effect of Flooding on Cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia The effects of Tigris and Euphrates river largely impacted on the Mesopotamian culture more so with regard to its frequent and destructive floods.
• Causes of the Haiti Earthquake This paper defines what an earthquake is, then discusses and reviews the causes of the Haiti Earthquake and the possibility of another Earthquake.
• Hurricane Katrina as One of the Worst National Disasters in the USA This paper illustrates the reasons why american levees failed to control the flooding problems during the Katrina hurricane what attributed to engineering ethics and the precaution.
• Vulnerable Population: Disaster Management’ Improvement This paper helps understand that addressing an array of needs and demands of the vulnerable population remains one of the major issues in the sphere of disaster and emergency management.
• Fukushima and Chernobyl’ Nuclear Disasters Comparison The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters, access its effects and discuss some of the measures that have been undertaken.
• Tornado and Hurricane Comparison Both a tornado and a hurricane are fraught with terrible consequences, both in terms of material damage and the possible injuries. Hurricanes causes impressively lesser damage.
• The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster The space shuttle is known to be one of the most ambitious projects of the modern age. The idea to create a spaceship seemed fantastic and even ridiculous.
• Nuclear Disasters: Fukushima and Chernobyl Both Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters were nuclear crises that occurred accidentally in Japan and Ukraine respectively.
• A Hurricane Threat: A Risk Communication Plan The paper discusses a risk communication plan for the residents of New Orleans about a hurricane threat. It addresses disaster scenarios and introduces the risk communication plan.
• Why the Hurricane Katrina Response Failed Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive hurricane in US history, hit in late August 2005. The most severe damage from Hurricane Katrina was caused to New Orleans in Louisiana.
• The US Disaster Recovery System’s Analysis The US disaster recovery system is operating below its potential, hence there is a need to review performance in past disaster incidents.
• Chornobyl Disaster: Exploring Radiation Measurement After Fukushima The event is the Chornobyl disaster. A flawed reactor design caused it (Westmore, 2020). It resulted in the discharge of radioactive particles.
• Concrete Homes Your Fortress in a Natural Disaster
• II-the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster the Year
• Hurricane Katrin Human-Made Disaster
• Hurricane Sandy: Lessons Learned From the Natural Disaster
• Thomas Drabek and Crisis and Disaster Management
• Disaster Management: The Cases of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and Hurricane Ike
• Natural Disaster, Environmental Concerns, Well-Being and Policy Action
• Improving the American Red Cross Disaster Relief
• Union Carbide Disaster: Bhopal, India
• Managing Risk the Disaster Plan That You Will Need
• Disasters: Disaster Management Cycle and Major Disasters in India in the Year 2017
• Ready for the Storm: Education for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation
• Fire Prevention and Basic Disaster Management
• Japan Tsunami Disaster March 2011 Present the Earthquake-Tsunami Hit Japan
• Indian Ocean Tsunami: Disaster, Generosity, and Recovery
• Gauley Bridge Disaster and Bhopal Disaster
• Natural Disaster Shocks and Macroeconomic Growth in Asia: Evidence for Typhoons and Droughts
• Disaster Recovery Toms River After Sandy
• The History About the Bhopal Disaster Construction
• The Black Death Was the Largest Disaster of European History
• Middle Tennessee Disaster Analysis
• Living With the Merapi Volcano: Risks and Disaster Microinsurance
• Natural Disaster Risk Management in the Philippines: Reducing Vulnerability
• Korea’s Neoliberal Restructuring: Miracle or Disaster
• The Indian Ocean Tsunami: Economic Impact, Disaster Management, and Lessons
• Modeling the Regional Impact of Natural Disaster and Recovery
• Knowledge Management Systems and Disaster Management in Malaysia
• Disaster Planning and Emergency Response
• Disaster Vulnerability and Evacuation Readiness: Coastal Mobile Home Residents in Florida
• Hurricane Katrin Disaster Response and Recovery System
• Earthquake’s Intensity and Magnitude Intensity measures earthquakes’ strength and indicates how much the ground shook. An earthquake’s magnitude quantifies its size.
• Lake Oroville Disaster: Analysis Water released from the lake through the spillway was halted to assess the damage, which caused the quick rise of Lake Oroville water levels.
• Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Recovery in the US PDD-39 and HSPD-5 are very similar safety directives, united by the provisions concerning terrorism as a world problem and the attitude of the United States towards it.
• An Agent-Based Model of Flood Risk and Insurance This paper provides all essential information concerning the nature of property and liability insurance along with its core principles.
• Henderson Flood Hazard and Risk Assessment A proper understanding of the disasters capable of disorienting the lives of the people of Henderson can guide different agencies to formulate interventions.
• Discussion of Managing Disasters in the USA People in the United States of America are constantly in danger of natural disasters, such as storms and tornadoes.
• FEMA Assistance to Man-Made and Natural Disasters The Federal Emergency Management Agency can provide financial assistance to individuals and families who, as a result of natural disasters, have incurred expenses.
• Hurricane Response Plan: Analysis The City of Baton Rouge Emergency Services has developed a five-step detailed response plan in the event of a major hurricane to reduce risks to civilians and city infrastructure.
• The Hurricane Katrina: Consequences Hurricane Katrina is one of the unprecedented disasters that led to deaths and the destruction of economic resources.
• MAP-IT Framework for Disaster Recovery Plan for the Vila Health Community This Vila Health Disaster Recovery Plan will address the potential threat of the Monkeypox (MPX) outbreak in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area.
• The Possibility of Agroterrorism: Disaster Management Efforts The U.S. needs to prepare for the possibility of agroterrorism. Local administrators are responsible for disaster management efforts.
• Earthquakes Preventions in USA and Japan The article clarifies the issue of earthquakes in the United States, investigate the weaknesses of the American system, and explore the benefits of the Japanese technique.
• Aspects of Hurricane Irma: Analysis The paper examines Hurricane Irma and the responses of the country, state, and Monroe County to the disaster. Irma was one of the most powerful hurricanes.
• Earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand The earthquake is considered one of the costliest natural disasters in history. Thousands of buildings, cars, and other property were damaged or destroyed completely.
• Researching of Record-Breaking Floods Floods are natural disasters, usually caused by excessive precipitation, leading to severe consequences. The most significant flood in the world occurred in 1931 in China
• Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, on the United States Gulf Coast, on August 29, 2005, leaving a path of devastation and flooding in her wake.
• “Emergency Management”: Building Disaster-Resilient Communities “Emergency Management” exemplifies the opportunities available currently in regard to building disaster-resilient communities to strengthen emergency management in the US.
• Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster: Results After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, NASA identified the management failure elements that led to the disaster and substituted them with sustainable alternatives.
• Hurricane Vince: The Tropical Cyclone Hurricane Vince is a tropical cyclone that formed and developed in the eastern region of the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, near the Iberian Peninsula.
• Humanitarian Assistance After 2010 Haiti Earthquake This paper aims to discuss how the people of Haiti experienced the earthquake, as well as how humanitarian aid from various organizations helped make a difference for Haitians.
• Disasters Influenced by Technology Depending on the natural environment of a community, social and building systems could either be strong or weak and vulnerable to a disaster.
• Disaster: Typhoon in Philipines Developing countries struggle to receive equal access to the same options. States like the Philippines do not have enough resources to invest in resilience and prevention measures.
• Destructive Atlantic Hurricane Season in 2017 The deadly and destructive 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season affected many people in society as it made people lose over 200 billion dollars.
• Earthquakes: Determination of the Risk There is a need to create awareness and knowledge about earthquake disasters and how to mitigate and respond to such disasters.
• Disaster Management and Analysis of Information The assessment and analysis of a disaster help understand the main problem, causes, and effects on human safety and security.
• Disasters and Actions of Rapid Response Services The collaborative work of rapid response services in emergencies is crucial for the rapid and effective elimination of their consequences and for saving people’s lives.
• Earthquake Threats in Bakersfield Earthquakes and dam failures are the most severe threats to Bakersfield, both of which can result in gas leaks and power disruptions.
• The Mississippi Floods of 2020, Its Impact and the Requisite Solution for the Future For numerous years, the Mississippi River has been prone to flooding incidents proved quite inconvenient for the local communities.
• Hurricane Katrina: Military and Civilian Response One of the three most dramatic catastrophes of the millennium, hurricane Katrina highlighted weak points of government and military forces.
• The Haiti Quake and Disaster Aid The experience of Haiti with earthquakes supports the opinion of researchers that there are factors that might prevent entities from assisting the populations.
• Disaster Recovery Plan for the Vila Health Community The Vila Health community has significant limitations as it has many elderly patients with complex health conditions, with shelters for the homeless running at capacity.
• Hurricane Katrina and Failures of Emergency Management Operations Hurricane Katrina came from the coast of Louisiana on August 29, 2005, immediately resulting in a Category 3 storm as winds reached the speed of over 120 miles per hour.
• Incident Command System and Disaster Response The significance of successfully deploying the Incident Command System to any type or scale of emergency response situation cannot be overestimated.
• Communities and Disaster Preparedness: Limiting the Spread of COVID-19 This paper focuses on communicating the necessary rules children must follow to limit the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible.
• Preventing Forest Fires in California with Forestry Changes From the beginning of the 21st century, California has been experiencing an increase in forest fires, destroying citizens’ lives and property.
• How Can We Prevent Natural Disasters?
• What Is the Relationship Between Disaster Risk and Climate Change?
• How Does Disaster Affect Our Lives?
• Where Do Natural Disasters Happen?
• What Natural Disasters Are Caused by Climate Change?
• How Can We Communicate Without a Phone or Internet in a Disaster?
• What Is the Difference Between Crisis Management and Disaster Recovery?
• Can Natural Disasters Be Prevented?
• How Can We Reduce Disaster Risk?
• Are Natural Disaster Situations a Formidable Obstacle to Economic Growth?
• Why Is Communication Important in Disaster Management?
• How Do Natural Disasters Help the Earth?
• What Are the Principles of Disaster Management?
• Are There Any Aspects of BP’s Ethical Culture That Could Have Contributed to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Disaster?
• Why Is Governance Important in Disaster Management?
• How Does Weak Governance Affect Disaster Risk?
• What Are the 5 Important Elements of Disaster Preparedness?
• How Can Climate Change Affect Natural Disasters?
• What Is Alternative Communication System During Disaster?
• How to Cope With the Stress of Natural Disasters?
• Does Economic Growth Really Reduce Disaster Damages?
• Who Is Responsible for Disaster Management?
• What Is the Importance of Disaster Risk Assessment?
• How Important Is Disaster Awareness and Preparedness?
• Does Natural Disaster Only Harm Humankind?
• Preparedness Planning in Case of Flooding According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a preparedness plan for floods is divided into multiple steps that meet a national preparedness goal.
• Earthquakes as the Natural Disaster Posing the Greatest Danger to Societies The scope of irreparable damage, human losses, and paralyzed infrastructure due to earthquakes causes high economic costs for rescuing, preventing, reconstructing, rehabilitating.
• Disaster Planning for Public Health: Darby Township Case The present paper is devoted to flood preparedness and planning in Darby Township (DT) located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
• Disasters Caused by Climate Change This paper focuses on several recent natural disasters caused by climate change – simultaneous fires in Russia and floods in Pakistan.
• Hurricane: How Human Actions Affect It To prevent the frequent occurrence of hurricanes, it is necessary to understand the process of their occurrence and how human actions affect it.
• “Measuring Inequality in Community Resilience to Natural Disasters” by Hong et al. This paper analyzes the scientific study “Measuring inequality in community resilience to natural disasters using large-scale mobility data” and the content of the article.
• Natural Disaster Preparedness in Texas: Nursing Response Southeast Texas is the territory largely affected by hurricanes. In addition to property damage, hurricanes pose threats to public and individual health in different ways.
• Overpopulation’s and Environmental Disasters’ Connection This essay focuses on evaluating overpopulation as one of the greatest environmental threats, the relationship between the problem of overpopulation and harm to harmony in nature.
• Nursing and Natural Disasters: An Emergency Planning Project The purpose of this paper is to describe the role of the nurse in an emergency situation (an earthquake) by listing priorities, resources, describing the nursing process.
• The Importance of Disaster Recovery The paper aims at providing a Disaster Recovery Plan for the Vila Health community and presenting evidence-based strategies to enhance the recovery effort.
• Hurricane Katrina: Hazards Management This paper explores the events of Hurricane Katrina in regard to the arguments for and against rebuilding along the shorelines.
• Noah’s Floods: Development of the Grand Canyon Rocks The paper discusses Noah’s floods. Developing a distinction between the sole causes for the development of the Grand Canyon rocks is still a daunting task.
• Disaster, PTSD, and Psychological First Aid Psychological first aid should be consistent and evidence-based, practically applicable in the field, appropriate, and culturally flexible.
• IT Disaster Recovery Plan Information technology disaster recovery management procedures remain an important element of the overall corporate strategy.
• Adopting Smart Grid to Mitigate the Blackout Disaster The author proposes the creation of a smart grid for effective blackout monitoring and mitigation the blackout disasters.
• Spiritual Considerations in the Context of a Disaster The purpose of this essay is to discuss the spiritual considerations arising after disasters and a nurse’s role in this scenario
• The Role of Nurses in Disaster Management Taking action in the event of adversities and helping out communities in recuperation is a central part of public health nurses.
• Loss Prevention and How It Was Affected by Hurricane Katrina The most damaging flood in United States’ history, is known as the 2005 Great New Orleans Flood or Katrina. It is estimated that the damages were incurred in 2005.
• Nuclear Disaster Prevention and Related Challenges The article addresses the role of transparency in monitoring nuclear arsenals as well as the varied approaches for identifying challenges.
• Chernobyl and Fukushima Disasters: Their Impact on the Ecology The fallout’s impact poses a danger to animal and plant life because of the half-life of the released isotopes. Longer exposure to radiation may lead to the burning of the skin.
• Information Technology Disaster Recovery Planning Disaster recovery planning is the procedure and policies set aside by a given organization to ensure their continuity and recovery from a natural or human-caused disaster.
• Disaster Responses: Improving the State of Affairs Despite technological improvements and increased knowledge, humanity is still struggling against disasters because they cannot either predict them or respond to them appropriately.
• Disaster Preparedness: Miami, Florida The development of a disaster preparedness plan is a priority for all states, and Miami, Florida, is no exception to the rule.
• Emergency and Disaster Preparedness in Healthcare The impromptu nature of emergency and disaster occurrence makes it almost impossible to prepare for emergencies and other challenges.
• Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Hurricane Harvey The coast of the United States in general and Texas in particular experiences tropical storms on a regular basis. Hurricanes hit the Texas coastline, often causing property damage.
• Lazarus Island: Disaster Systems Analysis and Design This paper aims to develop a web-based emergency management system for the government of Lazarus Island. This system will be used at the response stage of disaster management.
• “Manual Dosage and Infusion Rate Calculations During Disasters” by Wilmes The article “Manual dosage and infusion rate calculations during disasters” written by Wilmes, highlights the importance of manual calculation skills in nurses.
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Data loss is the center of focus of business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR), as this is the lifeblood of business operations today.
• Fire Disaster Plan For a Skilled Nursing Facility The purpose of this fire disaster plan is to provide guidance to the skilled nursing facility on fire emergency procedures to protect the lives and property of staff, residents.
• Southern Europe Flash Floods: Disaster Overview Southern Europe flash floods are the most recent significant event. People need to learn about the cause and effects of flooding and apply the knowledge to protect themselves.
• The Atlantic Hurricane Season Explained The Atlantic hurricane occurs from June 1 to November 30. It peaks sharply from late August to September; in most cases, the season is at the highest point around September 10.
• Community Disaster Preparedness in Nassau County, New York The objective of disaster management is to design a realistic and executable coordinated planning that minimizes duplication of functions and optimizes the overall effectiveness.
• Article Review: “The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Trust in Government” The research applies trust concept to and measured in dwellers of several counties within Mississippi and Louisiana.
• International and South Africa’s Disaster Management When South Africa gained self-governance status in 1931, one of the issues that its government focused on was the management of major disasters.
• Disaster and People Behavior Changes Some of the behavioral changes that occur due to the presence of a disaster relying from research from sources across the world on the countries affected by the disasters.
• Organizational Behavior and Motivation in Hurricane Response
• All-Hazards Disaster Preparedness: The Role of the Nurse
• Hurricane Katrina’s Mental Health Impact on Populations
• Disaster, Crisis, Trauma: Interview with a Victim
• Effects of Earthquakes: Differences in the Magnitude of Damage Caused by Earthquakes
• How Natural Disasters Impact Systems at Various Levels?
• Disasters’ Benefits to People Who Experience Them
• Chernobyl Disaster’s Socio-Economic and Environmental Impact
• Environmental Disaster Education: Incorporation Into the University Curriculum
• Was the BP Oil Spill Disaster in the Gulf Avoidable
• The 1900 Galveston Hurricane: Disaster Management Failure
• Managing Change, the Challenger and Columbia Shuttle Disasters
• Ethical and Legal Issues During Catastrophes or Disasters
• Has the Media Changed the Response to Natural Disasters?
• Managing Emergencies and Disasters
• Energy Safety and Earthquake Hazards Program
• Recovery Efforts During 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina
• Hurricane Katrina and the USA’s South
• International Studies: Global Disasters
• Hurricane Katrina: Determining Management Approach
• Scientific Responsibility for Earthquakes in Japan
• Disaster Recovery. Automated Management System
• Media Coverage of the China 2008 Earthquake
• Vulnerability of Hazardville to Flooding Disasters
• Natural Sciences. 1996 Mount Everest Disaster
• The Climate Tragedy and Adaptation to Disasters
• Potential Disasters’ Impact on Nursing Community
• National Guidance During Hurricane Katrina
• Disaster Operations and Decision Making
• Psychological Issues After a Crisis or Disaster
• Hurricane Katrina and Public Administration Action
• Emergency Planner’s Role in Disaster Preparedness
• Disaster Recovery Plan: Business Impact Analysis
• Riverbend City’s Flood Disaster Communication
• The “New Normal” Concept After Disaster
• Disaster Management: Evacuations from Gulf Coast Hurricanes
• American and European Disaster Relief Agencies
• Flooding in Houston and New Life After It
• Deepwater Horizon Disaster and Prevention Plan
• Hurricane Hanna, Aftermath and Community Recovery
• Emergency and Disaster Management Legal Framework
• Disaster Support by Miami and Federal Emergency Management Agency
• 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina in Psychological Aspect
• Disaster Plan Activation and Healthcare Staff
• Hurricane Katrina and Emergency Planning Lessons
• Family Self-Care and Disaster Management Plan
• How Can the Negative Effects of Disasters Be Avoided?
• The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster Factors
• Disaster Management: Terrorism and Emergency Situations
• Defence Against Coastal Flooding in Florida
• Evaluation as Part of a Disaster Management Plan
• World Trade Center Disaster and Anti-Terrorism
• Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Post-Disaster Fraud
• Structural Violence and Hurricane Matthew in Haiti
• Risk Management Model and Disaster Recovery Plan
• Kendall Regional Medical Center’s Disaster Plan
• Houston’s Revitalization After Harvey Hurricane
• Disaster Recovery Team and Disaster Recovery Strategy
• Hurricane Katrina: Facts, Impacts and Prognosis
• Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response
• Hurricane Katrina, Its Economic and Social Impact
• Philadelphia Winter Snow Disaster and Its Impact
• Natural Disasters Effects on the Supply Chain
• Natural Disasters: The Budalangi Flood
• Homeland Security: Fast Response to Disasters and Terrorism
• Hurricane Katrina’ Meaning: Mental, Economic, and Geographical Impact
• Preparing for Terrorism and Disasters in the New Age of Health Care
• Healthcare Facilities Standards and Disaster Management
• Hurricane Katrina Emergency Management
• Planning Disaster Management in the Urban Context
• Environmental Studies: The Chernobyl Disaster
• Strategic Preparedness for Disasters
• Hurricane Katrina and the US Emergency Management

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Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Natural disaster preparedness in a multi-hazard environment: Characterizing the sociodemographic profile of those better (worse) prepared

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Engineering Sciences Department, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile, National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management CONICYT/FONDAP/15110017, Santiago, Chile

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management CONICYT/FONDAP/15110017, Santiago, Chile, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management CONICYT/FONDAP/15110017, Santiago, Chile, Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

• Nicolás C. Bronfman, 
• Pamela C. Cisternas, 
• Paula B. Repetto, 
• Javiera V. Castañeda

• Published: April 24, 2019
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249
• Reader Comments

The growing multi-hazard environment to which millions of people in the world are exposed highlights the importance of making sure that populations are increasingly better prepared. The objective of this study was to report the levels of preparedness of a community exposed to two natural hazards and identify the primary sociodemographic characteristics of groups with different preparedness levels. A survey was conducted on 476 participants from two localities of the Atacama Region in the north of Chile during the spring of 2015. Their level of preparedness at home and work was assessed to face two types of natural hazards: earthquakes and floods.The findings show that participants are significantly better prepared to face earthquakes than floods, which sends a serious warning to local authorities, given that floods have caused the greatest human and material losses in the region’s recent history of natural disasters. Men claimed to be more prepared than women to face floods, something that the authors attribute to the particular characteristics of the main employment sectors for men and women in the region. The potential contribution of large companies on preparedness levels of communities in the areas in which they operate is discussed. The sociodemographic profile of individuals with the highest levels of preparedness in an environment with multiple natural hazards are people between 30 and 59 years of age, living with their partner and school-age children. The implications of the results pertaining to institutions responsible for developing disaster risk reduction plans, policies and programs in a multi-hazard environment are discussed.

Citation: Bronfman NC, Cisternas PC, Repetto PB, Castañeda JV (2019) Natural disaster preparedness in a multi-hazard environment: Characterizing the sociodemographic profile of those better (worse) prepared. PLoS ONE 14(4): e0214249. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249

Editor: Florian Fischer, Bielefeld University, GERMANY

Received: November 15, 2018; Accepted: March 8, 2019; Published: April 24, 2019

Copyright: © 2019 Bronfman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This research was partially funded by Chile’s National Science and Technology Commission (Conicyt) through the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Research (Fondecyt, Grant 1130864; NCB - Grant 1180996; NCB) and by the National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management CONICYT/ FONDAP/15110017; NCB, PBR, PCC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

A World Bank report that assessed the main natural disaster hotspots in the world [ 1 ] found that approximately 3.8 million km 2 and 790 million individuals are exposed to at least two natural hazards, while 0.5 million km 2 and 105 million individuals are exposed to three or more natural hazards. An increase in the magnitude, frequency and geographic distribution of natural disasters has been recently demonstrated, particularly for those related to climate change [ 2 ]. Records show that between 1994 and 2013, floods were the most frequent event (43% of all events registered), affecting approximately 2.5 billion people [ 3 ] and caused the greatest material costs and losses. In the same period, earthquakes and tsunamis caused the highest number of fatalities, estimated at around 750,000, with tsunamis being twenty times more lethal than earthquakes [ 3 ]. These statistics demonstrate the critical multi-hazard environment to which the global population is exposed.

The combination of human and economic losses, together with reconstruction costs, makes natural disasters both a humanitarian and an economic problem [ 1 ]. Between 1994 and 2013, natural disasters produced economic losses of more than USD 2.6 trillion [ 3 ]. More recently, in 2017, USD 314 billion were spent globally on damage related to natural disasters [ 4 ]. There is currently an unresolved debate regarding whether natural disasters hinder a country’s economic growth, given that the empirical evidence is somewhat heterogeneous [ 5 ]. However, high expenditure associated with natural disasters may reduce investment in other priority areas for a country, such as education, health, transport and security [ 5 ].

There are no countries or communities that are currently immune to the impact of natural disasters. It is, however, possible to reduce the effects of these events through management strategies focused on risk reduction [ 6 ]. Citizen preparedness strategies play a key role in reducing the effects of hazards that cannot be mitigated [ 6 – 8 ], as such strategies seek to improve the ability of individuals and communities to respond in the event of a natural disaster [ 7 ].

Chile, located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, is one of the countries that is most exposed to earthquakes/tsunamis and volcanic eruptions on the planet. Among the OECD member countries, Chile is the most exposed to natural hazards, where 54% of its population and 12.9% of its total surface area are exposed to three or more hazards [ 1 ]. Between 2008 and 2018, Chile was affected by ten natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, floods and volcanic eruptions), which translated into more than four million affected individuals and close to 800 fatalities [ 9 ]. The 2010 earthquake and tsunami alone caused the death of 562 people, and gave rise to more than USD 30 billion in material losses [ 10 ]. As such, the multi-hazard environment to which the population is exposed, and the high expenditure associated with natural disasters in Chile, emphasize the importance of adopting a multi-hazard approach to progress in the design of preparedness strategies. In order to move forward in this direction, the main objective of this study is to understand the current levels of preparedness of a community exposed to multiple natural hazards and identify the primary sociodemographic characteristics of groups that show different levels of preparedness. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the development of disaster risk reduction strategies and programs in multi-hazard environments.

Preparedness in a multi-hazard environment

The complexity of territories and social structures expose communities to various hazards, both natural and man-made. Against this backdrop, the leading institutions responsible for disaster risk reduction worldwide indicate the importance of nations being able to assess, recognize and integrate the various hazards in their territories in their planning, in order to prepare the population to effectively mitigate the damages associated with these multiple hazards [ 11 ].

Although addressing a multi-hazard environment requires significant economic and political efforts, several studies have indicated that the multi-hazard approach has major benefits for the design of effective disaster risk reduction policies [ 12 , 13 ]. A multi-hazard assessment permits not only more reliable territorial planning for a country’s inhabitants but also lets stakeholders show that focusing mitigation measures on a single hazard may increase vulnerability to others [ 12 ].

The main recommendations for multi-hazard environments include strengthening risk assessment within territories, informing the population of these risks to raise awareness, and establishing multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral efforts to develop integrated public policies [ 14 ].

Natural hazard preparedness

In recent decades, numerous studies have been focused on assessing individuals’ levels of preparedness for natural hazards, and the factors that promote the adoption of preparedness measures [ 15 – 17 ]. In the literature, there are different theoretical frameworks to conceptualize the adoption of preparedness measures to face natural hazards, where the Protective Action Decision Model [ 16 , 18 ] and the Social-Cognitive Model [ 19 , 20 ] are the most cited models. The first model recognizes that preparation is a behavior dependent on risk perception, previous experience and some demographic characteristics, among other variables. The social cognitive model focuses on the role of motivational factors on the decision to adopt preparedness actions, including awareness of the threat, anxiety, self-efficacy, and sense of community among others. Both models can help describe and understand the preparedness, however, for the purposes of the present study we incorporate elements of the Protective Action Decision Model, mainly in aspects related to the relation between sociodemographic factors and preparedness levels. This model also recognizes the role of experience that is relevant for this particular study considering that the communities that were studied had experienced both events.

One of the most common ways to study natural disaster preparedness levels is by characterizing these measures within the places where individuals spend most of their time, such as their homes (with their families) and their workplaces [ 21 – 23 ]. These areas are representative not only of the types of preparedness measures adopted by the population [ 22 ], but also the areas that people recognize as sources of common and relevant information for taking preparedness measures [ 24 ]. Preparedness actions involve developing plans, stockpiling of supplies and performing exercises and drills, all aimed to reduce the impact of the disaster [ 25 ]. These actions have been translated into recommendations, checklists and actions that organizations provide to households, communities and workplace in order to be prepared in case of a disaster. Response organizations recommend to frequently assess and evaluate whether these actions have been implemented.

Researchers have proposed several models to explain the decision to take action and implement preparedness actions, with a particular emphasis on the role that social cognitive processes [ 26 ]. Traditionally these models have emphasized the role of risk perception and have also shown that previous experience may be relevant, but with mixed results in relation with preparedness [ 18 ]. For the purposes of this study we focused on a community that had experienced different hazards in the past years, so we could examine also whether they appeared to be prepared to respond to different hazards.

Household preparedness.

Researchers have mostly focused on understanding family preparedness when characterizing the preparedness levels of the population [ 23 , 27 ]. Family preparedness has been researched and measured through different types of activities, such as survival measures, mitigation measures and planning measures [ 21 , 23 , 28 – 30 ]. Family planning measures in the face of natural hazards are those which are adopted least frequently, but whose importance is highly recognized among individuals [ 23 , 30 ]. Family preparedness is recognized as the base from which other preparation actions take place [ 27 ].

Workplace preparedness.

Despite the fact that research on natural disaster preparedness has primarily focused on family preparedness, the study of workplace preparedness is emerging as a relevant focus for research, given the role that organizations play in local economies, the lives of the people they employ and even recovery following natural disasters [ 31 , 32 ].

As in the case of family preparedness, workplace preparedness involves planning activities, such as speaking with employees about the impact and importance of preparing the company for natural hazards, having an emergency plan in place, alternative energy supplies for the company’s operation following a natural disaster, insurance for this type of events, and the presence of an emergency kit in the company, among many others [ 21 , 23 , 27 , 31 , 33 ].

One factor that is most closely related to workplace preparedness is company size [ 27 , 31 , 33 ]. This is because companies with a larger number of employees have formalized risk reduction processes, and greater resources to implement them [ 31 ].

Sociodemographic variables and preparedness level

Several of the studies that link gender to the adoption of preparedness measures conclude that women prepare more than men [ 29 , 34 ], especially when it comes to measures related to creating a family emergency plan, the safety of household members, and the use of preparedness messages [ 35 ]. Similarly, it has been reported that married people or those who live with their partner show higher levels of preparedness than those who do not [ 23 , 36 , 37 ].

The age of subjects is also a predictor for the adoption of preparedness measures. While some studies conclude that older people adopt more preparedness measures, with one of the main reasons being previous exposure to and/or experience with natural disasters [ 29 , 38 ]. In other studies researchers suggest that age is not significantly related to the adoption of preparedness measures [ 36 , 39 ].

The presence of children under 18 years of age in the household is associated to higher levels of preparedness [ 37 , 40 , 41 ]. In a study conducted on a random sample of 1,158 households in Memphis, Tennessee, Edwards [ 39 ] suggests that parents feel responsible for the safety of children, and also because children receive more information (from their school environment) about how to prepare for natural hazards, motivating parents to implement these types of measures. Similarly, Pfefferbaum & North [ 42 ] indicate that parents are more concerned about what their children will experience during a natural disaster, which may prompt a desire to anticipate its consequences and to prepare in advance to mitigate any possible negative effects.

Methodology

The research focused on the inhabitants of Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities (see Fig 1 ) in the Atacama Region in the north of Chile, since they are at risk of multiple natural hazards, particularly earthquakes and floods.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

The maps in the top left show the earthquakes that affected the Atacama Region. The map on the right shows the Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities, the flooded area of the 2015 event and the location of the households surveyed.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.g001

Geographic characteristics.

The Atacama Region, Chile, has a surface area of 75,176 km 2 , equivalent to 9.94% of the country’s total (see Fig 1 ). Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities account for the 37% of the Region’s surface area. The climate of Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla is semi-arid, with scarce and light rainfall during the winter months. A phenomenon known as the “Altiplanic winter” takes place here, which triggers rainfall between the summer months of December and March [ 43 ]. The “Altiplanic winter” is the name given to the phenomenon of rainfall between December and March in the north of the country, as a result of moisture originating from the Atlantic Ocean [ 43 ]. However, rainfall has occurred during winter produced by the “Altiplanic winter” phenomenon that may intensify and produce extreme hydrometeorological events, due to the presence of weather patterns known as El Niño and La Niña [ 44 ].

Population.

Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities (see Fig 1 ) are home to more than 60% of the Atacama Region’s population. The proportion of women in these municipalities is 48.6% and 42.4%, respectively [ 45 ]. Regarding age, the region’s population can be classified as follows: 19.3% are between 18 and 29 years of age, 21.0% are between 30 and 44 years of age, 19.3% are between 45 and 59 years of age, and 13.2% are above 60 years of age. A similar trend occurs for the populations of the Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities.

On December 2017, the unemployment rate in these localities reached 6.7%, slightly above the national average, which was 6.4% [ 46 ]. Mining is the sector which has the greatest influence on the country’s economic development, accounting for 10% of national GDP, generating 8.4% of national income, and representing at least half of total exports (55%) as of 2017 [ 47 ]. Currently, Chile is the largest copper producer in the world. As with other regions in the north of Chile, the main economic activity of Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla is mining (copper and other minerals), which accounts for 28% of the region’s GDP and is one of the main factors affecting employment rates. As of 2017, 15% of all workers in the region were employed in the mining sector, of which 92% were men [ 45 ].

Natural disasters in the study area.

The localities of the Atacama Region have an extensive history of natural disasters, particularly extreme hydrometeorological events causing significant floods, with the events that took place in 1997 and 2015 considered the most catastrophic. In April 1997, intense rainfall caused rivers in the Atacama Region to overflow, producing floods that affected mostly to Copiapó (see Fig 1 ). A total of 22 people died, and material losses were estimated at USD 180 million [ 9 ]. Almost two decades later, in March 2015, there was a hydrometeorological event considered the largest in its history. More than 45mm of rain fell in approximately 48 hours [ 48 ]. The effects were devastating, mainly for the towns of Copiapó, Paipote, and Tierra Amarilla. A total of 31 people died, 16 were declared missing, 30,000 were displaced, and more than 164,000 people were affected by the event [ 49 ]. The material damages were estimated at more than USD 1.5 billion.

The Atacama Region’s localities are not only vulnerable to the occurrence of major floods but also, like the rest of the country, to severe geophysical events. Chile’s location in the Pacific Ring of Fire makes it one of the countries with the highest levels of seismic and volcanic activity on the planet. The largest earthquake recorded in the study area occurred in 1877, with a magnitude of 8.8 Mw on the Richter scale [ 50 ]. The second largest earthquake in the area occurred in 1922, with a magnitude of 8.5 Mw on the Richter scale [ 51 ]. The consequences of this event were devastating: 40% of houses were reduced to ruins, a further 45% requiring demolition, and the rest in dire need of repair [ 52 ]. The most recent earthquake in the area occurred in 2014 and is considered the third most destructive to hit the region. It had a magnitude of 8.2 Mw on the Richter scale, affected 13,000 homes, and caused the death of six people. Economic losses were estimated at more than USD 100 million. Despite these events, the scientific community has demonstrated that there are still subduction zones that have not been activated for more than 150 years, and as such the probability of another event with similar characteristics occurring in the near future is very high [ 53 ].

The survey was separated into three sections, in which two types of natural hazard that affect the region were studied: earthquakes and floods. The first section contained questions about the level of preparedness for these two hazards. The second section assessed the participants’ prior experience of floods, and their evacuation experience in the latest event of 2015. Finally, the third section included questions about the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. As this survey forms part of a larger study, only the measures that were used in this study are described below.

Preparedness . The earthquake and flood preparation scale was structured into two sub-scales; one to measure household preparedness (2 items) and another to measure workplace preparedness (3 items). The items on both sub-scales were adapted from previous studies [ 21 , 23 , 28 , 29 ]. The participants were required to answer the questions associated with each sub-scale on each hazard (earthquake and flood) using a dichotomous scale (1) Yes, (0) No, as shown in Table 1 . The set of preparedness actions of the questionnaire considered the main actions suggested by International Agencies as minimum elements of preparation of individuals. The yes/no answers to these questions would be indicative of participants' perception of preparedness rather than an objective measure of the actions they actually perform.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.t001

Sociodemographic characteristics . The participants were asked about various sociodemographic characteristics, including their age, gender, marital status, work activity, and whether children under 18 years of age live in their household.

Procedure and participants

The understanding of the questionnaire was assessed and validated through a focus group directed by the research team. The sample was designed through simple random sampling, based on population forecasts for the Atacama Region developed by the National Statistics Institute of Chile in 2015. The first stage considered the random selection of geographic clusters (housing blocks) by block code. Then, households were selected using the Kish table and systematic sampling. Finally, people were selected on the basis of a quota system (to allow variability of gender and age). The survey took place between November and December 2015 with a statistically representative sample in the Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities. A group of interviewers contacted voluntary participants, who had to complete a paper questionnaire face to face at their homes (receiving no compensation of any form). Finally, a total of 476 people successfully completed the survey. The average age of the sample was 49 years (SD = 17.6 years, with a range of 18–94 years of age), and 66.9% of the participants were women. All procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Andres Bello.

Regarding participants’ work activity, 37.2% declared that they were employed, 35.5% were homemakers, 4.6% were studying, and 11.8% were retired. Of the total number of participants who declared that they were employed (179 participants), 45% were women. While the main employment sectors for women were services (social, personal and community) and commerce, for men, the main sectors were large and medium-scale mining, transport (mainly related to mining) and construction.

Data analysis

First, a descriptive analysis of the data was carried out to assess the existence of coding errors and lost data. Then, an internal consistency analysis was performed on the full sample ( n = 476 ). The internal consistency of each sub-scale was assessed through two measures: Cronbach's alpha and corrected item-total correlation. For the first measure, values above 0.7 suggest highly consistent scales [ 54 ]. For the second measure, values above 0.3 are suggested [ 55 ]. Item-total correlation values lower than the cutoff level imply that the item is not correlated with the sub-scale, and as such it should be omitted.

To characterize the profile of participants with higher (or lower) levels of preparedness, difference in means analyses (using post-hoc Tukey tests) and a Factorial ANOVA were carried out.

Internal consistency

The internal consistency of the preparedness sub-scales was analyzed through alpha-Cronbach and corrected item-total correlation. For each participant, the preparedness sub-scales were calculated as the sum of the items that compose each one (see Table 1 ). For both hazards considered, the values of household preparedness range from 0 to 2, and for workplace preparedness range from 0 to 3. The sub-scales complied with all of the predefined requirements, and as such no items were eliminated. The α -Cronbach values for the household and workplace preparedness sub-scales for earthquakes and floods were above 0.8, and can be considered to be highly consistent (see Table 1 ).

Earthquake vs. flood preparedness

Table 1 shows the descriptive analysis of the participants’ responses to earthquake and flood preparedness questions. Significant differences are observed when comparing the participants’ degree of household preparedness and workplace preparedness to face both hazards. While the majority of participants said that they were prepared for an earthquake both at work and at home (see Table 1A ), a significantly lower proportion claimed to be prepared at work and at home for a flood (see Table 1B ).

Household preparedness

Table 2 shows the average values associated with household preparedness for earthquakes and floods, broken down by the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. It can be observed that the participants stated that they were significantly more prepared at home for an earthquake than a flood ( p < 0.001), regardless of their age, gender, marital status, and work activity. This result is an important warning sign for local and regulatory authorities, given that the recent history of natural disasters in the region reveals that floods have caused the greatest human and material losses.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.t002

Similarly, for both earthquakes and floods, it can be observed that the level of household preparedness by marital status and age group showed statistically significant differences ( p < 0.1). In the former case, participants who were married or living with their partner declared higher levels of household preparedness than single, separated or widowed participants. In the latter case, subjects 60 years of age and above declared the lowest levels of household preparedness among the different age groups. In general, subjects between 30 and 59 years of age declared the highest levels of household preparedness to face both earthquakes and floods.

In the case of household preparedness for floods , women declared a lower level of preparedness compared to men.

To characterize the sociodemographic profile of subjects with higher (or lower) levels of declared household preparedness , a factorial ANOVA was carried out using sociodemographic characteristics as independent variables, and household preparedness as the dependent variable. The first columns in Table 3 show the results of the model for household preparedness for earthquakes ( F = 204.292, p = 0.000), which explained 23.2% of the variance. The results suggest that the groups defined for the Work Activity variable have significantly different levels of household preparedness ( p < 0.10). Similarly, the effects of two-way interactions (AgeGroup x MaritalStatus) and (WorkActivity x MaritalStatus) also showed significantly different levels of household preparedness for earthquakes . Three-way interactions (AgeGroup x MaritalStatus x Gender) and (WorkActivity x MaritalStatus x ChildrenAge) were statistically significant for household preparedness for earthquakes .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.t003

Fig 2A . shows the groups associated with the two-way interaction between (AgeGroup x MaritalStatus) and (WorkActivity x MaritalStatus). Based on Table 2 and Fig 2A ., it can be concluded that the profile of subjects with the highest level of household preparedness for earthquakes are between 30 and 59 years of age, married or living with their partner, and working or studying. On the other hand, the subjects with the lowest levels of household preparedness for earthquakes are those below 30 years old or above 60 years old, retired and single, separated or widowed. With regard to the three-way interactions, no clear trends were observed that enable to infer an evident profile.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.g002

The columns on the right-hand side of Table 3 show the results of the model for household preparedness for floods ( F = 39.125, p = 0.000), which explained 19.6% of the variance. The only groups which show significantly different levels of household preparedness for floods were those defined by the Gender variable. Meanwhile, the three-way interactions (ChildrenAge x MaritalStatus x WorkActivity) and (ChildrenAge x AgeGroup x WorkActivity) were statistically significant for household preparedness for floods .

Based on the results shown in Table 2 and Table 3 , we can conclude that men aged between 45 and 59 years of age who live with their partner declared the highest level of household preparedness for floods . On the other hand, the subjects who declared the lowest level of preparedness are women above 60 years of age who are single, separated, divorced or widowed. About the three-way interactions, no clear trends that suggest an evident profile may be inferred.

Workplace preparedness

Table 4 shows the average values associated with workplace preparedness for earthquakes and floods, according to the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample ( n = 179 participants who declared that they were employed). The results indicate that participants are significantly better prepared at work to face an earthquake than a flood ( p < 0.001), regardless of their age, gender, and marital status.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.t004

Both for earthquakes and floods, the MaritalStatus variable showed statistically significant differences ( p < 0.10); that is, participants who are married or living with their partner declared higher levels of workplace preparedness .

In the case of workplace preparedness for earthquakes , participants who declared that they live with children under 18 years of age in their household showed higher levels of preparedness. Similar to the situation that occurred for household preparedness , women declared a lower level of workplace preparedness for floods compared to men.

The first columns of Table 5 show the results of the factorial ANOVA model using sociodemographic characteristics as independent variables and workplace preparedness for earthquakes as the dependent variable. The model explained 23.9% of the variance ( F = 171.612, p = 0.000). The results indicate that the effects of the two-way interactions between the AgeGroup and Children variables show significantly different levels of workplace preparedness for earthquakes .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.t005

Fig 2B . shows the two-way interaction between the AgeGroup and Children variables. Based on the results shown in Table 5 and Fig 2B ., it can be concluded that the profile of subjects who have the highest level of workplace preparedness for earthquakes are married or living with their partners, between 45 and 59 years of age, and have school-age children in their household. On the other hand, the participants with the lowest levels of workplace preparedness for earthquakes are those who are single (separated, divorced or widowed), above 60 years of age, and do not have school-age children living in the household.

The columns on the right-hand side of Table 5 show the results of the model using workplace preparedness for floods as the dependent variable. This model explained 17.7% of the variance ( F = 32.020, p = 0.000). The results show that the groups defined by the Gender and MaritalStatus variables have significantly different levels of workplace preparedness ( p < 0.10). Likewise, the two-way interaction effects of the Gender and MaritalStatus variables show significantly different levels of workplace preparedness for floods . Fig 2C . shows the two-way interaction between the Gender and MaritalStatus variables. Based on the results shown in Table 4 and Fig 2C ., it may be concluded that while the profile of subjects with the highest declared level of workplace preparedness for floods is men who are married or living with their partner, the profile of those with the lowest level is women who are single, separated, divorced or widowed.

The objective of this study was to assess the level of household and workplace preparedness of people living in an area exposed to multiple natural hazards and identify those groups of people with different preparedness levels.

Household and workplace preparedness

We conclude that significant differences exist in the preparedness levels declared by participants depending on the type of hazard analyzed. In fact, participants declared that they were significantly more prepared (both at home and at work) to face an earthquake than a flood, regardless of their age, gender, marital status and work activity. These results are an important warning sign for regulators and authorities, given that the recent history of natural disasters in the study area reveals that floods have caused the greatest human and material losses. Additionally, the influence of climate change is expected to produce an increase in weather phenomena, which would increase the frequency of extreme hydrometeorological events in the northern of Chile.

Among the reasons that may explain the above results is the fact that, historically, the country and the study area have placed greater emphasis on preparedness measures for earthquakes than for floods. In recent years, Chile has been affected by major earthquakes, with one of the most destructive one taking place on February 27, 2010 in the south of the country. This event caused great alarm and concern among citizens and government authorities, not only due to the destructive effects of the event, but also the shortcomings uncovered regarding the level of preparedness and coordination of government institutions responsible for disaster risk reduction. This situation received widespread media coverage, and was the subject of intense political debate which lasted for several years [ 56 , 57 ].

In addition to the above, the scientific community has indicated that the recent earthquakes that have occurred in the north of the country provide evidence that there are still subduction zones which have not been activated in almost 150 years [ 53 ]. As such, the scientific community and authorities still expect a mega-earthquake to affect the study area. This situation has led to the implementation of many communication and community preparedness plans and programs to face a potential mega-earthquake in the region in recent decades. Awareness from communities about the likelihood of an earthquake is high and motivate them to be prepared for a future event.

Our results also show high levels of declared workplace preparedness for earthquakes , which could have its roots in the presence of large mining companies in the region. In fact, the mining industry has for decades constituted the main source of development in the region, in which large mining companies have played an important role in local economies. The presence of large mining companies represents one of the greatest opportunities for the development and implementation of preparedness programs in the face of hazards, given that, as they have large numbers of employees, their emergency risk reduction and response processes are more formalized.

Although the history of earthquakes in Chile have led both public and private-sector organizations to develop increasingly effective citizen and institutional preparedness strategies, the floods that occurred in 2015 demonstrated that the Atacama Region also reveal the need to improve preparedness strategies, programs and plans to face extreme hydrometeorological events. It is therefore recommended that institutions responsible for disaster risk reduction in the region design preparedness plans and programs that recognize and integrate the different hazards present in the region, given that the prioritization of preparedness strategies for one hazard may increase vulnerability to others.

A sociodemographic profile of preparedness

Regarding the sociodemographic variables which are related to the family and workplace preparedness and in line with previous studies [ 29 , 38 ], it is concluded that the subject’s age is significantly related to their declared levels of preparedness: in general, subjects of 30 to 59 years of age declared the highest levels of preparedness. Some authors posit that this could be explained because adults in this stage of life acquire greater care responsibilities (either for others or their own assets), which may give rise to increased interest in involving themselves in preparedness measures [ 41 ]. On the other hand, the low levels of preparedness declared by young people may be explained by the fact that, in general, they have a lower perception of natural disaster risk, which translates into lower willingness to adopt preparedness measures [ 58 ].

Being married or living with a partner was significantly related to higher levels of preparedness within the household. Previous studies have concluded that the presence of a significant other generates greater concern among subjects, and therefore greater willingness to prepare for potential natural disasters [ 39 ]. Regarding these arguments, the presence of school-age children in the household also produces higher levels of preparedness for natural hazards. Previous studies have argued that the presence of children in the household increases participation in preparedness measures due to the fact that children motivate the actions of adults, bring information regarding safety home from school, and because adults aim to protect children through this type of measures [ 39 ].

Finally, our results suggest that the level of preparedness for floods significantly differs depending on the subject’s gender: in general, men declare that they are more prepared for floods than women, contrary to what was expected. The authors attribute this result to the fact that the majority of men in the sample who are employed work in the large and medium-scale mining sector, while almost all women work in the services and commerce sectors. As mentioned throughout this study, the mining sector is the main source of employment and development in the region, characterized by the presence of large mining companies who provide direct employment to more than 15% of workers in the region, 92% of which are men [ 46 ]. Due to regulatory requirements, these companies have advanced security, hygiene and prevention standards which are frequently monitored. In line with previous studies [ 27 , 31 , 33 ], the employees of these large companies have greater learning and training opportunities with regard to emergency risk reduction and response processes, so it is reasonable to believe that those who work in such companies (mainly men) would have higher levels of preparedness for earthquakes and floods.

The above highlights the potential importance of large companies in the areas where they operate, not only because of their impact on local economies, but also due to their potential influence on communities’ degree of preparedness for natural disasters. Therefore, the presence of large companies in the region is a relevant and important factor to be considered by government authorities when designing disaster risk reduction programs. Families with some members working in large mining companies may improve their levels of family preparedness for natural disasters to the extent in which these members bring information and experience from work regarding emergency risk reduction and response processes home with them.

Based on the results obtained, we conclude that sociodemographic variables such as age, marital status, gender and the presence of school-age children in the household characterize the profile of subjects with greater (or lower) levels of family and workplace preparedness to face potential natural disasters in multi-hazard environments. One of the greatest influencers on the motivation to prepare for natural disasters is the presence of significant others in the household. In general, adults between 30 to 59 years of age who live with their partners and have school-age children in the household constitute the sociodemographic profile of subjects with the highest declared levels of preparedness to face potential natural disasters. On the other hand, adults below 30 years of age or above 60 years old who are single, separated or widowed, and do not have school-age children living in the household represent the profile of subjects with the lowest declared levels of preparedness to face a potential natural disaster. Groups that are less prepared should be target of interventions in order to raise awareness and motivate them to adopt preparedness actions.

Also, our findings reveal the need to continue investigating how people perceive/adopt the recommendations provided by local authorities (i.e., if they understand them and if they are capable of carrying them out), so to be able to evaluate which factors facilitate (or discourage) the adoption of preparedness actions. As some studies indicate, the preparedness actions are not always carried out by the individuals in the same way that authorities recommended it [ 59 ]. Therefore, it is necessary to keep a continuous dialogue between authorities and the civil population to effectively communicate preparedness strategies. This is a crucial element to go forward in the design of public policies that take into account the social, cultural and political context in which people live.

Finally, the institutions responsible for developing local disaster risk reduction plans and programs must appropriately characterize their target audiences if they expect to obtain more effective and efficient results. We hope that the results and conclusions reported in this study become a useful input to achieve this.

Limitations

There are certain limitations to this study. The number of participants in the study was small, as it was made up of a representative sample of solely the Copiapó and Tierra Amarilla municipalities in the Atacama Region. Therefore, studies must be carried out in other cities in the country in order to capture the different events that they experience, as well as geographic and cultural differences.

The level of preparedness was assessed for participants solely through a single measure and using the self-reporting method. Even though dichotomous questions assess the perceived level of preparedness and do not allow to evaluate their objective level (or if they comprehend the emergency plan of their workplace or city), these questions provide an estimate of the basic actions of preparedness recommended by leading International Agencies, which should be done by individuals to face natural hazards. Although this method is extensively used in the literature, it does limit greater understanding of preparedness behavior.

Supporting information

S1 dataset. data set used in the research..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214249.s001

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• Published: 16 September 2022

Human and economic impacts of natural disasters: can we trust the global data?

• Rebecca Louise Jones   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2099-6461 1 , 2 ,
• Debarati Guha-Sapir 3 &
• Sandy Tubeuf   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9001-1157 1 , 2  

Scientific Data volume  9 , Article number:  572 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Reliable and complete data held in disaster databases are imperative to inform effective disaster preparedness and mitigation policies. Nonetheless, disaster databases are highly prone to missingness. In this article, we conduct a missing data diagnosis of the widely-cited, global disaster database, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) to identify the extent and potential determinants of missing data within EM-DAT. In addition, through a review of prominent empirical literature, we contextualise how missing data within EM-DAT has been handled previously. A large proportion of missing data was identified for disasters attributed to natural hazards occurring between 1990 and 2020, particularly on the economic losses. The year the disaster occurred, income-classification of the affected country and disaster type were all significant predictors of missingness for key human and economic loss variables. Accordingly, data are unlikely to be missing completely at random. Advanced statistical methods to handle missing data are thus warranted when analysing disaster data to minimise the risk of biasing statistical inferences and to ensure global disaster data can be trusted.

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Introduction.

As the global effects of climate change are felt more intensively, so too are the human and economic consequences of catastrophic disaster events. In 2020 alone, disaster events attributed to natural hazards affected approximately 100 million people, accounted for an estimated 190 billion US$ of global economic losses and resulted in 15,082 deaths 1 , 2 . In light of COP-26 and recent topical events including, but certainly not limited to, the Haitian Earthquake (2021), Central European Floods (2020) and Australian Bushfires (2020), a renewed urgency has been granted to the research of, preparedness to and mitigation of disasters attributed to natural hazards.

Comprehensive historical data held in disaster databases are central for numerous purposes across both the public and private domain to inform emergency disaster relief management; configure catastrophe risk assessment models; and conduct cost-benefit analyses of disaster risk reduction policies 3 . However, inconsistencies in the reporting of disaster events and methodological difficulties quantifying their impacts, mean that disaster databases are prone to gaps in data availability 3 , 4 . As a result, the scope and reliability of statistical inferences which can be made from disaster data are reduced 5 . Systematic reporting of disaster events is required to minimise missing data. However, to achieve this is a major challenge. Instead, the use of valid and often complex statistical methods to account for missing data are required 6 , 7 .

Missing data is a common issue across all research areas. Standard practices are adopted in randomised clinical trials to combat patient attrition 8 , 9 and in survey-based observational studies to handle unit- and item-non response 10 , 11 . However, within the disaster literature, there is little insight as to how missing data should be handled.

To date, there are six disaster databases which have global coverage: the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT); NatCatSERVICE; Sigma; GLIDE; GFDRR; and BD CATNAT Global 12 . This analysis utilises EM-DAT data alone, as it is the only publicly available, global disaster database and is widely cited; an initial search of the terms: ‘EM-DAT’, ‘CRED’, ‘Emergency Events Database’ and ‘International Disaster Database’ in Google Scholar returned 21,000 search results spanning numerous disciplines. EM-DAT was founded in 1988 by the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Belgium Government 13 . Data are collated from sources including the United Nations, reinsurance firms, research institutions and the press. As well as reporting the occurrence of major disastrous events attributed to natural, technological and complex hazards, its meta-data captures the human and economic impacts to assist national and international humanitarian action.

In this study, we conduct a missing data diagnosis to assess the extent of missing data in EM-DAT and to identify observable factors associated with missingness. We restrict our analysis to disaster events attributed to natural hazards occurring between the years 1990 and 2020. In addition, through a review of highly-cited empirical literature utilising EM-DAT data, we illustrate how missing data has previously been dealt with. We conclude by providing a discussion on the potential methods to handle missing data within disaster databases.

The state of missing data in EM-DAT

The advent of digital technologies in academia and research from the 1980s initiated a proliferation in the collection of data and subsequently, the adoption of data governance and data quality tools to ensure its reliability 14 . In the disaster space, technological advances in disaster surveillance and a progressive global agenda towards standardising disaster reporting, embedded in the 2015–2030 Sendai framework 15 , favour a climate for complete data reporting. Despite this, there was a high proportion of missing data in EM-DAT for disaster events attributed to natural hazards occurring between 1990 and 2020 (Fig.  1 ). This was particularly evident for the reporting of economic losses: data were missing for 96.2% of disaster events on reconstruction costs, for 88.1% on insured damages and 41.5% on total estimated damages. In the three months following a disaster event, when EM-DAT collates the majority of its data, precise information on reconstruction costs and insured damages is likely to be sparse. Reporting of human losses were more complete, with proportions of missing data ranging from 1.3% to 22.3%. Given that the volume of external disaster aid hinges predominantly on death tolls and injury counts, this finding is unsurprising. Of note, there were substantial inconsistencies in the reporting of both human and economic losses, where in both cases, aggregate variables (total deaths and total estimated damages) were better informed. In particular, missing data on total deaths were negligible (1.3%). Hence, in this case, there is little risk of missing data biasing statistical inferences.

Missing data patterns and proportions of missing data for key human and economic loss variables in EM-DAT across all disaster events attributed to natural hazards and occurring between 1990 and 2020. Black shading denotes missing data for one or more disaster events; grey shading denotes observed data. Disaster events are ordered along the x-axis by the STATA default: from the least to the most missing across the variables analysed. The proportion of missing data for each variable, given as a percentage of the total data, is shown to the right-hand side of the figure. Variables are presented in descending order of missingness. Human loss variables include No. of Affected, defined as the number of people requiring immediate assistance during a period of emergency; No. of Missing, defined as the number of people whose whereabouts is unknown and who are presumed dead; No. of Deaths, defined as the number of people who lost their lives as a result of the disaster event; and Total Deaths, defined as the sum of No. of Affected and No. of Deaths. Economic loss variables include Reconstruction Costs, defined as the costs incurred due to the replacement of lost assets and the implementation of disaster mitigation measures; Insured Damages, defined as economic losses born by the insurance sector; and Total Estimated Damages, defined as a value of all economic losses directly or indirectly related to the disaster event.

It is important to distinguish not only the extent, but the pattern of missing data to inform the complexity of missingness 16 . For a small proportion of disaster events, data were missing across all variables analysed, denoted in Fig.  1 by the black, continuous vertical band along the right-hand side. More commonly, data were observed for at least one human loss variable and one economic loss variable. For human losses, missing information may be informed through the interdependence of human loss variables; EM-DAT defines total deaths as the sum of the number of people affected and the number of deaths 17 . Whereas for economic losses, there is no such interdependence across economic loss variables. EM-DAT defines total estimated damages as a value of all the economic losses directly or indirectly related to the disaster event, which does not necessarily include reconstruction costs. Missing data occurred sporadically throughout the dataset for each human loss variable, demonstrating an intermittent missing data pattern. However, across the economic loss variables, missing data patterns were less sporadic. For instance, data on reconstruction costs and insured damages were largely missing throughout, even when data on total estimated damages were informed.

Explaining missing data

Logistic regression analysis was used to identify whether the probability of data to be missing was dependent on observed data within EM-DAT 5 , 18 . Accordingly, it informs the nature of the missing data mechanism, specifically whether the mechanism of missing data deviates from Missing Completely At Random (MCAR). Data which are MCAR, that is, their probability to be missing is independent of observed and unobserved data, can be excluded from analyses with little risk of introducing bias. Conversely, if the missing data mechanism deviates from MCAR, the deletion of missing values may bias statistical inferences. In this case, more advanced methods are necessary to account for data gaps 6 . Here, we restricted our logistic regression analysis to model the probability of missingness within the variables: total estimated damages, the number of people affected, the number of people missing and the number of deaths (Supplementary Table  1 ). Methods to account for missing data are viable only for partially incomplete data 5 . In the case of reconstruction costs and insured damages, where data were almost entirely incomplete in our dataset (96.2% and 88.1% missing respectively) little can be done during data analysis to account for missingness. Hence, these variables were not investigated in the logistic regression analysis. The opposite was true for total deaths; the proportion of missing data on total deaths was negligible (1.3%). This precludes logistic regression analysis due to insufficient variation in the outcome variable, the probability to be missing. As a result, the variable total deaths was not investigated in the logistic regression analysis.

The observable data partially explained the probability of total estimated damages to be missing, revealed by a sizeable pseudo-R 2 value (pseudo-R 2  = 0.416) (Supplementary Table  1 ). Missing data on the number of people affected and the number of deaths were explained less by the observed data (pseudo-R 2  = 0.206 and pseudo-R 2  = 0.188 respectively) (Supplementary Table  2 ). This agrees with the intermittent missing data pattern identified for these variables (Fig.  1 ). The observed data explained much of the probability to be missing for the variable, the number of people missing (pseudo-R 2  = 0.621) (Supplementary Table  2 ). However, a large number of disaster events (n = 6,218) were omitted from the analysis by STATA, by default, due to occurring in years which perfectly predicted the probability to be missing. As a consequence, the precision of the parameter estimates is reduced, which requires the results to be interpreted with caution.

A number of observable factors in EM-DAT were statistically significantly (p < 0.05) associated to the probability of total estimated damages to be missing: the year the disaster occured, the income-group classification of the affected country, disaster severity and disaster type (Supplementary Table  1 ). Disaster events occurring after the year 2002 and in lower-income countries were positive predictors of the probability of data on total estimated damages to be missing. In addition, disaster severity, estimated by the natural logarithm of total deaths, and disaster types having prolonged effects including droughts, epidemics and extreme temperature events were also positive predictors of missingness.

The observed predictors of missingness differed for human loss variables. In contrast to missingness within the variable total estimated damages, the probability of data to be missing for the variables: the number of people affected and the number of deaths were statistically significantly (p < 0.01) lower for disasters which occurred in lower-income countries relative to high-income countries. Lower-income countries are the predominant recipients of international disaster aid. This result suggests that disaster aid incentivises more complete reporting of human losses. The influence of disaster type on the probability to be missing was largely heterogeneous across each variable analysed. In contrast, associations between the year the disaster occurred and the probability of data to be missing were similar across human and economic loss variables, with a higher probability of missingness for disaster events occurring after 2002.

Shortfalls of the current literature

The absence of published, standard procedures to account for missing data in disaster databases has set a precedent for a general lack of consideration of the issue in the empirical literature. We exemplify this by reviewing the top-20 most cited empirical studies utilising EM-DAT as a primary or secondary data source (Supplementary Table  3 ).

Eight studies neglected to mention missing data. Of the studies that did, missing data were often considered more broadly under the remit of data availability. With the exception of Brooks, Adger and Kelly 19 who assessed missing data in-depth in an accompanying paper, mention of missing data or data availability more generally, was limited to one or two sentences.

All disaster events meeting at least one of the following inclusion criteria are included in EM-DAT: i) ten or more people reported dead; ii) 100 or more people affected, injured or homeless; iii) a declaration of a state of emergency by the affected country, or an appeal for international assistance. Accordingly, for disaster events which meet these criteria, data on disaster occurrences are entirely observed in EM-DAT. As such, the extent to which missing data need be considered is dictated by the type of EM-DAT data utilised in empirical studies, namely whether data are utilised on disaster occurrence alone, or on the consequences.

Statistical methods utilised during data analysis typically presume complete information for all variables specified in the model. Therefore, assumptions on the mechanism of missing data are made, whether explicitly or not. Neither the publication year, nor the number of times a paper had been cited affected the approach taken to handle missing data. Of the studies reviewed, half attempted to account for missing data. However, the approaches employed were mostly ad-hoc with no statistical grounding. In six studies, authors restricted their analysis to variables or subsets of data with improved data availability. In addition to restricting the scope of their analysis, Brooks, Adger and Kelly 19 imputed zero values in place of missing values. However, this approach may heavily skew the distribution of data. Dilley et al . 20 aggregated mortality estimates over all disaster events attributed to a natural hazard between 1981 and 2000. This method intends to reduce the relative impact of missing data. Nevertheless, it also compromises the precision of analyses. Barredo 21 and Doocy et al . 22 supplemented EM-DAT data with data from alternative sources in an attempt to generate a more complete dataset. However, merging of datasets can be time-consuming and can itself introduce ‘file matching’ biases if datasets are heterogeneous in their structure or content 16 . Yang 23 utilised mean imputation whereby missing values are imputed with a single, unconditional mean of the observed values. Nevertheless, this method is generally not recommended, as the uncertainty in the predicted values due to missing data are not adequately reflected 24 .

Handling missing data in disaster databases

Identifying a suitable approach to handle missing data will depend on the characteristics of the dataset, the variables of interest and the intended data analysis. Regardless, the choice of missing data method should be grounded on plausible assumptions about the missing data mechanisms as informed through a diagnosis of the missing data. In Supplementary Table  4 , we describe conventional and advanced missing data methods which are relevant to handling missing data within disaster databases. An exhaustive review of the various missing data methods is beyond the scope of this paper and can be found elsewhere, see Allison 24 , Graham 25 and Graham, Patricio and Allison 26 .

Two broad approaches to handle missing data exist: deletion and imputation. Deletion methods, which are so-called ‘quick-fix’ methods, include column deletion, Complete Case Analysis (CCA) and Available Case Analysis (ACA). However, these methods can exclude a large proportion of the original dataset when a high proportion of missing data exists. In addition, deletion methods generally rely on missing data to be MCAR. Hence, when the mechanism of missingness deviates from this assumption, these methods can do more harm than good, biasing statistical inferences reported by studies 7 . Imputation-based methods are of two main varieties: single imputation and multiple imputation. Single imputation methods, such as mean imputation and regression-based imputation replace missing values with a single, predicted value estimated from the observed data. In contrast, multiple imputation generates a range of predicted values through multiply imputed datasets and thus, adequately reflects the uncertainty in the predicted values due to missing data 26 . Other advanced missing data methods include inverse probability weighting, maximum likelihood and Bayesian simulation. In addition, missing data methods can be combined. For instance, Bayesian techniques can be incorporated into the first step of multiple imputation.

Neglecting the issue of missing data exposes studies which inform regional, national and international disaster policies to biases and compromises their effectiveness. The complete, peer-reviewed reporting of disaster events through strengthened field-level data quality remains the eventual goal. In the meantime, given the data available, we argue that to achieve reliable evidence-based disaster policy, it is crucial that missing data is appropriately diagnosed and accounted for in the empirical literature.

This analysis is one of the first to reveal deviations from the assumption of MCAR for missing data on key human and economic loss variables in EM-DAT. Consequently, methods to handle missing data which are MAR should be considered. Deviations from the assumption of MAR, namely that missing data are Missing Not At Random (MNAR) and are thus dependent on unobserved data, cannot be explicitly tested. Instead, sensitivity analyses should be performed to test the robustness of parameter estimates to different assumptions about the mechanisms of missing data. Advanced missing data methods such as multiple imputation, maximum-likelihood and Bayesian simulation can be adapted to account for missing data which are MNAR.

In addition, this analysis highlights key limitations of EM-DAT data. Despite technological advances in disaster surveillance and general progress in data collection, an increase in the proportions of missing data since 2002 suggest shortfalls in current data quality procedures. More-so, the large disparities in the reporting of human losses compared to economic losses points to a wider issue in the types of data collected. Count data in physical units (number of deaths, number of people affected etc.) is principally used to portray human losses, whereas monetary estimates (reconstruction costs, insured damages etc.) are used to denote economic losses. Direct inference of monetary estimates is not straightforward. A two-stage valuation approach may therefore be more suitable and limit the extent of missing data on economic losses. In this case, count data, for instance the number of buildings damaged, the number of days without electricity, would primarily be used to evaluate economic losses in disaster databases. Standard economic valuation methods could then be applied, where necessary, to transform these values into monetary estimates.

By examining the global disaster database EM-DAT, this paper highlights shortfalls in the quality and use of disaster data which are rarely considered. Limitations in the quality of disaster databases arising from data collection procedures have been explored in previous literature 3 , 4 , 27 , 28 . In particular, limitations in the availability of data on low-intensity disaster events due to the inclusion criteria specified by CRED are well known. Instead, this paper contributes a different perspective to the existing literature; given the data collected, to what extent is there an issue of missing data and how should it be handled to ensure global disaster data can be trusted? In this respect, we aim to prompt the reader to apply a critical eye when assessing global disaster data, rather than implicitly trust its reliability.

The extent, complexity and mechanisms of missing data will vary according to the data analysed. Because of this, we are unable to prescribe a single approach to handle missing data within disaster databases. Instead, we advocate for analysts to consider missing data on an individual study basis. Although this article is a step in the right direction, a considerable research effort is still required to inform how missing data within disaster databases should be handled. In particular, the mechanisms of missing data in EM-DAT, and other disaster databases, should be more clearly identified. This would allow data limitations to be better informed and the performance of statistical methods, grounded on plausible assumptions about the mechanisms of missing data, to be tested.

Missing data diagnosis

As per procedures initially employed by Faria et al . 18 and Gabrio et al . 29 , but adapted to the context of disaster databases, this missing data diagnosis comprised three steps; i) a description of the proportions of missing data; ii) an analysis of the patterns of missing data; and iii) a logistic regression analysis to assess associations between the probability to be missing and observed values in the dataset. The dataset was restricted to disasters attributed to natural hazards and occurring between the years 1990 and 2020. Data analysis was carried out in STATA (version 16.1) and graphics were produced using the scheme ‘cleanplots’ 30 . The code used for the data analysis can be found in the supplementary material ( Supplementary Material ).

The proportion of missing data was computed across all variables using the command ‘mdesc’ 31 . Missing data patterns were produced using the command ‘misspattern, novarsort’ 32 . Due to computational limits attributed to a large number of observations for each variable, the option ‘noidsort’ could not be applied. Accordingly, observations were arranged by the default: from the least to the most missing across the variables of interest. Missing data patterns were produced for all human loss variables in the dataset (number of people affected, number of people missing, number of deaths and total deaths) and select economic loss variables (reconstruction costs, insured damages and total estimated damages). While individual direct, indirect, sectoral and infrastructural losses were included in the dataset, these were omitted from visualisations of missing data patterns as they were rarely informed.

Statistical analyses, including the t-test, Pearson’s chi-squared test, Little’s MCRA test and binary probability models, are used to test the assumption that missing data is MAR. That is, missing data can be explained by observed values in the dataset 18 . Logistic regression analysis was used in this study to model the probability of missingness for a given disaster event i , conditional on a vector of observable predictors of missingness ( X i ) (Eq.  1 ). The outcome variable ( y i ) was therefore a dichotomous missing data indicator taking value 1 if data were missing, or 0 if data were informed. Missing data indicators were generated for the variables: total estimated damages, number of people affected, number of people missing and number of deaths.

with ε it denoting the error term and F (·) denoting the cumulative distribution function (cdf) which takes a standard logistic distribution (Eq.  2 ) in logistic regression analysis.

Observed predictors of missingness ( X i ) included disaster type, a categorical variable denoting the type of natural disaster, omitting the disaster type flood as the reference to control for multi-collinearity; income-classification of the affected country, omitting high-income as the reference category; and the year the disaster occurred, between 1990 and 2020, included in the model as a categorical variable with the year 1990 omitted as a reference. Reference categories were selected due to being the most frequently observed in the dataset. The year the disaster occurred was included in the model as fixed effects to assess both the trend in missing data over time and the individual threshold effects across each year. Disaster severity, estimated by the logarithm of total deaths, was also included in the model specification when the probability of total estimated damages to be missing was assessed. Otherwise, disaster severity was excluded from the model due to being highly correlated with the variables: number of people affected, number of people missing and number of deaths. Total deaths was log transformed to account for the left-skewed, binomial distribution, arising from the high proportion (60%) of zero reported deaths in the dataset. Observed predictors of missingness were selected based on a step-wise approach.

Logistic regression analysis was estimated by maximum likelihood estimation (Eq.  3 ) using the command ‘logistic’ for all disaster events having complete information on the predictors of missingness. Marginal effects were computed at the mean using the command ‘mfx’ to enable interpretation of the magnitude of effect in the probability scale.

The robustness of our results was assessed using a probit model and a conditional (fixed-effect) logit model. The latter was used to test for potential ‘incidental parameter’ bias arising from the inclusion of individual fixed effects.

Review of the literature

Disaster databases are highly prone to missingness. Despite this, little insight exists as to how missing data should be handled in this context. To inform previous approaches to handling missing data in disaster databases, empirical studies utilising EM-DAT as a primary or secondary data source were reviewed. As this review was conducted for illustrative purposes only, we sought only prominent, highly-cited studies since these typically shape the standards for subsequent research. Studies were identified through electronic database searches of Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar on 01/06/2022 using the key search terms: ‘EM-DAT’, ‘Emergency Events Database’, ‘International Disaster Database’ and ‘CRED’. Only papers considered to be empirical in nature and published between 1990 and 2022 were considered. No language restrictions were applied. Of the initial 2,127 search results, 421 papers were deemed to meet the inclusion criteria. Of these, the top-20 most cited papers were identified. For each paper, data were extracted on the use of EM-DAT data, the consideration given to missing data and the approach taken to handle missing data 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 .

Data availability

The data utilised in this analysis were acquired from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). Data from EM-DAT is publicly and freely available to download from: https://public.emdat.be/ . Restrictions apply to the dataset used in this analysis, which included additional data from that freely available. This was acquired by the authors on a direct request to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Data is however available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with the permission of CRED, which can be obtained via written request to Ms. Regina Below, the EM-DAT database manager, at [email protected].

Code availability

The code used to generate the results of this analysis are available as supplementary material. Data analysis was carried out in STATA (version 16.1).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Université catholique de Louvain for their support on this research paper and the University of York who permitted R.L.J. to undertake part of this research as part of her Master’s dissertation. We would also like to thank the reviewers and editors at Scientific Data, who helped to shape the final version of this paper.

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The study was conceptualised by S.T. and D.G.S. Data analysis was performed by R.L.J. under the supervision of S.T. All authors contributed to the writing and revision of the manuscript.

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Results of logistic regression analysis to test associations between the probability of data to be missing on total estimated damages and observable data in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT)

41597_2022_1667_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

Results of logistic regression analysis to test associations between the probability of data to be missing on select human loss variables and observable data in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT)

Consideration of missing data in pivotal empirical studies utilising the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT)

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Jones, R.L., Guha-Sapir, D. & Tubeuf, S. Human and economic impacts of natural disasters: can we trust the global data?. Sci Data 9 , 572 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01667-x

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Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions (2006)

Chapter: 4 research on disaster response and recovery, 4 research on disaster response and recovery.

T his chapter and the preceding one use the conceptual model presented in Chapter 1 (see Figure 1.1 ) as a guide to understanding societal response to hazards and disasters. As specified in that model, Chapter 3 discusses three sets of pre-disaster activities that have the potential to reduce disaster losses: hazard mitigation practices, emergency preparedness practices, and pre-disaster planning for post-disaster recovery. This chapter focuses on National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) contributions to social science knowledge concerning those dimensions of the model that are related to post-disaster response and recovery activities. As in Chapter 3 , discussions are organized around research findings regarding different units of analysis, including individuals, households, groups and organizations, social networks, and communities. The chapter also highlights trends, controversies, and issues that warrant further investigation. The contents of this chapter are linked to key themes discussed elsewhere in this report, including the conceptualization and measurement of societal vulnerability and resilience, the importance of taking diversity into account in understanding both response-related activities and recovery processes and outcomes, and linkages between hazard loss reduction and sustainability. Although this review centers primarily on research on natural disasters and to a lesser degree on technological disasters, research findings are also discussed in terms of their implications for understanding and managing emerging homeland security threats.

The discussions that follow seek to address several interrelated questions: What is currently known about post-disaster response and recovery,

and to what extent is that knowledge traceable to NEHRP-sponsored research activities? What gaps exist in that knowledge? What further research—both disciplinary and interdisciplinary—is needed to fill those gaps?

RESEARCH ON DISASTER RESPONSE

Emergency response encompasses a range of measures aimed at protecting life and property and coping with the social disruption that disasters produce. As noted in Chapter 3 , emergency response activities can be categorized usefully as expedient mitigation actions (e.g., clearing debris from channels when floods threaten, containing earthquake-induced fires and hazardous materials releases before they can cause additional harm) and population protection actions (e.g., warning, evacuation and other self-protective actions, search and rescue, the provision of emergency medical care and shelter; Tierney et al., 2001). Another common conceptual distinction in the literature on disaster response (Dynes et al., 1981) contrasts agent-generated demands , or the types of losses and forms of disruption that disasters create, and response-generated demands , such as the need for situation assessment, crisis communication and coordination, and response management. Paralleling preparedness measures, disaster response activities take place at various units of analysis, from individuals and households, to organizations, communities, and intergovernmental systems. This section does not attempt to deal exhaustively with the topic of emergency response activities, which is the most-studied of all phases of hazard and disaster management. Rather, it highlights key themes in the literature, with an emphasis on NEHRP-based findings that are especially relevant in light of newly recognized human-induced threats.

Public Response: Warning Response, Evacuation, and Other Self-Protective Actions

The decision processes and behaviors involved in public responses to disaster warnings are among the best-studied topics in the research literature. Over nearly three decades, NEHRP has been a major sponsor of this body of research. As noted in Chapter 3 , warning response research overlaps to some degree with more general risk communication research. For example, both literatures emphasize the importance of considering source, message, channel, and receiver effects on the warning process. While this discussion centers mainly on responses to official warning information, it should be noted that self-protective decision-making processes are also initiated in the absence of formal warnings—for example, in response to cues that people perceive as signaling impending danger and in disasters that occur without warning. Previous research suggests that the basic deci-

sion processes involved in self-protective action are similar across different types of disaster events, although the challenges posed and the problems that may develop can be agent specific.

As in other areas discussed here, empirical studies on warning response and self-protective behavior in different types of disasters and emergencies have led to the development of broadly generalizable explanatory models. One such model, the protective action decision model, developed by Perry, Lindell, and their colleagues (see, for example, Lindell and Perry, 2004), draws heavily on Turner and Killian’s (1987) emergent norm theory of collective behavior. According to that theory, groups faced with the potential need to act under conditions of uncertainty (or potential danger) engage in interaction in an attempt to develop a collective definition of the situation they face and a set of new norms that can guide their subsequent action. 1 Thus, when warnings and protective instructions are disseminated, those who receive warnings interact with one another in an effort to determine collectively whether the warning is authentic, whether it applies to them, whether they are indeed personally in danger, whether they can reduce their vulnerability through action, whether action is possible, and when they should act. These collective determinations are shaped in turn by such factors as (1) the characteristics of warning recipients , including their prior experience with the hazard in question or with similar emergencies, as well as their prior preparedness efforts; (2) situational factors , including the presence of perceptual cues signaling danger; and (3) the social contexts in which decisions are made—for example, contacts among family members, coworkers, neighborhood residents, or others present in the setting, as well as the strength of preexisting social ties. Through interaction and under the influence of these kinds of factors, individuals and groups develop new norms that serve as guidelines for action.

Conceptualizing warning response as a form of collective behavior that is guided by emergent norms brings several issues to the fore. One is that far from being automatic or governed by official orders, behavior undertaken in response to warnings is the product of interaction and deliberation among members of affected groups—activities that are typically accompanied by a search for additional confirmatory information. Circumstances that complicate the deliberation process, such as conflicting warning information that individuals and groups may receive, difficulties in getting in touch with others whose views are considered important for the decision-making process, or disagreements among group members about any aspect of the

threat situation, invariably lead to additional efforts to communicate and confirm the information and lengthen the period between when a warning is issued and when groups actually respond.

Another implication of the emergent norm approach to protective action decision making is the recognition that groups may collectively define an emergency situation in ways that are at variance from official views. This is essentially what occurs in the shadow evacuation phenomenon, which has been documented in several emergency situations, including the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident (Zeigler et al., 1981). While authorities may not issue a warning for a particular geographic area or group of people, or may even tell them they are safe, groups may still collectively decide that they are at risk or that the situation is fluid and confusing enough that they should take self-protective action despite official pronouncements.

The behavior of occupants of the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack illustrates the importance of collectively developed definitions. Groups of people in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center decided that they should evacuate the building after seeing and hearing about what was happening in Tower 1 and after speaking with coworkers and loved ones, even when official announcements and other building occupants indicated that they should not do so. Others decided to remain in the tower or, perhaps more accurately, they decided to delay evacuating until receiving additional information clarifying the extent to which they were in danger. Journalistic accounts suggest that decisions were shaped in part by what people could see taking place in Tower 1, conversations with others outside the towers who had additional relevant information, and directives received from those in positions of authority in tenant firms. In that highly confusing and time-constrained situation, emergent norms guiding the behavior of occupants of the second tower meant the difference between life and death when the second plane struck (NIST, 2005).

The large body of research that exists regarding decision making under threat conditions points to the need to consider a wide range of individual, group, situational, and resource-related factors that facilitate and inhibit self-protective action. Qualitatively based decision-tree models developed by Gladwin et al. (2001) demonstrate the complexity of self-protective decisions. As illustrated by their work on hurricane evacuation, a number of different factors contribute to decisions on whether or not to evacuate. Such factors range from perceptions of risk and personal safety with respect to a threatened disaster, to the extent of knowledge about specific areas at risk, to constraining factors such as the presence of pets in the home that require care, lack of a suitable place to go, counterarguments by other family members, fears of looting (shown by the literature to be unjustified; see, for example, Fischer, 1998), and fear that the evacuation process may

be more dangerous than staying home and riding out a hurricane. Warning recipients may decide that they should wait before evacuating, ultimately missing the opportunity to escape, or they may decide to shelter in-place after concluding that their homes are strong enough to resist hurricane forces despite what they are told by authorities.

In their research on Hurricane Andrew, Gladwin and Peacock describe some of the many factors that complicate the evacuation process for endangered populations (1997:54):

Except under extreme circumstances, households cannot be compelled to evacuate or to remain where they are, much less to prepare themselves for the threat. Even under extraordinary conditions many households have to be individually located and assisted or forced to comply. Segments of a population may fail to receive, ignore, or discount official requests and orders. Still others may not have the resources or wherewithal to comply. Much will depend upon the source of the information, the consistency of the message received from multiple sources, the nature of the information conveyed, as well as the household’s ability to perceive the danger, make decisions, and act accordingly. Disputes, competition, and the lack of coordination among local, state, and federal governmental agencies and between those agencies and privately controlled media can add confusion. Businesses and governmental agencies that refuse to release their employees and suspend normal activities can add still further to the confusion and noncompliance.

The normalcy bias adds other complications to the warning response process. While popular notions of crisis response behaviors seem to assume that people react automatically to messages signaling impending danger—for example, by fleeing in panic—the reality is quite different. People typically “normalize” unusual situations and persist in their everyday activities even when urged to act differently. As noted earlier, people will not act on threat information unless they perceive a personal risk to themselves. Simply knowing that a threat exists—even if that threat is described as imminent—is insufficient to motivate self-protective action. Nor can people be expected to act if warning-related guidance is not specific enough to provide them with a blueprint for what to do or if they do not believe they have the resources required to follow the guidance. One practical implication of research on warnings is that rather than being concerned about panicking the public with warning information, or about communicating too much information, authorities should instead be seeking better ways to penetrate the normalcy bias, persuade people that they should be concerned about an impending danger, provide directives that are detailed enough to follow during an emergency, and encourage pre-disaster response planning so that people have thought through what to do prior to being required to act.

Other Important Findings Regarding the Evacuation Process

As noted earlier, evacuation behavior has long been recognized as the reflection of social-level factors and collective deliberation. Decades ago, Drabek (1983) established that households constitute the basic deliberative units for evacuation decision making in community-wide disasters and that the decisions that are ultimately made tend to be consistent with pre-disaster household authority patterns. For example, gender-related concerns often enter into evacuation decision making. Women tend to be more risk-averse and more inclined to want to follow evacuation orders, while males are less inclined to do so (for an extensive discussion of gender differences in vulnerability, risk perception, and responses to disasters, see Fothergill, 1998). In arriving at decisions regarding evacuation, households take official orders into account, but they weigh those orders in light of their own priorities, other information sources, and their past experiences. Information received from media sources and from family and friends, along with confirmatory data actively sought by those at risk, generally has a greater impact on evacuation decisions than information provided by public officials (Dow and Cutter, 1998, 2000).

Recent research also suggests that family evacuation patterns are undergoing change. For example, even though families decide together to evacuate and wish to stay together, they increasingly tend to use more than one vehicle to evacuate—perhaps because they want to take more of their possessions with them, make sure their valuable vehicles are protected, or return to their homes at different times (Dow and Cutter, 2002). Other social influences also play a role. Neighborhood residents may be more willing to evacuate or, conversely, more inclined to delay the decision to evacuate if they see their neighbors doing so. Rather than becoming more vigilant, communities that are struck repeatedly by disasters such as hurricanes and floods may develop “disaster subcultures,” such as groups that see no reason to heed evacuation orders since sheltering in-place has been effective in previous events.

NEHRP-sponsored research has shown that different racial, ethnic, income, and special needs groups respond in different ways to warning information and evacuation orders, in part because of the unique characteristics of these groups, the manner in which they receive information during crises, and their varying responses to different information sources. For example, members of some minority groups tend to have large extended families, making contacting family members and deliberating on alternative courses of action a more complicated process. Lower-income groups, inner-city residents, and elderly persons are more likely to have to rely on public transportation, rather than personal vehicles, in order to evacuate. Lower-income and minority populations, who tend to have larger families, may

also be reluctant to impose on friends and relatives for shelter. Lack of financial resources may leave less-well-off segments of the population less able to afford to take time off from work when disasters threaten, to travel long distances to avoid danger, or to pay for emergency lodging. Socially isolated individuals, such as elderly persons living alone, may lack the social support that is required to carry out self-protective actions. Members of minority groups may find majority spokespersons and official institutions less credible and believable than members of the white majority, turning instead to other sources, such as their informal social networks. Those who rely on non-English-speaking mass media for news may receive less complete warning information, or may receive warnings later than those who are tuned into mainstream media sources (Aguirre et al., 1991; Perry and Lindell, 1991; Lindell and Perry, 1992, 2004; Klinenberg, 2002; for more extensive discussions, see Tierney et al., 2001).

Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed the manner in which social factors such as those discussed above influence evacuation decisions and actions. In many respects, the Katrina experience validated what social science research had already shown with respect to evacuation behavior. Those who stayed behind did so for different reasons—all of which have been discussed in past research. Some at-risk residents lacked resources, such as automobiles and financial resources that would have enabled them to escape the city. Based on their past experiences with hurricanes like Betsey and Camille, others considered themselves not at risk and decided it was not necessary to evacuate. Still others, particularly elderly residents, felt so attached to their homes that they refused to leave even when transportation was offered.

This is not to imply that evacuation-related problems stemmed solely from individual decisions. Katrina also revealed the crucial significance of evacuation planning, effective warnings, and government leadership in facilitating evacuations. Planning efforts in New Orleans were rudimentary at best, clear evacuation orders were given too late, and the hurricane rendered evacuation resources useless once the city began to flood.

With respect to other patterns of evacuation behavior when they do evacuate, most people prefer to stay with relatives or friends, rather than using public shelters. Shelter use is generally limited to people who feel they have no other options—for example, those who have no close friends and relatives to take them in and cannot afford the price of lodging. Many people avoid public shelters or elect to stay in their homes because shelters do not allow pets. Following earthquakes, some victims, particularly Latinos in the United States who have experienced or learned about highly damaging earthquakes in their countries of origin, avoid indoor shelter of all types, preferring instead to sleep outdoors (Tierney, 1988; Phillips, 1993; Simile, 1995).

Disaster warnings involving “near misses,” as well as concerns about the possible impact of elevated color-coded homeland security warnings,

raise the question of whether warnings that do not materialize can induce a “cry-wolf” effect, resulting in lowered attention to and compliance with future warnings. The disaster literature shows little support for the cry-wolf hypothesis. For example, Dow and Cutter (1998) studied South Carolina residents who had been warned of impending hurricanes that ultimately struck North Carolina. Earlier false alarms did not influence residents’ decisions on whether to evacuate; that is, there was little behavioral evidence for a cry-wolf effect. However, false alarms did result in a decrease in confidence in official warning sources, as opposed to other sources of information on which people relied in making evacuation decisions—certainly not the outcome officials would have intended. Studies also suggest that it is advisable to clarify for the public why forecasts and warnings were uncertain or incorrect. Based on an extensive review of the warning literature, Sorensen (2000:121) concluded that “[t]he likelihood of people responding to a warning is not diminished by what has come to be labeled the ‘cry-wolf’ syndrome if the basis for the false alarm is understood [emphasis added].” Along those same lines, Atwood and Major (1998) argue that if officials explain reasons for false alarms, that information can increase public awareness and make people more likely to respond to subsequent hazard advisories.

PUBLIC RESPONSE

Dispelling myths about crisis-related behavior: panic and social breakdown.

Numerous individual studies and research syntheses have contrasted commonsense ideas about how people respond during crises with empirical data on actual behavior. Among the most important myths addressed in these analyses is the notion that panic and social disorganization are common responses to imminent threats and to actual disaster events (Quarantelli and Dynes, 1972; Johnson, 1987; Clarke, 2002). True panic, defined as highly individualistic flight behavior that is nonsocial in nature, undertaken without regard to social norms and relationships, is extremely rare prior to and during extreme events of all types. Panic takes place under specific conditions that are almost never present in disaster situations. Panic only occurs when individuals feel completely isolated and when both social bonds and measures to promote safety break down to such a degree that individuals feel totally on their own in seeking safety. Panic results from a breakdown in the ongoing social order—a breakdown that Clarke (2003:128) describes as having moral, network, and cognitive dimensions:

There is a moral failure, so that people pursue their self interest regardless

of rules of duty and obligation to others. There is a network failure, so that the resources that people can normally draw on in times of crisis are no longer there. There is a cognitive failure, in which someone’s understanding of how they are connected to others is cast aside.

Failures on this scale almost never occur during disasters. Panic reactions are rare in part because social bonds remain intact and extremely resilient even under conditions of severe danger (Johnson, 1987; Johnson et al., 1994; Feinberg and Johnson, 2001).

Panic persists in public and media discourses on disasters, in part because those discourses conflate a wide range of other behaviors with panic. Often, people are described as panicking because they experience feelings of intense fear, even though fright and panic are conceptually and behaviorally distinct. Another behavioral pattern that is sometimes labeled panic involves intensified rumors and information seeking, which are common patterns among publics attempting to make sense of confusing and potentially dangerous situations. Under conditions of uncertainty, people make more frequent use of both informal ties and official information sources, as they seek to collectively define threats and decide what actions to take. Such activities are a normal extension of everyday information-seeking practices (Turner, 1994). They are not indicators of panic.

The phenomenon of shadow evacuation, discussed earlier, is also frequently confused with panic. Such evacuations take place because people who are not defined by authorities as in danger nevertheless determine that they are—perhaps because they have received conflicting or confusing information or because they are geographically close to areas considered at risk (Tierney et al., 2001). Collective demands for antibiotics by those considered not at risk for anthrax, “runs” on stores to obtain self-protective items, and the so-called worried-well phenomenon are other forms of collective behavior that reflect the same sociobehavioral processes that drive shadow evacuations: emergent norms that define certain individuals and groups as in danger, even though authorities do not consider them at risk; confusion about the magnitude of the risk; a collectively defined need to act; and in some cases, an unwillingness to rely on official sources for self-protective advice. These types of behaviors, which constitute interesting subjects for research in their own right, are not examples of panic.

Research also indicates that panic and other problematic behaviors are linked in important ways to the manner in which institutions manage risk and disaster. Such behaviors are more likely to emerge when those who are in danger come to believe that crisis management measures are ineffective, suggesting that enhancing public understanding of and trust in preparedness measures and in organizations charged with managing disasters can lessen the likelihood of panic. With respect to homeland security threats, some researchers have argued that the best way to “vaccinate” the public

against the emergence of panic in situations involving weapons of mass destruction is to provide timely and accurate information about impending threats and to actively include the public in pre-crisis preparedness efforts (Glass and Shoch-Spana, 2002).

Blaming the public for panicking during emergencies serves to diffuse responsibility from professionals whose duty it is to protect the public, such as emergency managers, fire and public safety officials, and those responsible for the design, construction, and safe operation of buildings and other structures (Sime, 1999). The empirical record bears out the fact that to the extent panic does occur during emergencies, such behavior can be traced in large measure to environmental factors such as overcrowding, failure to provide adequate egress routes, and breakdowns in communications, rather than to some inherent human impulse to stampede with complete disregard for others. Any potential for panic and other problematic behaviors that may exist can, in other words, be mitigated through appropriate design, regulatory, management, and communications strategies.

As discussed elsewhere in this report, looting and violence are also exceedingly rare in disaster situations. Here again, empirical evidence of what people actually do during and following disasters contradicts what many officials and much of the public believe. Beliefs concerning looting are based not on evidence but rather on assumptions—for example, that social control breaks down during disasters and that lawlessness and violence inevitably result when the social order is disrupted. Such beliefs fail to take into account the fact that powerful norms emerge during disasters that foster prosocial behavior—so much so that lawless behavior actually declines in disaster situations. Signs erected following disasters saying, “We shoot to kill looters” are not so much evidence that looting is occurring as they are evidence that community consensus condemns looting.

The myth of disaster looting can be contrasted with the reality of looting during episodes of civil disorder such as the riots of the 1960s and the 1992 Los Angeles unrest. During episodes of civil unrest, looting is done publicly, in groups, quite often in plain sight of law enforcement officials. Taking goods and damaging businesses are the hallmarks of modern “commodity riots.” New norms also emerge during these types of crises, but unlike the prosocial norms that develop in disasters, norms governing behavior during civil unrest permit and actually encourage lawbreaking. Under these circumstances, otherwise law-abiding citizens allow themselves to take part in looting behavior (Dynes and Quarantelli, 1968; Quarantelli and Dynes, 1970).

Looting and damaging property can also become normative in situations that do not involve civil unrest—for example, in victory celebrations following sports events. Once again, in such cases, norms and traditions governing behavior in crowd celebrations encourage destructive activities

(Rosenfeld, 1997). The behavior of participants in these destructive crowd celebrations again bears no resemblance to that of disaster victims.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, social scientists had no problem understanding why episodes of looting might have been more widespread in that event than in the vast majority of U.S. disasters. Looting has occurred on a widespread basis following other disasters, although such cases have been rare. Residents of St. Croix engaged in extensive looting behavior following Hurricane Hugo, and this particular episode sheds light on why some Katrina victims might have felt justified in looting. Hurricane Hugo produced massive damage on St. Croix, and government agencies were rendered helpless. Essentially trapped on the island, residents had no idea when help would arrive. Instead, they felt entirely on their own following Hugo. The tourist-based St. Croix economy was characterized by stark social class differences, and crime and corruption had been high prior to the hurricane. Under these circumstances, looting for survival was seen as justified, and patterns of collective behavior developed that were not unlike those seen during episodes of civil unrest. Even law enforcement personnel joined in the looting (Quarantelli, 2006; Rodriguez et al., forthcoming).

Despite their similarities, the parallels between New Orleans and St. Croix should not be overstated. It is now clear that looting and violent behavior were far less common than initially reported and that rumors concerning shootings, rapes, and murders were groundless. The media employed the “looting frame” extensively while downplaying far more numerous examples of selflessness and altruism. In hindsight, it now appears that many reports involving looting and social breakdown were based on stereotyped images of poor minority community residents (Tierney et al., forthcoming).

Extensive research also indicates that despite longstanding evidence, beliefs about disaster-related looting and lawlessness remain quite common, and these beliefs can influence the behavior of both community residents and authorities. For example, those who are at risk may decide not to evacuate and instead stay in their homes to protect their property from looters (Fischer, 1998). Concern regarding looting and lawlessness may cause government officials to make highly questionable and even counterproductive decisions. Following Hurricane Katrina, for example, based largely on rumors and exaggerated media reports, rescue efforts were halted because of fears for the safety of rescue workers, and Louisiana’s governor issued a “shoot-to-kill” order to quash looting. These decisions likely resulted in additional loss of life and also interfered with citizen efforts to aid one another. Interestingly, recent historical accounts indicate that similar decisions were made following other large-scale disasters, such as the 1871 Chicago fire, the 1900 Galveston hurricane, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and firestorm. In all three cases, armed force was used to stop

looting, and immigrant groups and the poor were scapegoated for their putative “crimes” (Fradkin, 2005). Along with Katrina, these events caution against making decisions on the basis of mythical beliefs and rumors.

As is the case with the panic myth, attributing the causes of looting behavior to individual motivations and impulses serves to deflect attention from the ways in which institutional failures can create insurmountable problems for disaster victims. When disasters occur, communications, disaster management, and service delivery systems should remain sufficiently robust that victims will not feel isolated and afraid or conclude that needed assistance will never arrive. More to the point, victims of disasters should not be scapegoated when institutions show themselves to be entirely incapable of providing even rudimentary forms of assistance—which was exactly what occurred with respect to Hurricane Katrina.

Patterns of Collective Mobilization in Disaster-Stricken Areas: Prosocial and Helping Behavior

In contrast to the panicky and lawless behavior that is often attributed to disaster-stricken populations, public behavior during earthquakes and other major community emergencies is overwhelmingly adaptive, prosocial, and aimed at promoting the safety of others and the restoration of ongoing community life. The predominance of prosocial behavior (and, conversely, a decline in antisocial behavior) in disaster situations is one of the most longstanding and robust research findings in the disaster literature. Research conducted with NEHRP sponsorship has provided an even better understanding of the processes involved in adaptive collective mobilization during disasters.

Helping Behavior and Disaster Volunteers. Helping behavior in disasters takes various forms, ranging from spontaneous and informal efforts to provide assistance to more organized emergent group activity, and finally to more formalized organizational arrangements. With respect to spontaneously developing and informal helping networks, disaster victims are assisted first by others in the immediate vicinity and surrounding area and only later by official public safety personnel. In a discussion on search and rescue activities following earthquakes, for example, Noji observes (1997:162)

In Southern Italy in 1980, 90 percent of the survivors of an earthquake were extricated by untrained, uninjured survivors who used their bare hands and simple tools such as shovels and axes…. Following the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, about 200,000 to 300,000 entrapped people crawled out of the debris on their own and went on to rescue others…. They became the backbone of the rescue teams, and it was to their credit that more than 80 percent of those buried under the debris were rescued.

Thus, lifesaving efforts in a stricken community rely heavily on the capabilities of relatively uninjured survivors, including untrained volunteers, as well as those of local firefighters and other relevant personnel.

The spontaneous provision of assistance is facilitated by the fact that when crises occur, they take place in the context of ongoing community life and daily routines—that is, they affect not isolated individuals but rather people who are embedded in networks of social relationships. When a massive gasoline explosion destroyed a neighborhood in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1992, for example, survivors searched for and rescued their loved ones and neighbors. Indeed, they were best suited to do so, because they were the ones who knew who lived in different households and where those individuals probably were at the time of the disaster (Aguirre et al., 1995). Similarly, crowds and gatherings of all types are typically comprised of smaller groupings—couples, families, groups of friends—that become a source of support and aid when emergencies occur.

As the emergency period following a disaster lengthens, unofficial helping behavior begins to take on a more structured form with the development of emergent groups—newly formed entities that become involved in crisis-related activities (Stallings and Quarantelli, 1985; Saunders and Kreps, 1987). Emergent groups perform many different types of activities in disasters, from sandbagging to prevent flooding, to searching for and rescuing victims and providing for other basic needs, to post-disaster cleanup and the informal provision of recovery assistance to victims. Such groupings form both because of the strength of altruistic norms that develop during disasters and because of emerging collective definitions that victims’ needs are not being met—whether official agencies share those views or not. While emergent groups are in many ways essential for the effectiveness of crisis response activities, their activities may be seen as unnecessary or even disruptive by formal crisis response agencies. In the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center, for example, numerous groups emerged to offer every conceivable type of assistance to victims and emergency responders. Some were incorporated into official crisis management activities, while others were labeled “rogue volunteers” by official agencies (Halford and Nolan, 2002; Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2002). 2

Disaster-related volunteering also takes place within more formalized organizational structures, both in existing organizations that mobilize in response to disasters and through organizations such as the Red Cross,

which has a federal mandate to respond in presidentially declared disasters and relies primarily on volunteers in its provision of disaster services. Some forms of volunteering have been institutionalized in the United States through the development of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) organization. NVOAD, a large federation of religious, public service, and other groups, has organizational affiliates in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories. National-level NVOAD affiliates include organizations such as the Salvation Army, Church World Service, Church of the Brethren Disaster Response, and dozens of others that provide disaster services. Organizations such as the Red Cross and the NVOAD federation thus provide an infrastructure that can support very extensive volunteer mobilization. That infrastructure will likely form the basis for organized volunteering in future homeland security emergencies, just as it does in major disasters.

Helping behavior is very widespread after disasters, particularly large and damaging ones. For example, NEHRP-sponsored research indicates that in the three weeks following the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, an estimated 1.7 to 2.1 million residents of that city were involved in providing volunteer aid. Activities in which volunteers engaged after that disaster included searching for and rescuing victims trapped under rubble, donating blood and supplies, inspecting building damage, collecting funds, providing medical care and psychological counseling, and providing food and shelter to victims (Wenger and James, 1994). In other research on post-earthquake volunteering, also funded by NEHRP, O’Brien and Mileti (1992) found that more than half of the population in San Francisco and Santa Cruz counties provided assistance to their fellow victims after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake—help that ranged from assisting with search and rescue and debris removal activities to offering food, water, and shelter to those in need. Thus, the volunteer sector responding to disasters typically constitutes a very large proportion of the population of affected regions, as well as volunteers converging from other locations.

Social science research, much of it conducted under NEHRP auspices, highlights a number of other points regarding post-disaster helping behavior. One such insight is that helping behavior in many ways mirrors roles and responsibilities people assume during nondisaster times. For example, when people provide assistance during disasters and other emergencies, their involvement is typically consistent with gender role expectations (Wenger and James, 1994; Feinberg and Johnson, 2001). Research also indicates that mass convergence of volunteers and donations can create significant management problems and undue burdens on disaster-stricken communities. In their eagerness to provide assistance, people may “overrespond” to disaster sites, creating congestion and putting themselves and others at risk or insisting on providing resources that are in fact not needed. After disas-

ters, communities typically experience major difficulties in dealing with unwanted and unneeded donations (Neal, 1990).

Research on public behavior during disasters has major implications for homeland security policies and practices. The research literature provides support for the inclusion of the voluntary sector and community-based organizations in preparedness and response efforts. Initiatives that aim at encouraging public involvement in homeland security efforts of all types are clearly needed. The literature also provides extensive evidence that members of the public are in fact the true “first responders” in major disasters. In using that term to refer to fire, police, and other public safety organizations, current homeland security discourse fails to recognize that community residents themselves constitute the front-line responders in any major emergency

One implication of this line of research is that planning and management models that fail to recognize the role of victims and volunteers in responding to all types of extreme events will leave responders unprepared for what will actually occur during disasters—for example, that, as research consistently shows, community residents will be the first to search for victims, provide emergency aid, and transport victims to health care facilities in emergencies of all types. 3 Such plans will also fail to take advantage of the public’s crucial skills, resources, and expertise. For this reason, experts on human-induced threats such as bioterrorism stress the value of public engagement and involvement in planning for homeland security emergencies (Working Group on “Governance Dilemmas” in Bioterrorism Response, 2004).

These research findings have significant policy implications. To date, Department of Homeland Security initiatives have focused almost exclusively on providing equipment and training for uniformed responders, as opposed to community residents. Recently, however, DHS has begun placing more emphasis on its Citizen Corps component, which is designed to mobilize the skills and talents of the public when disasters strike. Public involvement in Citizen Corps and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) activities have expanded considerably since the terrorist attacks of

9/11—a sign that many community residents around the nation wish to play an active role in responding to future disasters. The need for community-based preparedness and response initiatives is more evident than ever follow-ing the Katrina disaster.

Organizational, Governmental, and Network Responses. The importance of observing disaster response operations while they are ongoing or as soon as possible after disaster impact has long been a hallmark of the disaster research field. The quick-response tradition in disaster research, which has been a part of the field since its inception, developed out of a recognition that data on disaster response activities are perishable and that information collected from organizations after the passage of time is likely to be distorted and incomplete (Quarantelli, 1987, 2002). NEHRP funds, provided through grant supplements, Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) awards, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) reconnaissance missions, earthquake center reconnaissance funding, and small grants such as those provided by the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, have supported the collection of perishable data and enabled social science researchers to mobilize rapidly following major earthquakes and other disasters.

NEHRP provided substantial support for the collection of data on organizational and community responses in a number of earthquake events, including the 1987 Whittier Narrows, 1989 Loma Prieta, and 1994 Northridge earthquakes (see, for example, Tierney, 1988, 1994; EERI, 1995), as well as major earthquakes outside the United States such as the 1985 Mexico City, 1986 San Salvador, and 1988 Armenia events. More recently, NEHRP funds were used to support rapid-response research on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many of those studies focused on organizational issues in both the public and private sectors. (For a compilation of NEHRP-sponsored quick-response findings on the events of September 11, see Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, 2003).

In many cases, quick-response research on disaster impacts and organizational and governmental response has led to subsequent in-depth studies on response-related issues identified during the post-impact reconnaissance phase. Following major events such as Loma Prieta, Northridge, and Kobe, insights from initial reconnaissance studies have formed the basis for broader research initiatives. Recent efforts have focused on ways to better take advantage of reconnaissance opportunities and to identify topics for longer-term study. A new plan has been developed to better coordinate and integrate both reconnaissance and longer-term research activities carried out with NEHRP support. That planning activity, outlined in the report The Plan to Coordinate NEHRP Post-earthquake Investigations (Holzer et

al., 2003), encompasses both reconnaissance and more systematic research activities in the earth sciences, engineering, and social sciences.

Through both initial quick-response activities and longer-term studies, NEHRP research has added to the knowledge base on how organizations cope with crises. Studies have focused on a variety of topics. A partial list of those topics includes organizational and group activities associated with the post-disaster search and rescue process (Aguirre et al., 1995); intergovernmental coordination during the response period following major disaster events (Nigg, 1998); expected and improvised organizational forms that characterize the disaster response milieu (Kreps, 1985, 1989b); strategies used by local government organizations to enhance interorganizational coordination following disasters (Drabek, 2003); and response activities undertaken by specific types of organizations, such as those in the volunteer and nonprofit sector (Neal, 1990) and tourism-oriented enterprises (Drabek, 1994).

Focusing specifically at the interorganizational level of analysis, NEHRP research has also highlighted the significance and mix of planned and improvised networks in disaster response. It has long been recognized that post-disaster response activities involve the formation of new (or emergent) networks of organizations. Indeed, one distinguishing feature of major crisis events is the prominence and proliferation of network forms of organization during the response period. Emergent multiorganizational networks (EMON) constitute new organizational interrelationships that reflect collective efforts to manage crisis events. Such networks are typically heterogeneous, consisting of existing organizations with pre-designated crisis management responsibilities, other organizations that may not have been included in prior planning but become involved in crisis response activities because those involved believe they have some contribution to make, and emergent groups. EMONs tend to be very large in major disaster events, encompassing hundreds and even thousands of interacting entities. As crisis conditions change and additional resources converge, EMON structures evolve, new organizations join the network, and new relationships form. What is often incorrectly described as disaster-generated “chaos” is more accurately seen as the understandable confusion that results when mobilization takes place on such a massive scale and when organizations and groups that may be unfamiliar with one another attempt to communicate, negotiate, and coordinate their activities under extreme pressure. (For more detailed discussions on EMONs in disasters, including the 2001 World Trade Center attack, see Drabek, 1985, 2003; Tierney, 2003; Tierney and Trainor, 2004.)

This is not to say that response activities always go smoothly. The disaster literature, organizational after-action reports, and official investigations contain numerous examples of problems that develop as inter-

organizational and intergovernmental networks attempt to address disaster-related challenges. Such problems include the following: failure to recognize the magnitude and seriousness of an event; delayed and insufficient responses; confusion regarding authorities and responsibilities, often resulting in major “turf battles;” resource shortages and misdirection of existing resources; poor organizational, interorganizational, and public communications; failures in intergovernmental coordination; failures in leadership and vision; inequities in the provision of disaster assistance; and organizational practices and cultures that permit and even encourage risky behavior. Hurricane Katrina became a national scandal because of the sheer scale on which these organizational pathologies manifested. However, Katrina was by no means atypical. In one form or another and at varying levels of severity, such pathologies are ever-present in the landscape of disaster response (for examples, see U.S. President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, 1979; Perrow, 1984; Shrivastava, 1987; Sagan, 1993; National Academy of Public Administration, 1993; Vaughan, 1996, 1999; Peacock et al., 1997; Klinenberg, 2002; Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparations for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, 2006; White House, 2006).

Management Considerations in Disaster Response

U.S. disaster researchers have identified two contrasting approaches to disaster response management, commonly termed the “command-and-control” and the “emergent human resources,” or “problem-solving,” models. The command-and-control model equates preparedness and response activities with military exercises. It assumes that (1) government agencies and other responders must be prepared to take over management and control in disaster situations, both because they are uniquely qualified to do so and because members of the public will be overwhelmed and will likely engage in various types of problematic behavior, such as panic; (2) disaster response activities are best carried out through centralized direction, control, and decision making; and (3) for response activities to be effective, a single person is ideally in charge, and relations among responding entities are arranged hierarchically.

In contrast, the emergent human resources, or problem-solving, model is based on the assumption that communities and societies are resilient and resourceful and that even in areas that are very hard hit by disasters, considerable local response capacity is likely to remain. Another underlying assumption is that preparedness strategies should build on existing community institutions and support systems—for example by pre-identifying existing groups, organizations, and institutions that are capable of assuming leadership when a disaster strikes. Again, this approach argues against

highly specialized approaches that tend to result in “stovepiped” rather than well-integrated preparedness and response efforts. The model also recognizes that when a disaster occurs, responding entities must be flexible if they are to be effective and that flexibility is best achieved through a decentralized response structure that seeks to solve problems as they arise, as opposed to top-down decision making. (For more extensive discussions of these two models and their implications, see Dynes, 1993, 1994; Kreps and Bosworth, forthcoming.)

Empirical research, much of which has been carried out with NEHRP support, finds essentially no support for the command-and-control model either as a heuristic device for conceptualizing the disaster management process or as a strategy employed in actual disasters. Instead, as suggested in the discussion above on EMONs, disaster response activities in the United States correspond much more closely to the emergent resources or problem-solving model. More specifically, such responses are characterized by decentralized, rather than centralized, decision making; by collaborative relationships among organizations and levels of government, rather than hierarchical ones; and, perhaps most important, by considerable emergence—that is, the often rapid appearance of novel and unplanned-for activities, roles, groups, and relationships. Other hallmarks of disaster responses include their fluidity and hence the fast pace at which decisions must be made; the predominance of the EMON as the organizational form most involved in carrying out response activities; the wide array of improvisational strategies that are employed to deal with problems as they manifest themselves; and the importance of local knowledge and situation-specific information in gauging appropriate response strategies. (For empirical research supporting these points, see Drabek et al., 1982; Stallings and Quarantelli, 1985; Kreps, 1985, 1989b; Bosworth and Kreps, 1986; Kreps and Bosworth, 1993; Aguirre et al., 1995; Drabek and McEntire, 2002; Waugh and Sylves, 2002; Webb, 2002; Drabek, 2003; Tierney, 2003; Tierney and Trainor, 2004; Wachtendorf, 2004.)

NEW WAYS OF FRAMING DISASTER MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES: DEALING WITH COMPLEXITY AND ACCOMMODATING EMERGENCE

Advancements brought about through NEHRP research include new frameworks for conceptualizing responses to extreme events. In Shared Risk: Complex Systems in Seismic Response , a NEHRP-supported comparative study of organized responses to 11 different earthquake events, Comfort argues that the major challenge facing response systems is to use information in ways that enhance organizational and interorganizational learning and develop ways of “integrating both technical and organiza-

tional components in a socio-technical system to support timely, informed collective action” (Comfort, 1999:14). Accordingly, effective responses depend on the ability of organizations to simultaneously sustain structure and allow for flexibility in the face of rapidly changing disaster conditions and unexpected demands. Response networks must also be able to accommodate processes of self-organization —that is, organized action by volunteers and emergent groups. This approach again contrasts with command-and-control notions of how major crises are managed (Comfort, 1999:263-264):

A socio-technical approach requires a shift in the conception of response systems as reactive, command-and-control driven systems to one of inquiring systems , activated by processes of inquiry, validation, and creative self-organization…. Combining technical with organizational systems appropriately enables communities to face complex events more effectively by monitoring changing conditions and adapting its performance accordingly, increasing the efficiency of its use of limited resources. It links human capacity to learn with the technical means to support that capacity in complex, dynamic environments [emphasis added].

Similarly, research stressing the importance of EMONs as the predominant organizational form during crisis response periods points to the importance of improving strategies for network management and of developing better methods to take advantage of emergent structures and activities during disasters. Planning and management approaches must, in other words, support rather than interfere with the open and dynamic qualities of disaster response activities. Indicators of improved capacity to manage emergent networks could include the diversity of organizations and community sectors involved in pre-crisis planning; plans and agreements facilitating the incorporation of the voluntary sector and emergent citizen groups into response activities; plans and tools enabling the rapid expansion of crisis communication and information-sharing networks during disasters to include new organizations; and protocols, such as mutual aid agreements, making it possible for new actors to more easily join response networks (Tierney and Trainor, 2004).

In the wake of the Katrina disaster, the need for disaster management by command-and-control-oriented entities has once again achieved prominence. For example, calls have increased for greater involvement on the part of the military in domestic disaster management. Such recommendations are not new. Giving a larger role in disaster management to the military was an idea that was considered—and rejected—following Hurricane Andrew (National Academy of Public Administration, 1993). Post-Katrina debates on needed policy and programmatic changes will likely continue to focus on how to most effectively deploy military assets while ensuring that disaster management remains the responsibility of civilian institutions.

Additional Considerations: Do Responses to Natural, Technological, and Human-Induced Events Differ?

One issue that has come to the fore with the emergence of terrorism as a major threat involves the extent to which findings from the field of disaster research can predict responses to human-induced extreme events. Although some take the position that terrorism and bioterrorism constitute such unique threats that behavioral and organizational responses in such events will differ from what has been documented for other types of extreme events, others contend that this assumption is not borne out by social science disaster research.

The preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that there is more similarity than difference in response behaviors across different types of disaster agents. Regarding the potential for panic, for example, there is no empirical evidence that panic was a problem during the influenza pandemic of 1918, among populations under attack during World War II (Janis, 1951), in catastrophic structure fires and crowd crushes (Johnson, 1987; Johnson et al., 1994; Feinberg and Johnson, 2001), or in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Medvedev, 1990). Nor was panic a factor in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (Aguirre et al., 1998), the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack (Murakami, 2000), or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (NIST, 2005; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004). The failure to find significant evidence of panic across a wide range of crisis events is a testimony to the resilience of social relationships and normative practices, even under conditions of extreme peril.

Similarly, as noted earlier, research findings on challenges related to risk communication and warning the public of impending extreme events are also quite consistent across different types of disaster events. For individuals and groups, there are invariably challenges associated with understanding what self-protective actions are required for different types of emergencies, regardless of their origin.

In all types of disasters, organizations must likewise face a common set of challenges associated with situation assessment, the management of primary and secondary impacts, communicating with one another and with the public, and dealing with response-related demands. The need for more effective communication, coordination, planning, and training transcends hazard type. Although recent government initiatives such as the National Response Plan will result in the incorporation of new organizational actors into response systems for extreme events, most of the same local-, state-, and federal-level organizations will still be involved in managing extreme events of all types, employing common management frameworks such as

the Incident Command System and now the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

Social scientific studies on disasters have long shown that general features of extreme events, such as geographic scope and scale, impact severity, and speed of onset, combined with the overall quality of pre-disaster preparedness, have a greater influence on response patterns than do the specific hazard agents that trigger response activities. Regardless of their origins, very large, near-catastrophic, and catastrophic events all place high levels of stress on response systems.

In sum, social science disaster research finds little justification for the notion that individual, group, and community responses to human-induced extreme events, including those triggered by weapons of mass terror, will differ in important ways from those that have been documented in natural and technological disasters. Instead, research highlights the importance of a variety of general factors that affect the quality and effectiveness of responses to disasters, irrespective of the hazard in question. With respect to warning the public and encouraging self-protective action, for example, warning systems must be well designed and warning messages must meet certain criteria for effectiveness, regardless of what type of warning is issued. Members of the public must receive, understand, and personalize warning information; must understand what actions they need to take in order to protect themselves; and must be able to carry out those actions, again regardless of the peril in question. Community residents must feel that they can trust their leaders and community institutions during crises of all types. For organizations, training and exercises and effective mechanisms for interorganizational communication and coordination are critical for community-wide emergencies of all types. When such criteria are not met, response-related problems can be expected regardless of whether the emergency stems from a naturally occurring event, a technological accident, or an intentional act.

Individual and group responses, as well as organizational response challenges, are thus likely to be consistent across different types of crises. At the same time, however, it is clear that there are significant variations in the behavior of responding institutions (as opposed to individuals, groups, and first responders) according to event type. In most technological disasters, along with the need to help those affected, questions of negligence and liability typically come to the fore, and efforts are made to assign blame and make responsible parties accountable. In terrorist events, damaged areas are always treated as crime scenes, and the response involves intense efforts both to care for victims and to identify and capture the perpetrators. Further, although as noted earlier, scapegoating can occur in disasters of all types, the tendency for both institutions and the public to assign blame to

particular groups may be greater in technological and terrorism-related crises than in natural disasters. 4

Finally, with respect to responses on the part of the public, even though evidence to the contrary is strong, the idea that some future homeland security emergencies could engender responses different from those observed in past natural, technological, and intentional disasters cannot be ruled out entirely. The concluding section of this chapter highlights the need for further research in this area.

Research on Disaster Recovery

Like hazards and disaster research generally, NERHRP-sponsored research has tended to focus much more on preparedness and response than on either mitigation or disaster recovery. This is especially the case with respect to long-term recovery, a topic that despite its importance has received very little emphasis in the literature. However, even though the topic has not been well studied, NEHRP-funded projects have done a great deal to advance social science understanding of disaster recovery. As discussed later in this section, they have also led to the development of decision tools and guidance that can be used to facilitate the recovery process for affected social units.

It is not an exaggeration to say that prior to NEHRP, relatively little was known about disaster recovery processes and outcomes at different levels of analysis. Researchers had concentrated to some degree on analyzing the impacts of a few earthquakes, such as the 1964 Alaska and 1971 San Fernando events, as well as earthquakes and other major disasters outside the United States. Generally speaking, however, research on recovery was quite sparse. Equally important, earlier research oversimplified the recovery process in a variety of ways. First, there was a tendency to equate recovery, which is a social process, with reconstruction, which involves restoration and replacement of the built environment. Second, there was an assumption that disasters and their impacts proceed in a temporal, stage-like fashion, with “recovery” following once “response” activities have

been concluded. 5 Earlier research also underemphasized the extent to which recovery may be experienced differently by different sectors and subpopulations within society. Some of these problems were related to the fact that at a more abstract level, earlier work had not sufficiently explored the concept of recovery itself—for example, whether recovery should be equated with a return to pre-disaster circumstances and social and economic activities, with the creation of a “new normal” that involves some degree of social transformation, or with improvements in community sustainability and long-term disaster loss reduction. Since the inception of NEHRP and in large measure because of NEHRP sponsorship, research has moved in the direction of a more nuanced understanding of recovery processes and outcomes that has not entirely resolved but at least acknowledges many of these issues.

The sections that follow discuss significant contributions to knowledge and practice that have resulted primarily from NEHRP-sponsored work. Those contributions can be seen (somewhat arbitrarily) as falling into four categories: (1) refinements in definitions and conceptions of disaster recovery, along with a critique and reformulation of stage-like models; (2) contributions to the literature on recovery processes and outcomes across different social units; (3) the development of empirically based models to estimate losses, anticipate recovery challenges, and guide decision making; and (4) efforts to link disaster recovery with broader ideas concerning long-term sustainability and environmental management.

Conceptual Clarification. Owing in large measure to NEHRP-sponsored efforts, the disaster field has moved beyond equating recovery with reconstruction or the restoration of the built environment. More usefully, research has moved in the direction of making analytic distinctions among different types of disaster impacts, recovery activities undertaken by and affecting different social units , and recovery outcomes. Although disaster impacts can be positive or negative, research generally tends to focus on various negative impacts occurring at different levels of analysis. As outlined in Chapter 3 , these impacts include effects on the physical and built environment, including residential, commercial, and infrastructure damage as well as disaster-induced damage to the environment; other property losses; deaths and injuries; impacts on social and economic activity; effects at the community level, such as impacts on community cohesiveness and urban

form; and psychological, psychosocial, and political impacts. Such impacts can vary in severity and duration, as well as in the extent to which they are addressed effectively during the recovery process. An emphasis on recovery as a multidimensional concept calls attention to the fact that physical and social impacts, recovery trajectories, and short- and longer-term outcomes in chronological and social time can vary considerably across social units.

Recovery activities constitute measures that are intended to remedy negative disaster impacts, restore social units as much as possible to their pre-disaster levels of functioning, enhance resilience, and ideally, realize other objectives such as the mitigation of future disaster losses and improvements in the built environment, quality of life, and long-term sustainability. 6 Recovery activities include the provision of temporary and replacement housing; the provision of resources (government aid, insurance payment, private donations) to assist households and businesses with replacement of lost goods and with reconstruction; the provision of various forms of aid and assistance to affected government units; the development and implementation of reconstruction and recovery plans in the aftermath of disasters; coping mechanisms developed by households, businesses, and other affected social units; the provision of mental health and other human services to victims; and other activities designed to overcome negative disaster impacts. In some circumstances, recovery activities can also include the adoption of new policies, legislation, and practices designed to reduce the impacts of future disasters.

Recovery processes are significantly influenced by differential societal and group vulnerability; by variations in the range of recovery aid and support that is available; and by the quality and effectiveness of the help that is provided. The available “mix” of recovery activities and post-disaster coping strategies varies across groups, societies, and different types of disasters. For example, insurance is an important component in the reconstruction and recovery process for some societies, some groups within society, and some types of disasters, but not for others.

Recovery outcomes —or the extent to which the recovery activities are judged, either objectively or subjectively, as “complete” or “successful”—also show wide variation across societies, communities, social units, and disaster events. Outcomes can be assessed in both the short and the longer terms, although, as noted earlier, the literature is weak with respect to empirical studies on the outcomes of longer-term disasters. Additionally,

outcomes consist not only of the intended effects of recovery programs and activities, but also of their unintended consequences. For example, the provision of government assistance or insurance payments to homeowners may make it possible for them to rebuild and continue to live in hazardous areas, even though such an outcome was never intended.

Keeping in mind the multidimensional nature of recovery, post-disaster outcomes can be judged as satisfactory along some dimensions, or at particular points in time, but unsatisfactory along others. Outcomes are perceived and experienced differently, when such factors as level of analysis and specific recovery activities of interest are taken into account. With respect to units of aggregation, for example, while a given disaster may have few discernible long-term effects when analyzed at the community level, the same disaster may well be economically, socially, and psychologically catastrophic for hard-hit households and businesses. A community may be considered “recovered” on the basis of objective social or economic indicators, while constituent social units may not be faring as well, in either objective or subjective terms. The degree to which recovery has taken place is thus very much a matter of perspective and social position.

In a related vein, research has also led to a reconsideration of linear conceptions of the recovery process. Past research tended to see disaster events as progressing from the pre-impact period through post-impact emergency response, and later recovery. In a classic work in this genre— Reconstruction Following Disaster (Haas et al., 1977:xxvi), for example—the authors argued that disaster recovery is “ordered, knowable, and predictable.” Recovery was characterized as consisting of four sequential stages that may overlap to some degree: the emergency period; the restoration period; the replacement reconstruction period; and the commemorative, betterment, and developmental reconstruction period. In this and other studies, the beginning of the recovery phase was generally demarcated by the cessation of immediate life saving and emergency care measures, the resumption of activities of daily life (e.g., opening of schools), and the initiation of rebuilding plans and activities. After a period of time, early recovery activities, such as the provision of temporary housing, would give way to longer-term measures that were meant to be permanent. Kates and Pijawka’s (1977) frequently cited four-phase model begins with the emergency period, lasting for a few days up to a few weeks, and encompassing the period when the emergency operations plan (EOP) is put into operation. Next comes the restoration period—when repairs to utilities are made; debris is removed; evacuees return; and commercial, industrial, and residential structures are repaired. The third phase, the reconstruction replacement period, involves rebuilding capital stocks and getting the economy back to pre-disaster levels. This period can take some years. Finally, there is the development phase, when commemorative structures are built, memo-

rial dates are institutionalized in social time, and attempts are made to improve the community.

In another stage-like model focusing on the community level, Alexander (1993) identified three stages in the process of disaster recovery. First, the rehabilitation stage involves the continuing care of victims and frequently is accompanied by the reemergence of preexisting problems at the household or community level. During the temporary reconstruction stage, prefabricated housing or other temporary structures go up, and temporary bracing may be installed for buildings and bridges. Finally, the permanent reconstruction stage was seen as requiring good administration and management to achieve full community recovery.

Later work sees delineations among disaster phases as much less clear, showing, for example, that decisions and actions that affect recovery may be undertaken as early as the first days or even hours after the disaster’s impact—and, importantly, even before a disaster occurs. The idea that recovery proceeds in an orderly, stage-like, and unitary manner has been replaced by a view that recognizes that the path to recovery is often quite uneven. While the concept of disaster phases may be a useful heuristic device for researchers and practitioners, the concept may also mask both how phases overlap and how recovery proceeds differently for different social groups (Neal, 1997). Recovery does not occur at the same pace for all who are affected by disasters or for all types of impacts. With respect to housing, for example, owing to differences in the availability of services and financing as well as other factors, some groups within a disaster-stricken population may remain in “temporary housing” for a very long time—so long, in fact, that those housing arrangements become permanent—while others may move rapidly into replacement housing (Bolin, 1993a). Put another way, as indicated in Chapters 1 and 3 , while stage-like approaches to disasters are framed in terms of chronological time, for those who experience them, disasters unfold in social time.

Researchers studying recovery continue to contend with a legacy of conceptual and measurement difficulties. One such difficulty centers on the question of how the dependent variable should be measured. This problem itself is multifaceted. Should recovery be defined as a return to pre-disaster levels of psychological, social, and economic well-being? As a return to where a community, business, or household would have been were it not for the occurrence of the disaster? The study of disaster recovery also tends to overlap with research on broader processes of social change. Thus, in addition to focusing on what was lost or affected as a consequence of disaster events and on outcomes relative to those impacts, recovery research also focuses on more general post-disaster issues, such as the extent to which disasters influence and interact with ongoing processes of social change, whether disaster impacts can be distinguished from those resulting

from broader social and economic trends, whether disasters simply magnify and accelerate those trends or exert an independent influence, and the extent to which the post-disaster recovery period represents continuity or discontinuity with the past. Seen in this light, the study of recovery can become indistinguishable from the study of longer-term social change affecting communities and societies. While these distinctions are often blurred, it is nevertheless important to differentiate conceptually and empirically between the recovery process, specific recovery outcomes of interest, and the wide range of other changes that might take place following (or as a consequence of) disasters.

Analyzing Impacts and Recovery Across Different Social Units. Following from the discussions above, it is useful to keep in mind several points about research on disaster recovery. First, studies differ in the extent to which they emphasize the objective, physical aspects of recovery—restoration and reconstruction of the built environment—or subjective, psychosocial, and experiential ones. Second, studies generally focus on particular units of analysis and outcomes, such as household, business, economic, or community recovery, rather than on how these different aspects of recovery are interrelated. This is due partly to the fact that researchers tend to specialize in particular types of disaster impacts and aspects of recovery, which has both advantages and disadvantages. While allowing for the development of in-depth research expertise, such specialization has also made it more difficult to formulate more general theories of recovery. Third, the literature is quite uneven. Some aspects of recovery are well understood, while there are others about which very little is known.

Even with these limitations, more general theoretical insights about recovery processes and outcomes have begun to emerge. Key among these is the idea that disaster impacts and recovery can be conceptualized in terms of vulnerability and resilience . As noted in Chapters 2 and 3 , vulnerability is a consequence not only of physical location and the “hazardousness of place,” but also of social location and of societal processes that advantage some groups and individuals while marginalizing others. The notion of vulnerability applies both to the likelihood of experiencing negative impacts from disasters, such as being killed or injured or losing one’s home or job, and to the likelihood of experiencing recovery-related difficulties, such as problems with access to services and other forms of support. Social vulnerability is linked to broader trends within society, such as demographic trends (migration to more hazardous areas, the aging of the U.S. population) and population diversity (race, class, income, and linguistic diversity). Similarly, resilience , or the ability to survive and cope with disaster impacts and rebound after those events, is also determined in large measure by social factors. According to Rose (2004), resilience can be conceptualized

as both inherent and adaptive, where the former term refers to resilience that is based on resources and options for action that are typically available during nondisaster times, and the latter refers to the ability to mobilize resources and create new options following disasters. 7 As discussed in Chapter 6 , resilience stems in part from factors commonly associated with the concept of social capital, such as the extensiveness of social networks, civic engagement, and interpersonal, interorganizational, and institutional trust. (For an influential formulation setting out the vulnerability perspective, see Blaikie et al., 1994). As subsequent discussions show, the concepts of vulnerability and resilience are applicable to individuals, households, groups, organizations, economies, and entire societies affected by disasters. The sections that follow, which are organized according to unit of analysis, discuss psychosocial impacts and recovery; impacts and recovery processes for housing and businesses; economic recovery; and community-level and societal recovery.

Psychological Impacts and Recovery. There is no disagreement among researchers that disasters cause genuine pain and suffering and that they can be deeply distressing for those who experience them. Apart from that consensus, however, there have been many debates and disputes regarding the psychological and psychosocial impacts of disasters. One such debate centers on the extent to which disasters produce clinically significant symptoms of psychological distress and, if so, how long such symptoms last. Researchers have also struggled with the questions of etiology, or the causes of disaster-related psychological reactions. Are such problems the direct result of trauma experienced during disaster, the result of disaster-induced stresses, a reflection of a lack of coping capacity or weak social support networks, a function of preexisting vulnerabilities, or a combination of all these factors? Related concerns center on what constitute appropriate forms of intervention and service delivery strategies for disaster-related psychological problems. Do people who experience problems generally recover on their own, without the need for formally provided assistance, or does such assistance facilitate more rapid and complete recovery? What types of assistance are likely to be most efficacious and for what types of problems?

Research has yielded a wide array of findings on questions involving disaster-related psychological and psychosocial impacts and recovery. Findings tend to differ depending upon disaster type and severity, how disaster victimization is defined and measured, how mental health outcomes are measured, the research methodologies and strategies used (e.g., sampling,

timing, variables of interest), and not inconsequentially, the discipline-based theoretical perspectives employed (Tierney, 2000). With respect to the controversial topic of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example, well-designed epidemiological studies have estimated the lifetime prevalence of PTSD at around 5.4 percent in the U.S. population. An important epidemiologic study on the incidence of trauma and the subsequent risk of developing PTSD after various types of traumatic events estimates the risk at about 3.8 percent for natural disasters (Breslau et al., 1998; Kessler and Zhao, 1999). NEHRP-sponsored surveys following recent earthquakes in California found PTSD to be extremely rare among affected populations and not significantly associated with earthquake impacts (Seigel et al., 2000). Other studies show immense variation, with estimates of post-disaster PTSD ranging from very low to greater than 50 percent. Such variations could reflect real differences in the traumatic effects of different events, but it is equally likely that they are the result of methodological, measurement, and theoretical differences among investigators.

One key debate centers on the clinical significance of post-disaster emotional and mental health problems. Research is clear on the point that it is not unusual for disaster victims to experience a series of problems, such as headaches, problems with sleeping and eating, and heightened levels of concern and anxiety, that can vary in severity and duration (Rubonis and Bickman, 1991; Freedy et al., 1994). Perspectives begin to diverge, however, on the extent to which these and other disaster-induced symptoms constitute mental health problems in the clinical sense. In other words, would disaster victims, presenting their symptoms, be considered candidates for mental health counseling or medication if those symptoms were present in a nondisaster context? Do their symptoms correspond to survey based or clinically based measures of what constitutes a “case” for psychiatric diagnostic purposes? Again, as with PTSD, findings differ. While noting that many studies do document a rise in psychological distress following disasters, Shoaf et al. (2004:320) conclude that “those impacts are not of a nature that would significantly increase the rates of diagnosable mental illness.” With respect to severe psychological impacts, these researchers found that suicide rates declined in Los Angeles County following the Northridge earthquake—a continuation of a trend that had already begun before that event. They also note that these findings are consistent with research on suicide following the Kobe earthquake, which showed that the suicide rate in the year following that quake was less than the average rate for the previous 10 years (Shoaf et al., 2004). Yet many researchers and practitioners rightly contend that psychosocial interventions are necessary following disasters, both to address clinically significant symptoms and to prevent more serious psychological sequelae.

There is also the question of whether some types of disasters are more

likely than others to cause negative psychological impacts. Some researchers argue that certain types of technological hazards, such as nuclear threats and chronic exposures to toxic substances, are more pernicious in their effects than natural disasters because they persist longer and create more anxiety among potential victims, and especially because they tend to result in community conflict, causing “corrosive” rather than “therapeutic” communities to develop (Erikson, 1994). Events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine school shootings, and the events of September 11, 2001 lead to questions about whether intentional attacks engender psychological reactions that are distinctive and different from those that follow other types of community crisis events. Some studies have suggested that the psychological impacts of terrorist attacks are profound, at least in the short term (North et al., 1999). Other research, focusing specifically on the short-term impacts of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, indicates that the psychological impacts resulting from the events of 9/11 “are consistent with prior estimates of the impact of natural disasters and other terrorist events” (Miller and Heldring, 2004:21). Again, drawing conclusions about the relative influence of agent characteristics—as opposed to other factors—is difficult because studies vary so much in their timing, research designs, methodological approaches, and procedures for defining disaster victimization.

Another set of issues concerns factors associated with risk for poor psychological outcomes. Perilla et al. (2002) suggest that such outcomes can vary as a consequence of both differential exposure and differential vulnerability to extreme events. With respect to differential exposure, factors such as ethnicity and social class can be associated with living in substandard and vulnerable housing, subsequently exposing minorities and poor people to greater losses and disaster-related trauma. Regarding differential vulnerability, minorities and the poor, who are more vulnerable to psychosocial stress during nondisaster times, may also have fewer coping resources upon which to draw following disasters.

In a comprehensive and rigorous review of research on the psychological sequelae of disasters, Fran H. Norris and her colleagues (Norris et al., 2002a,b) carried out a meta-analysis of 20 years of research, based on 160 samples containing more than 60,000 individuals who had experienced 102 different disaster events. These data sets included a range of different types of surveys on both U.S. disaster victims and individuals in other countries, on various subpopulations, and on disasters that differed widely in type and severity. Impacts documented in these studies included symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety; other forms of nonspecific distress not easily related to specific syndromes such as PTSD; health problems and somatic complaints; problems in living, including secondary stressors such as work-related and financial problems; and “psychosocial resource

loss,” a term that refers to negative effects on coping capacity, self-esteem, feelings of self-efficacy, and other attributes that buffer the effects of stress. According to their interpretation, which was based on accepted methods for rating indicators of psychological distress, the symptoms reported by as many as 39 percent of those studied reached clinically significant levels. However—and this is an important caveat—they found negative psychological effects to be much more prevalent in disasters occurring outside the United States. Generally, symptoms were most severe in the year following disaster events and declined over time.

Norris et al. (2002a, 2002b) classified U.S. disasters as low, moderate, and high in their psychosocial impacts, based on empirical data on post-disaster distress. The Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes were seen as having relatively few adverse impacts, and Hurricane Hugo and Three Mile Island were classified as moderate in their effects. Hurricane Andrew, the Exxon oil spill, and the Oklahoma City bombing were classified as severe with respect to their psychological impacts. As these examples suggest, the researchers found no evidence that natural, technological, and human-induced disasters necessarily differ in their effects.

This research review uncovered a number of vulnerability and protective factors that were associated with differential psychological outcomes following disasters. Broadly categorized, those risk factors most consistently shown to be negatively associated with post-disaster psychological well-being include severity of disaster exposure at both the individual and the community levels; being female; being a member of an ethnic minority; low socioeconomic status; experiencing other stressors or chronic stress; having had other mental health problems prior to the disaster; employing inappropriate coping strategies (e.g., withdrawal, avoidance); and reporting problems with both perceived and actual social support.

Overall, these findings are very consistent with perspectives in disaster research that emphasize the relationship between systemically induced vulnerability, negative disaster impacts, lower resilience, and poor recovery outcomes. Recent research situates disasters within the context of other types of stressful events (e.g., death of a loved one or other painful losses) that disproportionately affect those who are most vulnerable and least able to cope. At the same time, studies—many conducted under NEHRP auspices—show how social inequality and vulnerability both amplify the stress that results directly from disasters and complicate the recovery process over the longer term. For example, Fothergill (1996, 1998, 2004) and Enarson and Morrow (1998) have documented the ways in which gender is associated both with the likelihood of becoming a disaster victim and with a variety of subsequent post-disaster stressors. Peacock et al. (1997) and Bolin and Stanford (1998) have shown how pre-disaster conditions such as income disparities and racial and ethnic discrimination contribute both to

disaster losses and to subsequent psychosocial stress and make recovery more difficult for vulnerable groups. Perilla et al. (2002), who studied ethnic differences in post-traumatic stress following Hurricane Andrew, also note that ethnicity can be associated with variations in personality characteristics such as fatalism, which tends to be associated with poor psychosocial outcomes resulting from stressful events, as well as with additional stresses associated with acculturation. 8

Hurricane Katrina represents a critical test case for theories and research on psychosocial vulnerability and resilience. If, as Norris and her collaborators indicate, Hurricane Andrew resulted in relatively high levels of psychosocial distress, what will researchers find with respect to Katrina? For many victims, Katrina appears to contain all of the ingredients necessary to produce negative mental health outcomes: massive, catastrophic impacts; high property losses resulting in financial distress; exposure to traumas such as prolonged physical stress and contact with dead and dying victims; disruption of social networks; massive failures in service delivery systems; continual uncertainty about the future; and residential dislocation on a scale never seen in a U.S. disaster. Over time, research will result in important insights regarding the psychosocial dimensions of truly catastrophic disaster events.

Household Impacts and Recovery. Within the disaster recovery area, households and household recovery have been studied most often, with a significant proportion of that work focusing on post-earthquake recovery issues. Although this line of research predates NEHRP, many later studies have been undertaken with NEHRP support. Studies conducted prior to NEHRP include Bolin’s research on household recovery processes following the Managua earthquake and the Rapid City flood, both of which occurred in 1972 (Bolin, 1976). Drabek and Key and their collaborators had also examined disaster impacts on families and the household recover process (Drabek et al., 1975; Drabek and Key, 1976, 1984). With NEHRP support, Bolin and Bolton studied household recovery following tornadoes in Wichita Falls, Vernon, and Paris, Texas; a hurricane in Hawaii; flooding in Salt Lake City; and the Coalinga earthquake (Bolin, 1982; Bolin and Bolton, 1986). Bolin’s monograph Household and Community Recovery after

Earthquakes was based on research on the 1987 Whittier Narrows and 1989 Loma Prieta events (Bolin, 1993b). Households have also been the focus of more recent studies on the impacts of Hurricane Andrew (Peacock et al., 1997) and the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Bolin and Stanford, 1998). Other NEHRP-sponsored work has focused more specifically on issues that are important for household recovery, such as post-disaster sheltering processes (Phillips, 1993, 1998) and housing impacts and recovery (Comerio, 1997, 1998). As Bolin (1993a:13) observes

[d]isasters can have a multiplicity of effects on a household, including physical losses to property, injury and/or death, loss of job or livelihood, disruption of social and personal relations, relocation of some or all members of a family, physical disruption or transformation of community and neighborhood, and increased household indebtedness.

Accordingly, the literature has explored various dimensions of household impacts and recovery, including direct impacts such as those highlighted by Bolin; changes in the quality and cohesiveness of relationships among household members; post-disaster problems such as conflict and domestic violence; stressors that affect households during the recovery process; and coping strategies employed by households, including the use of both formal and informal sources of post-disaster support and recovery aid.

The literature also points to a number of factors that are associated with differences in short- and longer-term household recovery outcomes. Housing supply is one such factor—as indicated, for example, by housing costs, other real estate market characteristics, and rental vacancy rates Temporary housing options are affected by such factors as the proximity of friends and relatives with whom to stay, although use of this housing option is generally only a short-term strategy. Extended family members may not be able to help if they also are victims (Morrow, 1997). Such problems may be more prevalent in lower-income groups that have few alternative resources and when most members of an extended family live in the same affected community.

Availability of temporary and permanent housing generally is limited by their pre-impact supply in and near the impact area. In the U.S., in situations in which there is an insufficient supply of housing for displaced disaster victims, FEMA provides mobile homes, but even this expedient method of expanding the housing stock takes time. Even when houses are only moderately damaged, loss of housing functionality may be a problem if there is massive disruption of infrastructure. In such cases, tent cities may be necessary if undamaged housing is beyond commuting range (e.g., Homestead, Florida after Hurricane Andrew, as discussed in Peacock et al., 1997).

In the longer term, household recovery is influenced by such factors as household financial resources, the ability to obtain assistance from friends and relatives, insurance coverage, and the mix of housing assistance pro-

grams available to households. Typically, access to and adequacy of recovery resources are inversely related to socioeconomic status. Those with higher incomes are more likely to own their own homes, to be adequately insured, and to have savings and other financial resources on which to draw in order to recover—although disasters can also cause even better-off households to take on additional debt. With respect to formal sources of aid, the assistance process generally favors those who are adept at responding to bureaucratic requirements and who are able to invest time and effort to seek out sources of aid. The aid process also favors those living in more conventional, nuclear family living arrangements, as opposed to extended families or multiple households occupying the same dwelling unit (Morrow, 1997). Recovery may be particularly difficult for single-parent households, especially those headed by women (Enarson and Morrow, 1998; Fothergill, 2004).

The picture that emerges from research on household recovery is not that of a predictable and stage-like process that is common to all households, but rather of a multiplicity of recovery trajectories that are shaped not only by the physical impacts of disaster but also by axes of stratification that include income, race, and ethnicity, as well as such factors as the availability of and access to different forms of monetary aid, other types of assistance, and informal social support—which are themselves associated with stratification and diversity. Disaster severity matters, both because disasters that produce major and widespread impacts can limit recovery options for households and because they tend to be more damaging to the social fabric of the community. As Comerio’s extensive research on housing impacts and issues following earthquakes and other disasters in different societal contexts illustrates, household recovery processes are also shaped by societal-level policy and institutional factors—which themselves have differential impacts (Comerio, 1998). 9

Large-Scale Comparative Research on Household Recovery. Although there is clearly a need for such research, few studies exist that compare household recovery processes and outcomes across communities and disaster events. With NEHRP funding, Frederick Bates and his colleagues carried out what may well be the largest research efforts of this kind: a multicommunity

longitudinal study on household and community impacts and recovery after the 1976 Guatemala earthquake and a cross-national comparative study on household recovery following six different disaster events. The Guatemala study, designed as a quasi-experiment, included households in 26 communities that were carefully selected to reflect differences in the severity of earthquake impacts, size, population composition, and region of the country. That study focused on a broad spectrum of topics, including changes over time in household composition and characteristics; household economic activity; housing characteristics and standards of living; household experiences with relief and reconstruction assistance; and fertility, health, and nutrition. Never replicated for any other type of disaster, the study provided detailed information on these topics, focusing in particular on how different forms of aid provision either facilitated or hampered household recovery (for detailed discussions, see Bates, 1982; Hoover and Bates, 1985; Bates et al., 1979).

The second study carried out by Bates and his colleagues extended methods developed to assess household recovery following the Guatemala earthquake to measure household recovery in disaster-stricken communities in six different countries. The tool used to measure disaster impacts and household recovery across different events and societies, the Domestic Assets Scale, made possible systematic comparisons with respect to one dimension of household recovery—the restoration of household possessions, tools, and technologies (Bates and Peacock, 1992, 1993).

Vulnerability, Resilience, and Household Recovery. Like the other aspects of recovery discussed here, what happens to households during and after disasters can be conceptualized in terms of vulnerability and resilience. With respect to vulnerability, social location is associated with the severity of disaster impacts for households. Poverty often forces people to live in substandard or highly vulnerable housing—manufactured housing is one example—leaving them more vulnerable to death, injury, and homelessness. As discussed in Chapter 3 with respect to disaster preparedness, factors such as income, education, and homeownership influence the ability of households to mitigate and prepare for disasters. Social-structural factors also affect the extent to which families can accumulate assets in order to achieve higher levels of safety, as well as their recovery options and access to resources after disasters strike—for example the forms of recovery assistance for which they are eligible. Households are thus differentially exposed to disasters, differentially vulnerable during the recovery period, and diverse in terms of both inherent and adaptive resilience.

ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS IMPACTS AND RECOVERY: THE CHALLENGE OF ASSESSING DISASTER LOSSES

As discussed in Chapter 3 , assessing how much disasters cost the nation and its communities has proven to be a major challenge. A National Research Council (NRC, 1999c) study concluded that such calculations are difficult in part because different agencies and entities calculate costs and losses differently. Moreover, no universally accepted standards exist for calculating economic impacts resulting from disasters, and there is no single agency responsible for keeping track of disaster losses. For any given disaster event, assessments of economic impacts may vary widely depending on which statistics are used—for example, direct or insured losses versus total losses.

NEHRP-sponsored research has addressed these problems to some degree. For example, as part of the NEHRP-sponsored “Second Assessment of Research on Natural Hazards,” researchers attempted to estimates losses, costs, and other impacts from a wide array of natural and technological hazards. 10 For the 20 year period 1975–1994, they estimated that dollar losses from disasters amounted to $.5 billion per week, with climatological hazards accounting for about 80 percent of those losses; since 1989, losses have totaled $1 billion per week (Mileti, 1999a). Through work undertaken as part of the Second Assessment, data on losses from natural hazard events from the mid-1970s to 2000 are now available at the county level in geocoded form for the entire United States through the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS). This data collection and database development effort has made it possible to analyze different types of losses, at different scales, using different metrics, and to assess locations in terms of their hazard proneness and loss histories. (For discussions of the data used in the SHELDUS database and associated challenges see Cutter, 2001.) What is still lacking is a national program to continue systematically collecting and analyzing impact and loss data.

Studies on economic impacts and recovery from earthquakes and other disasters can be classified according to the units of analysis on which they focus. Most research concerns economic losses and recovery at the community or, more frequently, the regional level. A smaller set of studies has analyzed economic impacts and recovery at the firm or facility level. There is even less research documenting national-level and macroeconomic impacts.

Community-Level and Regional Studies

Studies on the economics of natural disasters at the community and regional levels of analysis differ significantly in methods, topics of interest, and conclusions. Some researchers, such as Rossi et al. (1978) and Friesema et al. (1979) have argued that at least in the United States, natural disasters have no discernible social or economic effects at the community level and that nondisaster-related trends have a far more significant influence on long-term outcomes than disasters themselves. This position has also been argued at the macroeconomic level, with respect to other developed and developing countries (Albala-Bertrand, 1993). 11 Dacy and Kunreuther (1969:168) even argued (although more than 30 years ago) that “a disaster may actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise” because disasters create reconstruction booms and allow community improvements to be made rapidly, rather than gradually. However, most research contradicts the idea that disasters constitute economic windfalls, emphasizing instead that economic gains that may be realized at one level (e.g., the community, particular economic sectors) typically constitute losses at another (e.g., the national tax base). One analyst has called the idea that disasters are beneficial economically “one of the most widely held misbeliefs in economics” (DeVoe, 1997:188).

Other researchers take the position that post-disaster economic and social conditions are generally consistent with pre-disaster trends, although disasters may amplify those changes (Bates and Peacock, 1993). Disasters may further marginalize firms and sectors of the economy that were already in decline, or they may speed up processes that were already under way prior to their occurrence. For example, Homestead Air Force Base was already slated for closure before Hurricane Andrew despite ongoing efforts to keep the base opened. When Andrew occurred, the base sustained damage and was closed for good. The closure affected businesses that had depended on the base and helped lead to the exodus of many middle-class families from the area, which in turn affected tax revenues in the impact region. These changes would have taken place eventually, but they were accelerated by Hurricane Andrew.

Related research has analyzed the distributive effects of earthquakes and other disasters. In an early formulation, Cochrane (1975) observed that lower-income groups consistently bear a disproportionate share of disaster losses, relative to higher-income groups. This theme continues to be promi-

nent in the disaster literature; the notion that disasters create economic “winners and losers” has been borne out for both households and businesses (Peacock et al., 1997:Chapter 11; Tierney and Webb, forthcoming).

Another prominent research emphasis at the community and regional levels of analysis has grown out of the need to characterize and quantify the economic impacts of disasters (as well as other impacts) in order to be better able to plan for and mitigate those impacts. A considerable amount of NEHRP research on economic impacts and recovery has been driven by concern about the potentially severe economic consequences of major earthquakes, particularly those that could occur in highly populated urban areas. That concern is reflected in a number of NRC reports (1989, 1992, 1999c) on projected losses and potential economic impacts. Within the private sector, the insurance industry has also committed significant resources in an effort to better anticipate the magnitude of insured losses in future disaster events. (For new developments in research on the management of catastrophic insurance risk, see Grossi et al., 2004.)

Stimulated in large measure by NEHRP funding, new tools have been developed for both pre-disaster estimation of potential losses and post-disaster impact assessments, particularly for earthquakes. HAZUS, the national loss estimation methodology, which was originally developed for earthquakes and which has now been extended to flood and wind hazards, was formulated under FEMA’s supervision with NEHRP funding. NEHRP funds have also supported the development of newer and more sophisticated modeling approaches through research undertaken at earthquake centers sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The framework for estimating losses from natural hazards was initially laid out more than 20 years ago in publications such as Petak and Atkisson’s Natural Hazard Risk Assessment and Public Policy (1982) and in applied studies such as the PEPPER (Pre-Earthquake Planning for Post-Earthquake Rebuilding) project (Spangle, 1987), which analyzed potential earthquake impacts and post-disaster recovery strategies for Los Angeles. According to the logic developed in these and other early studies (see, for example, NRC, 1989) and later through extensive NEHRP research, loss estimation consists of the analysis of scenario or probabilistic models that include data on hazards; exposures , or characteristics of the built environment at risk, including buildings and infrastructural systems; fragilities , or estimates of damage likelihood as a function of one or more parameters, such as earthquake shaking intensity; direct losses , such as deaths, injuries, and costs associated with damage; and indirect losses and ripple effects that result from disasters. Within this framework, recent research has focused on further refining loss models and reducing uncertainties associated with both the components of loss estimation models and their interrelationships (for

representative work, see theme issue in Earthquake Spectra, 1997; Tierney et al., 1999; Okuyama and Chang, 2004).

This line of research has led both to advances in basic science knowledge and to a wide range of research applications. At the basic science level, loss modeling research—particularly studies supported through NEHRP—has helped distinguish and clarify relationships among such factors as physical damage, direct economic loss, business interruption effects, and indirect losses and ripple effects. For example, it is now more possible than ever before to disaggregate and analyze separately different types of economic effects and to understand how particular types of damage (e.g., damage to electrical power or transportation systems) contribute to overall economic losses. This research has shed light on factors that contribute to the resilience of regional economies, both during normal times and in response to sudden shocks. It has also shown how the application of newer economic modeling techniques, such as computable general equilibrium modeling and agent-based modeling, constitute improvements over more traditional input-output modeling, particularly for the study of extreme events (for discussions, see Rose et al., 2004; Chang, 2005; Rose and Liao, 2005). Econometric modeling provides another promising approach at both the micro and the regional levels (see West and Lenze, 1994), but this potential remains largely untapped.

At the applications level, loss estimation tools and products have proven useful for raising public awareness of the likely impacts of disaster events and for enhancing community preparedness efforts and mitigation programs. They have also made it possible to assess mitigation alternatives, not only in light of the extent to which those measures reduce damage, but also in terms of their economic costs and benefits. When applied in the disaster context, rapid economic loss estimates have also formed the basis for requests for federal disaster assistance. For the insurance industry, loss models provide important tools to improve risk management decision making, particularly with regard to catastrophic risks.

As noted earlier, loss modeling originally was driven by the need to better understand the economic impacts of earthquakes. In addition to economic losses, earthquake loss models are increasingly taking into account other societal impacts such as deaths, injuries, and residential displacement, as well as secondary effects such as earthquake-induced fires. The methodological approach developed to study earthquakes was first extended to other natural hazards and is now being used increasingly to assess potential impacts from terrorism. The nation is now better able to address the issue of terrorism-related losses because of the investments that had been made earlier for earthquakes and other natural hazards. Significantly, when the Department of Homeland Security decided in 2003 to begin funding

university-based “centers of excellence” for terrorism research, the first topic that was selected for funding was risk and economic modeling for terrorist attacks in the United States. 12 Many of the investigators associated with that center had previously worked on loss modeling for earthquakes.

Business and Facility-Level Impacts and Recovery. Most research on recovery processes and outcomes has focused on households and communities. Prior to the 1990s, most research on the economic aspects of disasters focused not on individual businesses but rather on community-wide and regional impacts. Almost nothing was known about how private sector organizations are affected by and recover from disasters. Since then, a small number of studies have focused on business firms or, in some cases, commercial facilities, as units of analysis. Much of this work, including studies on large, representative samples of businesses, has been carried out with NEHRP support. Business impacts and recovery have been assessed following the Whittier Narrows, Loma Prieta, Northridge, and Kobe earthquakes; the 1993 Midwest floods; Hurricane Andrew; and other flood and hurricane events (for representative studies and findings, see Dahlhamer, 1998; Chang, 2000; Webb et al., 2000; Alesch et al., 2001). Long-term business recovery has been studied in the context of only two disaster events—the Loma Prieta earthquake and Hurricane Andrew (Webb et al., 2003).

These studies have shown that disasters disrupt business operations through a variety of mechanisms. Direct physical damage to buildings, equipment, vehicles, and inventories has obvious effects on business operation. It might be less obvious that disruption of infrastructure such as water/sewer, electric power, fuel (i.e., natural gas), transportation, and telecommunications frequently forces businesses to shut down in the aftermath of a disaster (Alesch et al., 1993; Tierney and Nigg, 1995; Tierney, 1997a, b; Webb et al., 2000). For example, Tierney (1997b) reported that extensive electrical power service interruption after the 1993 Midwest floods caused a large number of business closures in Des Moines, Iowa, even though the physical damage was confined to a relatively small area.

Other negative disaster effects include population dislocation, losses in discretionary income among those victims who remain in the impact area—which can weaken market demand for many products and services—and competitive pressure from large outside businesses. These kinds of impacts can cause small local businesses to experience major difficulties recovering from the aftermath of a disaster (Alesch et al., 2001). Indeed, such factors

can produce business failures long after the precipitating event, especially if the community was already in economic decline before the disaster occurred (Bates and Peacock, 1993; Webb et al., 2003).

It is difficult to generalize on the basis of so few studies, particularly when the issues involved and the methodological challenges are so complex. However, studies to date have uncovered a few consistent patterns with respect to business impacts and recovery. First, studies show that most businesses do recover, and do so relatively quickly. In other words, typical businesses affected by disasters show a good deal of resilience in the face of major disruption.

Second, some businesses do tend to fare worse than others in the aftermath of disasters; clearly, not all businesses are equally vulnerable or equally resilient. Although findings from individual studies differ, the factors that seem to contribute most to vulnerability include small size; poor pre-disaster financial condition; business type, with wholesale and retail trade appearing to be especially vulnerable, while manufacturing and construction businesses stand to benefit most from disasters; and severity of disaster impacts. With regard to this last-mentioned factor, studies show that negative impacts on businesses include not only direct physical damage, lifeline-related problems, and business interruption, but also more long-lasting operational problems that businesses may experience following disasters, such as employee absenteeism and loss of productivity, earthquake-induced declines in demands for goods and services, and difficulties with shipping or receiving products and supplies.

Third, business recovery is affected by many factors that are outside the control of the individual business owner. For example, businesses located in highly damaged areas may experience recovery difficulties independent of whether or not they experience losses. In this case, recovery is complicated by the fact that disasters disrupt local ecologies on which individual businesses depend. Business recovery processes and outcomes are also linked to community-level decision making. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, for example, the City of Santa Cruz offered extensive support to businesses and used the earthquake as an opportunity to reinvent itself and to revitalize a business district that had fallen short of realizing its potential prior to the disaster (Arnold, 1998). Actions that communities take with respect to land-use, structural mitigation, infrastructure protection, community education, and emergency response planning also affect how businesses and business districts fare during and after disasters.

Fourth, recovery outcomes following disasters are linked to pre-disaster trends and broader market forces. For example, focusing on an important transport facility, the Port of Kobe, Chang (2000) showed that the port’s inability to recover fully after the 1995 earthquake was due in part to losses in one part of the port’s business—trans-shipment cargo—that had already

been declining before the earthquake owing to severe competition from other ports in the region. Similarly, Dahlhamer (1998) found that businesses in the wholesale and retail trade sectors were more vulnerable to experiencing negative economic outcomes following the Northridge earthquake, perhaps because they constitute crowded and highly competitive economic niches and because turnover is high in those sectors during normal times. He also found that firms in industries that had been experiencing growth in the two-year period just before the earthquake were less likely than firms in declining industries to report being worse off following the Northridge event. Such findings are consistent with a more general theme in recovery research discussed earlier—that disasters do not generate change in and of themselves, but rather intensify or accelerate preexisting patterns.

Community Recovery. Although the topic of community recovery is still not well studied, significant progress has been made in understanding both recovery processes and factors that are associated with recovery outcomes for communities. Earlier research indicated that communities rebound well from disasters and that, at the aggregate level and net of other factors, the impacts of disasters are negligible (Friesema et al., 1979; Wright et al., 1979). However, other more recent research suggests that such findings paint an overly simplified and perhaps overly optimistic picture of post-disaster recovery. This may have been due to methodological shortcomings—for example, the tendency to aggregate data and to group together both more damaging disasters and those that did comparatively little damage—or because such studies were based on “typical” disasters in the United States, rather than catastrophic or near-catastrophic ones. 13 In contrast, in a methodologically sophisticated study focusing on a much more severe disaster, the 1995 Kobe event, Chang (2001) analyzed a number of recovery indicators, including measures of economic activity, employment in manufacturing, changes in the spatial distribution of work activities, and differences in recovery indicators among different districts within the city. She found that the earthquake did have lasting and significant negative effects on the City of Kobe. Equally important, poor recovery outcomes were more pronounced in some parts of the city than in others—specifically those areas that had already been experiencing declines. This study provides yet another illustration of how disasters exploit existing vulnerabilities. It also cautions against making blanket statements about disaster impacts and recovery.

Another limitation of earlier work on community recovery was that it provided too little information on what actually happens in communities during the recovery process or what communities can do to ensure more rapid and satisfactory recovery outcomes. Later research, much of which has been undertaken with NEHRP support, has addressed these issues. For example, in Community Recovery from a Major Natural Disaster , Rubin et al. (1985) developed a set of propositions regarding factors that affect community recovery outcomes. That monograph, which was based on case study analyses of recovery following 14 disasters that occurred in the early 1980s, emphasized the importance of three general constructs—personal leadership, knowledge of appropriate recovery actions, and ability to act—as well as the influence of intergovernmental (state and federal) policies and programs. This work highlighted the effects of both government decision making and broader societal policies on community recovery.

Some more recent research has more explicitly incorporated community and population vulnerability as factors affecting community-level recovery. Bolin and Stanford (1998) traced how the post-Northridge recovery experiences of Los Angeles and smaller outlying towns differed as a function of such factors as political expertise and influence, preexisting plans, institutional capacity, involvement of community organizations, and interest group competition. In these diverse communities, the needs of more vulnerable and marginalized groups were sometimes addressed during the recovery process. However, recovery programs ultimately did little to improve the safety of those groups, because they failed to address the root causes of vulnerability (Bolin and Stanford, 1998:216):

[s]ince vulnerability derives from political, economic, and social processes that deny certain people and groups access or entitlements to incomes, housing, health care, political rights, and, in some cases, even food, then post-disaster rebuilding by itself will have little effect on vulnerability.

Societal-Level and Comparative Research on Disaster Recovery. International research on disasters is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6 . This chapter focuses in a more limited way on what little research exists on disaster impacts and post-disaster change at the societal level. Regarding long-term societal impacts, researchers have generally found that disasters, even very large ones, typically do not in and of themselves result in significant change in the societies they affect. Instead, the broad consensus has been that to the extent disasters do have lasting effects, it is because they interact with other factors to accelerate changes that were already under way. Albala-Bertrand, for example has argued that while disasters can highlight preexisting political conflicts, whether such effects are sustained over time “has little to do with the disaster itself, but with preexisting economic and sociopolitical

conditions” (1993:197). This research found that the potential for such changes was generally greater in developing countries than developed ones, although not great in any case.

With respect to the political impacts of disasters at the societal level, comparing very large disasters that occurred between 1966 and 1980, political scientist Richard Olson found that that major disasters can result in higher levels of political unrest, particularly in developing countries that are already politically unstable (Olson and Drury, 1997). In other research, Olson argues that under certain (and rare) circumstances, disasters can constitute “critical junctures,” or crises that leave distinctive legacies within those societies. The 1972 earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua, was one such case. Following that devastating event, the corrupt and dictatorial Somoza regime took a large share of post-disaster aid for itself and mismanaged the recovery, in the process alienating Nicaraguan elites, the business establishment, and finally the middle class, and paving the way for the Sandanistas to assume power in 1979. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake also affected the political system of that nation by, among other things, helping to weaken the hegemony of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. However, rather than having a direct and independent influence on subsequent political changes, that earthquake interacted with factors and trends that were already beginning to affect Mexican society before it occurred. That disaster, which was not well managed by the ruling government, provided the Mexican people with a sharp contrast between the vibrancy and the capability of civil society and the government’s lack of preparedness. Grass-roots response and recovery efforts also facilitated broader mobilization by groups that had been pressing for change. Although not a “critical juncture” in its own right, the earthquake did play a role in moving the political system in the direction of greater pluralism and strengthened the power of civil society institutions vis-à-vis the state (Olson and Gawronski, 2003).

Such findings assume particular significance in the aftermath of the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The impacts of that catastrophe span at least 12 different nations and a number of semi-autonomous subnational units, each with its own distinctive history, mode of political organization, internal cleavages, and preexisting problems. Research is needed to better understand both recovery processes and outcomes and the longer-term societal effects of this devastating event.

OTHER DISASTER RECOVERY-RELATED ISSUES

Disaster experience and the mitigation of future hazards.

Social science research has also focused in various ways on the question of whether the positive informational effects of disasters constitute learning

experiences for affected social units by encouraging the adoption of mitigation measures and stimulating preparedness activity. While this idea seems intuitively appealing, the literature is in fact quite equivocal with regard to the extent to which disasters actually promote higher levels of safety. On the one hand, at the community and societal levels, there is considerable evidence to suggest that disasters constitute “windows of opportunity” for those seeking to enact loss reduction programs, making it possible to achieve policy victories that would not have been possible prior to those events (Alesch and Petak, 1986). Disasters have the potential to become “focusing events” (Birkland, 1997) that can alter policy agendas through highlighting areas in which current policy has failed, energizing advocates, and raising public awareness. On the other hand, many disasters fail to become focusing events and have no discernible impacts on the adoption and implementation of loss-reduction measures. For example, Burby et al., (1997), who studied communities in five different states, found no relationship between disaster experience and adoption of mitigation measures. Birkland (1997) suggests that these differences are related in part to the extent to which advocacy coalitions exist, are able to turn disaster events to their advantage, and are able to formulate appropriate policy responses.

Further complicating matters, policies adopted in the aftermath of disasters, like other policies, may meet with resistance and be only partially implemented—or implemented in ways that were never intended. While it is possible to point to examples of successful policy adoption and implementation in the aftermath of disasters, such outcomes are by no means inevitable, and when they do occur, they are typically traceable to other factors, not just to disaster events themselves.

Research does suggest that households, businesses, and other entities affected by disasters learn from their experiences and take action to protect themselves from future events. Those who have experienced disasters may, for example, step up their preparedness for future events or be more likely to heed subsequent disaster warnings. At the same time, it is also clear that there is considerable variability in the relationship between experience and behavioral change. While some studies document the positive informational effects of experience, others show no significant impact, and some research even indicates that repeated experiences engender complacency and lack of action (for a review of the literature, see Tierney et al., 2001).

Role of Prices and Markets

Mainstream economic theory, models, and analytical tools (e.g., benefit-cost analysis) assume that markets generally function efficiently and equilibrate. Barring various situations of market failure, prices serve a key role as signals of resource scarcity. In this context, two broad areas of research

needs can be identified. One is the role of prices and markets in pre-disaster mitigation (see also Chapter 3 ). Market-based approaches to reducing disaster risk involve such questions as how prices can serve as better signals of risk taking and risk protection, and the potential for new approaches to risk sharing (e.g., catastrophe bonds). At the same time, better understanding is also needed of market failures in mitigation (e.g., externalities in risk taking and risk protection). The second broad research need concerns markets in post-disaster loss and recovery. Little empirical research has been conducted on the degree to which assumptions of efficient markets actually hold in disasters, especially those having catastrophic impacts, and the degree to which markets are resilient in the face of disasters. Research is also needed on how economic models can capture the adjustment processes and disequilibria that are important as economies recover from disasters, and how economic recovery policies can influence recovery trajectories.

Disaster Recovery and Sustainability

As discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 , which focuses on international research, disaster theory and research have increasingly emphasized the extent to which vulnerability to disasters can be linked to unsustainable development practices. Indeed, the connection between disaster loss reduction and sustainability was a key organizing principle of the NEHRP-sponsored Second Assessment of Research on Natural Hazards. The title of the summary volume for the Second Assessment, Disasters by Design (Mileti, 1999b), was chosen to emphasize the idea that the impacts produced by disasters are the consequence of prior decisions that put people and property at risk. A key organizing assumption for the Second Assessment was the notion that societies and communities “design” the disasters of the future by failing to take hazards into account in development decisions; pursuing other values, such as rapid economic growth, at the expense of safety; failing to take decisive action to mitigate risks to the built environment; and ignoring opportunities to enhance social and economic resilience in the face of disasters. Conversely, communities and societies also have the ability to design safer futures by better integrating hazard reduction into their ongoing policies and practices in areas such as land-use and development planning, building codes and code enforcement, and quality-of-life initiatives.

Just as disasters dramatically highlight failures to address sources of vulnerability, the post-disaster recovery period gives affected communities and societies an opportunity to reassess pre-disaster plans, policies, and programs, remedy their shortcomings, and design a safer future (Berke et al., 1993). The federal government seeks to promote post-disaster mitigation through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, as well as programs

that seek to reduce repetitive flood losses through relocating flood-prone properties. The need to weave a concern with disaster loss reduction into the fabric of ongoing community life has also guided federal initiatives such as Project Impact, FEMA’s Disaster Resistant Communities program.

Yet the research record suggests that those opportunities are often missed. While it is clear that some disaster-stricken communities do act decisively to reduce future losses, for others the recovery period brings about a return to the status quo ante, marked at most by gains in safety afforded by reconstruction to more stringent building codes. The section above noted that disasters create “windows of opportunity” for loss reduction advocates, in part by highlighting policy failures and temporarily silencing opponents. At the same time, however, research evidence suggests that even under those circumstances, it is extremely difficult to advance sustainability goals in the aftermath of disasters. Changes in land use are particularly difficult to enact, both during nondisaster times and after disasters, despite the fact that such changes can significantly reduce vulnerability. Land use decision making generally occurs at the local level, but local jurisdictions have great difficulty enacting controls on development in the absence of enabling legislation from higher levels of government. Even when land-use and zoning changes and other mitigation measures are seen as desirable following disasters, community leaders may lack the political will to promote such efforts over the long term, allowing opponents to regroup and old patterns to reassert themselves (see, for example, Reddy, 2000; for more detailed discussions on land-use and hazards, see Burby, 1998). Assessing reconstruction following recent U.S. disasters, Platt (1998:51) observed that “[d]espite all the emphasis on mitigation of multiple hazards in recent years, political, social and economic forces conspire to promote rebuilding patterns that set the stage for future catastrophe.” Overall, the research record suggests that while the recovery period should ideally be a time when communities take stock of their loss reduction policies and enact new ones, post-disaster change tends to be incremental at best and post-disaster efforts to promote sustainability are rare.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter closes by making recommendations for future research on disaster response and recovery. As the foregoing discussions have indicated, existing research has raised numerous questions that need to be addressed through future research. This concluding section highlights general areas in which new research is clearly needed, both to test the limits of current social science knowledge and to take into account broad societal changes and issues of disaster severity and scale.

Recommendation 4.1: Future research should focus on further empirical explorations of societal vulnerability and resilience to natural, technological, and willfully caused hazards and disasters.

Discussions of factors associated with differential vulnerability and resilience in the face of disasters appear in many places in this report. What these discussions reveal is that researchers have only begun to explore these two concepts and much work remains to be done. It is clear that vulnerability is produced by a constellation of psychological, attitudinal, physical, social, and economic factors. However, the manner in which these factors operate and interact in the context of disasters is only partially understood. For example, while sufficient evidence exists to indicate that race, gender, and ethnicity are important predictors of hazard vulnerability and disaster-related behavior, research has yet to fully explore such factors, their correlates, and their interactions across different hazard and disaster contexts. In many cases age is associated with vulnerability to disasters (see Ngo, 2001; Anderson, 2005), but other factors such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status have differential effects within particular age groups (Bolin and Klenow, 1988), and the vulnerability of elderly persons may be related not only to age but also to other factors that are correlated with age, such as social isolation, which can cut off older adults from sources of lifesaving aid under disaster conditions (Klinenberg, 2002).

Even less is known about how to conceptualize, measure, and enhance resilience in the face of disasters—whether that concept is applied to the psychological resilience of individuals or to the resilience of households, communities, local and regional economies, or other units of analysis. Resilience can be conceptualized as the ability to survive disasters without significant loss, disruption, and stress, combined with the ability to cope with the consequences of disasters, replace and restore what has been lost, and resume social and economic activity in a timely manner (Bruneau et al., 2003). Other dimensions of resilience include the ability to learn from disaster experience and change accordingly.

The large volume of literature on psychological resilience and coping offers insights into factors that facilitate resilient responses by individual disaster victims. Other work, such as research on “high-reliability organizations,” organizational adaptation and learning under crisis conditions, and organizational effectiveness (Roberts, 1989; La Porte and Consolini, 1998; Comfort, 1999; Drabek, 2003) also offers insights into correlates of resilience at the organizational and interorganizational levels. As suggested in Chapter 6 , the social capital construct and related concepts such as civic engagement and effective collective action are also related to resilience. The challenge is to continue research on the resilience concept while synthesizing theoretical insights from these disparate literatures, with the ultimate objective of developing an empirically grounded

theory of resilience that is generalizable both across different social units and across different types of extreme events.

Recommendation 4.2: Future research should focus on the special requirements associated with responding to and recovering from willful attacks and disease outbreaks.

A better understanding is needed of likely individual, group, and public responses to intentional acts of terrorism, as well as disease outbreaks and epidemics. As indicated in this chapter, there appears to be no strong a priori reason for assuming that responses to natural, technological, or intentionally caused disasters and willful or naturally occurring disease outbreaks will differ. However, research on hazards and disasters also calls attention to factors that could well prove to be important predictors of responses to such occurrences, particularly those involving unique hazards such as chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological agents. Research on individual and group responses to different types of disasters has highlighted the importance of such factors as familiarity, experience, and perceptual cues; perceptions about the characteristics of hazards (e.g., their dread nature, lethality and other harms); the content, clarity, and consistency of crisis communications; knowledge of appropriate self-protective actions; and feelings of efficacy with respect to carrying out those measures (see, for example, classic work on risk perception, discussed in Slovic, 2000, as well as Lindell and Perry, 2004).

Recent research has also highlighted the importance of emotions in shaping perceptions of risk. Hazards that trigger vivid images of danger and strong emotions may be seen as more likely to occur, and more likely to produce harm, even if their probability is low (Slovic et al., 2004). If willful acts engender powerful emotions, they could potentially also engender unusual responses among threatened populations.

The potential for ambiguity and confusion with respect to public communications may also be greater for homeland security threats and public health hazards such as avian flu than for other hazards. For example, warning systems and protocols are more institutionalized and more widely understood for natural hazards than for homeland security and public health threats. While it is generally recognized that organizations such as the National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Geological Survey constitute reliable sources of information on hurricanes and earthquakes, respectively, members of the public may be less clear regarding responsibilities and authorities with respect to other risks, particularly since such threats and the expertise needed to assess them are so diverse.

These kinds of differences could translate into differences in public perceptions and subsequent responses. Research is needed on the manner in which the distinctive features of particular homeland security and public

health threats, such as those highlighted here, as well as official plans and management strategies, could affect responses during homeland security emergencies.

Recommendation 4.3: Future research should focus on the societal consequences of changes in government organization and in emer gency management legislation, authorities, policies, and plans that have occurred as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as on changes that will almost certainly occur as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

The period since the 2001 terrorist attacks has been marked by major changes in the nation’s emergency management system and its plans and programs. Those changes include the massive government reorganization that accompanied the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the transfer of FEMA, formerly an independent agency, into DHS; the shifting of many duties and responsibilities formerly undertaken by FEMA to DHS’s Office of Domestic Preparedness, which was formerly a part of the Justice Department; the development of the National Response Plan, which supercedes the Federal Response Plan; Presidential Homeland Security Directives 5 and 8, which make the use of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) mandatory for all agencies and organizations involved in responding to disasters and also mandate the establishment of new national preparedness goals; and increases in funding for special homeland security-related initiatives, particularly those involving “first responders.” Other changes include a greater emphasis on regionalized approaches to preparedness and response and the growth at the federal, state, and local levels of offices and departments focusing specifically on homeland security issues—entities that in many cases exist alongside “traditional” emergency management agencies. While officially stressing the need for an “all-hazards” approach, government initiatives are concentrating increasingly on preparedness, response, and recovery in the context of willful attacks. These changes, all of which have taken place within a relatively short period of time, represent the largest realignment of emergency management policies and programs in U.S. history.

What is not known at this time—and what warrants significant research—is how these changes will affect the manner in which organizations and government jurisdictions respond during future extreme events. Is the system that is evolving more centralized and more command-and-control oriented than before September 11? If so, what consequences will that have for the way organizations and governmental entities respond? What role will the general public and emergent groups play in such a system? How will NIMS be implemented in future disasters, and to what effect? What new forms will emergent multiorganizational networks assume in future

disasters? Which agencies and levels of government will be most central, and how will shifts in authority and responsibility affect response and recovery efforts? Will the investment in homeland security preparedness translate into more rapid, appropriate, and effective responses to natural and technological disasters, or will the new focus on homeland security lead to an erosion in the competencies required to manage other types of emergencies? A major research initiative is needed to analyze the intended and unintended consequences in social time and space of the massive changes that have taken place in the nation’s emergency management system since September 11, 2001.

These concerns loom even larger in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That disaster revealed significant problems in virtually every aspect of intergovernmental preparedness and response. The inept management of the Katrina disaster was at least in part a consequence of the myopic institutional focus on terrorism that developed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks—a focus that included marginalizing and underfunding FEMA and downplaying the challenges associated with responding to large-scale natural disasters (Tierney, 2006, forthcoming). Katrina is certain to bring about further efforts at reorganizing the nation’s response system, particularly at the federal level. These reorganizations and their consequences merit special attention.

Recommendation 4.4: Research is needed to update current theories and findings on disaster response and recovery in light of chang ing demographic, economic, technological, and social trends such as those highlighted in Chapter 2 and elsewhere in this report.

It is essential to keep knowledge about disaster response and recovery current. The paragraphs above highlight the need for new research on homeland security threats and institutional responses to those threats. Research is also needed to update what is known about disaster response and recovery in light of other forms of social change and to reassess existing theories. Technological change is a case in point. Focusing on only one issue—disaster warnings—the bulk of the research that has been conducted on warning systems and warning responses was carried out prior to the information technology and communications revolutions. With the rise of the Internet and interactive Web-based communication, the proliferation of cellular and other wireless media, and the growing potential for ubiquitous communications, questions arise regarding the applicability of earlier research findings on how members of the public receive, interpret, and act on warnings. Changes in the mass media, including the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the trend toward “narrowcasting” and now “podcasting” for increasingly specialized audiences, also have implications for the ways in which the public learns about hazards and receives warning-related

information. In many respects, warning systems reflect a preference for “push-oriented” information dissemination approaches. However, current information collection practices are strongly “pull oriented.” These and other trends in communications technology introduce additional complexity into already complex processes associated with issuing and receiving warnings, decision making under uncertainty, and crisis-related collective behavior. New research is needed both to improve theories and models and to serve as the basis for practical guidance.

Much the same can be said with respect to organizations charged with responding during disaster events. Along with being affected by policy and programmatic changes such as those discussed above, crisis-relevant agencies are also being influenced by the digital and communications revolution and by the diffusion of technology in areas such as remote sensing, geographic information science, data fusion, decision support systems, and visualization. In the more than 15 years since Drabek (1991b) wrote Microcomputers and Emergency Management , which focused on the ways in which computers were affecting the work of local emergency management agencies, technological change has been rapid and massive. How such changes are affecting organizational performance and effectiveness in disasters is not well understood and warrants extensive systematic study.

Recommendation 4.5: More research is needed on response and recovery for near-catastrophic and catastrophic disaster events.

Chapter 1 discusses issues of determining thresholds of disastrous conditions. NEHRP-sponsored social science research indicates that, in the main, U.S. communities have shown considerable resilience even in the face of major disasters. Similarly, at the individual level, U.S. disasters have produced a range of negative psychosocial impacts, but such impacts appear to have been neither severe nor long-lasting. While recognizing that disasters disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in U.S. society and acknowledging that recovery is extremely difficult for many, disasters have been less devastating in the United States and other developed societies than in the developing world. Disaster-related death tolls have also been lower by orders of magnitude, and economic losses, although often large in absolute terms, have also been lower relative to the size of the U.S. economy. At least that was the case until Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophic event that has more in common with disasters in the developing world than with the typical U.S. disaster.

The vast majority of empirical studies on which such generalizations are based have not focused on truly catastrophic disasters, and therefore research results may not be “scalable” to such events. Katrina clearly demonstrates that the nation is at risk for events that are so large that they overwhelm response systems and produce almost insurmountable post-

disaster recovery challenges. What kinds of social and economic impacts and outcomes would result from a large earthquake under downtown Los Angeles, a 7.0 earthquake event on the Hayward Fault in the San Francisco Bay area, a repeat of Hurricane Andrew directly striking Miami, or another hurricane landfall in the already devastated Gulf Coast region? What about situations involving multiple disaster impacts, such as the 2004 hurricane season in Florida and multiple disaster events that produce protracted impacts over time, such as the large aftershocks that are now occurring after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami? To move into the realm of worst cases, what about an attack involving weapons of mass destruction, or simultaneous terrorist attacks in different cities around the United States? Such events are not outside the realm of possibility. There is a need to envision the potential social and economic effects of very large disasters, to learn from catastrophic events such as Hurricane Katrina, and to analyze historical and comparative cases for the insights they can provide.

Recommendation 4.6: More cross-societal research is needed on natural, technological, and willfully caused hazards and disasters.

Most of the research discussed in this chapter has focused on studies conducted within the United States, but it is important to recognize that findings from U.S. research cannot be overgeneralized to other societies. Disaster response and recovery challenges are greater by many orders of magnitude in smaller and less developed societies than in larger and more developed ones.

Disaster impacts, disaster responses, and recovery processes and outcomes clearly vary across societies. Although the earthquakes that struck Los Angeles in 1994, Kobe in 1995, and Bam, Iran, in 2003 were roughly equivalent in size, they differed in almost every other way: lives lost, injuries, extent of physical damage, economic impacts, and subsequent response and recovery activities. Research suggests that such cross-societal differences are attributable to many factors, including differences in physical and social vulnerability; governmental and institutional capacity; government priorities with respect to loss reduction; and response and recovery policies and programs (see, for example, Davis and Seitz, 1982; Blaikie et al., 1994; Berke and Beatley, 1997; Olson and Gawronski, 2003). NEHRP has made significant contributions to cross-societal research through initiatives such as the U.S.-Japan research program on urban earthquake hazards, which was launched following the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes, as well as a similar initiative that was developed after the 1999 Turkey and Taiwan earthquakes. In some cases, these initiatives have led to longer-term research partnerships; Chapter 6 contains information on one such collaboration, involving the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and the National Center for Hazards Mitigation at the National

Taiwan University. Significantly more cross-national and comparative research is needed to further document and explain cross-societal variations in response and recovery processes and outcomes across different scales and different disaster events. Disasters such as the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami merit intensive study because they allow for rich comparisons at various scales (individuals, households, communities, and institutional and societal levels), providing an opportunity to greatly expand existing social science knowledge.

Recommendation 4.7: Taking into account both existing research and future research needs, sustained efforts should be made with respect to data archiving, sharing, and dissemination.

As noted in detail in Chapter 7 , attention must be paid to issues related to data standardization, data archiving, and data sharing in hazards and disaster research. NEHRP has been a major driving force in the development of databases on response and recovery issues. However, vast proportions of these data have yet to be fully analyzed. For social scientists to be able to fully exploit the data that currently exist, let alone the volume of data that will be collected in the future, specific steps have to be taken to make available and systematically collect, preserve, and disseminate such data appropriately within the research community. As recommended in Chapter 7 , information management strategies must be well coordinated, formally planned, and consistent with federal guidelines governing the protection of information on human subjects. Assuming that these foundations are established, the committee supports the creation of a Disaster Data Archive organized in ways that would encourage broader use of social science data on disaster response and recovery. Contents of this archive would include (but not be limited to) survey instruments; cleaned databases in common formats; code books, coding instructions and other forms of documentation; descriptions of samples and sampling methods; collections of papers containing analyses using those databases; photographs and Internet links (where applicable); and related research materials. Procedures for data archiving and sharing would build on existing protocols set out by organizations such as the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (e.g., ICPSR, 2005).

The distributed Disaster Data Archive would perform a number of important functions for social science hazards and disaster research and for the nation. The existence of the archive would make it much more likely that existing data sets will be used to their full potential by greatly improving accessibility. The archive would serve as an important tool for undergraduate and graduate education by making data more easily available for course projects, theses, and dissertations. By enabling researchers to access instruments used in previous research and incorporate past survey and

interview items into their own research, the archive should help make social science research on disasters more cumulative and replicable. An archive would also make it easier for newcomers to the field of disaster research to become familiar with existing research and enable researchers to identify gaps in past research and avoid unnecessary duplication. The archive would also serve an important function in preserving data that might otherwise be lost. Finally, such an archive would enable social science disaster research to better respond to agency directives regarding the desirability of data sharing.

For an effort of this kind to succeed, a number of conditions must be met. Funds will be needed to support the development and maintenance of the archive, and researchers must be willing to make their data sets and all relevant documentation available. This second condition is crucial, because the committee is aware of a number of important data sets that are not currently being shared, and the archive cannot succeed without broad researcher support. Challenges related to human subjects review requirements, confidentiality protections, and disclosure risks must be fully explored and addressed. Other issues include challenges associated with the development and enforcement of quality control standards, rules and standards for data sharing, procedures to ensure that proper acknowledgment is given to project sponsors and principal investigators, and questions about long-term management of the archive.

Related to the need for better data archiving, sharing, and dissemination strategies, social scientists must be poised to take advantage of new capabilities for data integration and fusion. Strategies are needed to integrate social science data with other types of data collected by both pervasive in situ and mobile ad hoc sensor networks (Estrin et al., 2003), such as networks that collect data on environmental and ecological changes and disaster impacts. In light of the availability of such a wide array of data, the hazards and disasters research community must recognize that hazards and disaster informatics—the application of information science and technology to disaster research, education, and practice—is an emerging field.

To realize this potential, and with the foundation established through implementing recommendations in Chapter 7 , the committee further supports the creation of a Data Center for Social Science Research on Hazards and Disasters. In addition to maintaining the Disaster Data Archive, this center would conduct research on automated information extraction from data, including the development of efficient and effective methods for storing, querying, and maintaining both qualitative and quantitative data from disparate and heterogeneous sources.

Social science research conducted since the late 1970's has contributed greatly to society's ability to mitigate and adapt to natural, technological, and willful disasters. However, as evidenced by Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and other recent events, hazards and disaster research and its application could be improved greatly. In particular, more studies should be pursued that compare how the characteristics of different types of events—including predictability, forewarning, magnitude, and duration of impact—affect societal vulnerability and response. This book includes more than thirty recommendations for the hazards and disaster community.

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A review of themes in disaster resilience literature and international practice since 2012

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

This paper reviews the practice and research trends in disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction literature since 2012. It applies the rapid appraisal methodology to explore developments in the field and to identify key themes in research and practice. In particular, the paper examines how the emerging themes of disaster risk reduction from the Sendai Framework are being integrated into health risk management and disaster governance paradigms. The research findings identify three important emerging themes: socialization of responsibility for resilience; ongoing interest in risk management with an emphasis on public private partnerships as enabling mechanisms; and a nuanced exploration of the concept of adaptive resilience.

• disaster risk reduction
• Sendai framework

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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• 10.1080/25741292.2018.1507240 Licence: CC BY
• 584134287-oa Final published version, 2.59 MB Licence: CC BY

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• Link to publication in Scopus

T1 - A review of themes in disaster resilience literature and international practice since 2012

AU - Tiernan, Anne

AU - Drennan, Lex

AU - Nalau, Johanna

AU - Onyango, Esther

AU - Morrissey, Lochlan

AU - Mackey, Brendan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

N2 - This paper reviews the practice and research trends in disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction literature since 2012. It applies the rapid appraisal methodology to explore developments in the field and to identify key themes in research and practice. In particular, the paper examines how the emerging themes of disaster risk reduction from the Sendai Framework are being integrated into health risk management and disaster governance paradigms. The research findings identify three important emerging themes: socialization of responsibility for resilience; ongoing interest in risk management with an emphasis on public private partnerships as enabling mechanisms; and a nuanced exploration of the concept of adaptive resilience.

AB - This paper reviews the practice and research trends in disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction literature since 2012. It applies the rapid appraisal methodology to explore developments in the field and to identify key themes in research and practice. In particular, the paper examines how the emerging themes of disaster risk reduction from the Sendai Framework are being integrated into health risk management and disaster governance paradigms. The research findings identify three important emerging themes: socialization of responsibility for resilience; ongoing interest in risk management with an emphasis on public private partnerships as enabling mechanisms; and a nuanced exploration of the concept of adaptive resilience.

KW - disaster risk reduction

KW - disasters

KW - governance

KW - policy

KW - Resilience

KW - Sendai framework

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111127488&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/25741292.2018.1507240

DO - 10.1080/25741292.2018.1507240

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85111127488

SN - 2574-1292

JO - Policy Design and Practice

JF - Policy Design and Practice

407 Disaster Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best disaster topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on disaster, 📑 interesting topics to write about disaster, 🔍 good research topics about disaster, 💡 most interesting disaster topics to write about, ✅ simple & easy disaster essay titles, ❓ essay questions on disaster management.

• Effects of Natural Disasters Essay Various factors influence the effects that a disaster on a country among them the magnitude of the disaster, the geography of the area affected and recovery efforts directed towards reducing the immediate effects of a […]
• Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster and Ethical Issues It manifested in the management’s decision to launch the shuttle despite insufficient testing and the faults in the design of the O-rings.
• Chernobyl Disaster: Ethical Aspects and Effects The cause of the disaster was a faulty design that caused a nuclear reactor to overheat and explode. The constructors of the plant violated the construction technology and there were plenty of design deviations.
• Natural Disasters: Tornadoes, Earthquakes, and Hurricanes Hence the loss may depend on the population of the area affected and also the capacity of the population to support or resist the disaster.
• Earthquake in South Africa: Reconstruction Process Therefore, it is vital for the government of South Africa to address the issues caused by the earthquake and reconstruct the region, focusing on several public interventions to stimulate the region’s growth in the shortest […]
• How to Prepare for a Hurricane? Fortunately, today, there exist ways to predict hurricanes and their routes so that the regions that are likely to be under risk can prepare beforehand and take all the necessary measures to ensure the safety […]
• Disaster Nursing: Preparedness and Response The issues of nursing competencies are of significant interest in the modern research literature, and the investigation of the professional competencies in the area of disaster medicine has both practical and theoretical implications as it […]
• Disaster Recovery Plan for Valley City Community The availability of infrastructure such as hospitals promote the health and wellbeing of the community. Assessing the needs of the community is integral in development of the plan.
• Climate Change, Development and Disaster Risk Reduction However, the increased cases of droughts, storms, and very high rainfalls in different places are indicative of the culmination of the effects of climate change, and major disasters are yet to follow in the future.
• Effects of Forest Fires on Ecosystem The general fire’s destruction on the forest crop is reliant on such factors as; the species that make up a portion of the crop or the forest components, the condition in which the crop is, […]
• Public Awareness of Earthquake This will mean that the basement that is involved in thickening and shortening is mechanically required to produce the shape of zagros belt.
• Mitigation of Earthquake Hazards The geologists should also inform the architects on the areas where earthquakes are likely to occur and how strong they will be able.
• Sri Lanka Disaster Analysis While the floods can be explained by a large river system and the relatively low above-sea-level of the island, the drought might seem rather a rare occurrence in the place where floods are frequent.
• The Disaster Preparedness Plan A natural disaster is a natural phenomenon that is of an emergency nature and leads to disruption of the everyday activities of the population, death of people, and destruction of material values.
• Description of the Amphan Storm Disaster in India This is due to the loss of a large amount of precipitation, as well as the release of rivers from the shores in the lower reaches and the merging of the zones of the river […]
• The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster The case of the space shuttle Challenger is, probably, one of the biggest disasters in the history of American space exploration.
• Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Floods and Volcanic Eruption This is due to the relationship between an eruption and the geology of the area. It was observed that the mountain swelled and increased in size due to the upward force of magma.
• Earthquakes and Their Devastating Consequences The break in the ground surface is the most common cause of horrific consequences, and people often cannot get out of the epicenter of the incident.
• What is Disaster Risk Reduction? Disaster risk reduction exists in various approaches, according to the urgency and nature of the disaster itself. The severity of the disaster also determines the strategy to be employed.
• Bhopal Disaster Response and Impacts The presence of water and MIC resulted to the occurrence of an exothermic reaction that resulted to the increase of temperature and pressure in the storage tank.
• Impact of the Japan Tsunami 2011 Disaster on Tourism and Hospitality Industries Most coastal regions in the Pacific countries are highly populated due to the fact that the inland regions are usually mountainous and inhabitable compared to the relatively flatland in the coastal areas.
• Earthquakes Impact on Human Resource in Organizations The researcher seeks to determine the magnitude of this effect and its general effect on the society in general and the firms affected in specific.
• 1989 Hillsborough Stadium Disaster’s Risk Assessment Failure to analyze and approximate the risk before opening the gate led to a stampede. The assumption analysis technique of risk identification can recognize and prevent all the risks from occurring in the future.
• Centralia Mine Disaster and Public Administration Failure Scanlan, who was the district inspector at the time, identified the hazards surrounding the coal mines and reported his findings about a possible explosion to other relevant professionals. Scanlan should not have taken heed to […]
• Fictional Hurricane Karl in City of Old Orleans Moreover, due to the damage on the local chemical plant, the water resources in the area were contaminated. Natural disaster planning is essential in any given community due to the vastness of damages and risks.
• Disaster Preparedness and Nursing: A Scenario of an Earthquake In a scenario of an earthquake, nursing staff must be aware of the stages of disaster management and disaster preparedness in particular.
• Disaster Management: Mitigation and Communication Networks According to the current definition, mitigation is the set of strategies designed to minimize the negative outcomes of a disaster. The notion is often conflated with the concept of preparedness due to the focus on […]
• “Natural Disaster Management Planning” by Perry Perry writes the article Natural disaster management planning: A study of logistics manager responding to the tsunami with the aim of analysing the tsunami disaster that occurred in 2004, as well as providing comprehensive overview […]
• Analysis of Damage to Apartment Buildings in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake In turn, it is a prerequisite for the cataclysms in nature, such as earthquakes and the effect of liquefaction which was particular to the Marina district in the disaster of 1989.
• Response Plan and Mitigation of a Chemical Disaster Thirdly, to minimize the risk of exposure, the team needs to understand the injuries. Additionally, the rescue team should know emergency actions to reduce risk on their side and the public.
• Earthquake Prevention From Healthcare Perspective In terms of primary prevention of such a disaster, it is necessary to establish a public body or organization responsible for the creation of an extensive network of food, water, and first-aid kits to last […]
• Sri Lanka Flood Disaster Preparedness From these findings, it is evident that floods are the major concerns for the disaster management center, with the recent damages being witnessed towards the end of 2012 and the beginning of the year 2013.
• Emergency Nursing Disaster Preparedness: Teaching Plan The topic that will be covered in the teaching session is “Emergency Nursing Disaster Preparedness”, and the time allocated to cover the topic is 30 minutes.
• 1996 Mount Everest Disaster and Teamwork Factor The Everest case study illustrates some key problems that need to be addressed to avert the recurrence of errors or omissions that may have occasioned the deaths of the climbers.
• 1900 Storm: The Great Galveston Hurricane At the turn of the twentieth century, hurricanes were unknown and it was hard for the meteorological officials to predict that the storm of 1900 would be a hurricane.
• School Preparedness Plan for Tornado, Earthquakes, Fire Emergency In case of an earthquake emergency, the school should be prepared to keep the students safe. In case of a tornado emergency the school should be prepared to keep the students safe.
• Earthquake in Haiti 2010: Nursing Interventions During natural disasters, such as the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti in 2010, nursing interventions aim to reduce the level of injury and provide the conditions for the fast recovery of its victims.
• The Strategies of Flood Management However, it would be the most beneficial to implement these methods while planning the use of the land; for this reason, management is important.
• Disaster Management in New York The police department is part of the emergency response team that exists to serve all citizens within the New York jurisdiction with fairness, respect, and compassion.
• Earthquakes in Chile and Haiti Moreover, the quake in Haiti raptured at the epicenter of the city with a high population density compared to Chile. Therefore despite a lower magnitude earthquake than Chile, Haiti suffered more damage due to the […]
• Flood Damage by Hurricane Maxine in Charleston The role of the mayor and his dignitaries is to determine the duration and level of use of resources by the city.
• The Impact That Hurricane Katrina Had On Gasoline Prices Relevant points: The articles suggest that the shortage in gasoline is due to the disruptions caused by the Hurricane in the oil drilling and refining areas of the Gulf of America.
• Flixborough Disaster and Its Health Effects The accident was believed to have been caused by the crack that was detected on the reactor number 5 in the company.
• Psychological and Psychosocial Support in Disaster Nursing The paper reviews the presently available literature on the topic, covering the aspects of the significance of psychological and psychosocial support and related education, as well as the perceptions of nursing, existing problems in the […]
• Psychological First Aid for Disaster Victims In this paper, I will discuss some facts that I learned about PFA, consider a major disaster and response to it, and give some recommendations to those who might need to offer psychological aid to […]
• Disaster and Emergency Management: The Use of Military During Disaster Response The validity of this suggestion can be well illustrated in regards to the crucial role that military personnel played, while participating in search-and-rescue operations in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in regards […]
• How to Survive When a Disaster Outbreaks? Tornados are common for some of the US states and it is but natural that people should be aware of the ways to survive during these disasters.
• The 1979 Tangshan Earthquake The Tangshan Earthquake happened in 1976 is considered to be one of the large-scale earthquakes of the past century. The 1975 Haicheng Earthquake was the first marker of gradual and continuous intensification of tectonic activity […]
• The Ethics of the Union Carbide Disaster in India What the incident made painfully clear appertains to the moral conventions that the governments of the host and the parent country failed to adhere to.
• ICT for Disaster Management Systems The purpose of this research is to establish the conditions for successful design of ICT for disaster management systems in ICT and emergency services.
• The Failure of Leadership in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina exposed the shocking degree of unpreparedness of the Federal Government, FEMA, various local and state officials, and the residents of New Orleans when it comes to dealing with hurricane-force winds and massive flooding […]
• Bobsville’s Emergency Plan for Tornado Disaster It shows, to the best extent, actions Bobsville and its’ municipalities government should take, working together with private and public organizations, seeking to develop the capacity for the government to protect citizens from tornadoes.
• Disaster Response: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Policies The alerts and notifications about natural disasters are usually sent by phones to all citizens and articulated in the media, including television and radio.
• Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction Lastly, the cyclone will cause a threat to the financial stability of Southeast Texas owing to the resultant inadequate risk transfer and risk financing.
• Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis In addition, the paper will outline some of the similarities and differences between tsunamis and floods. Similarities between tsunamis and floods: Both tsunamis and floods are natural disasters that cause destruction of properties and human […]
• Role of the Nurses in the Site of the Haiti Earthquake The primary aim of the tertiary intervention conducted by the health practitioners was to reduce the effect of the diseases and injuries that occurred because of the Haiti earthquake.
• Theory of Disaster: Earthquakes and Floods as Examples of Disasters The second category is that of those people who put their focus on the effects of the social vulnerability or the disasters to the society or to the people who are likely to be the […]
• Volcanoes: Volcanic Chains and Earthquakes The “Ring of Fire” is marked by the volcanic chains of Japan, Kamchatka, South Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, the Cascade Range of the United States and Canada, Central America, the Andes, New Zealand, Tonga, […]
• Earthquakes: Causes and Consequences The first of these are body waves, which travel directly through rock and cause the vertical and horizontal displacement of the surface.
• Qatar’s Disaster Risks at the 2022 World Cup This document analyses disasters and emergencies that are to be considered for inclusion in a future National Risk Register for the State of Qatar to contribute to safety and security during the 2022 World Cup.
• Buncefield Oil Depot Disaster and Its Triggers Still, the issue became critical only with time, as the filling of the tank continued, which resulted in the overflow that happened on the morning of the next day.
• Flooding, Landslides and Mudflows in Florida In the American history, records show the catastrophic effects of weather and in most cases flooding due to heavy downpour, hurricanes, and El Nino in the late 20th century.
• History of Hurricane in Galveston The storm is considered to lie on the 4th category of the tempest hurricane, and it had been recorded as the tropical storm in Mexico Gulf.
• Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster The investigation team on the Chernobyl accident established the four major causes of the disaster, which comprised communication failures, architectural errors in RBMK nuclear reactor, violation of technical guidelines, and the lack of safety principles […]
• Impediments To Disaster Prevention It is the duty of every citizen to look for ways to help in the reduction and prevention of the occurrence of such disasters.
• Hurricane Andrew: Response and Recovery Failure In the event of a disaster, preparedness, response, and recovery to the incident determine the extent of damage. With the use of radar and reconnaissance, the Hurricane Center was able to issue a 12 hours […]
• The Parkfield Earthquake Prediction Experiment The seismic activity and the relatively regular sequence of the earthquakes in the area of San Paul Fault generated the interest of the geologists in exploring the processes in the rupture.
• The Impacts of Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami on the World Economy The future prospects in regard to the tsunami and the world economy will be presented and application of the lessons learnt during the catastrophe in future” tsunami occurrence” management.
• Disaster Recovery Plan for the Valley City Among the members of the community, it will be necessary to divide irretrievable losses six people who died at the time of the explosion and died before entering the first stage of medical evacuation, as […]
• Floods in Los Angeles and Disaster Response The Los Angeles local government is set to respond and control the effects of floods. Therefore, the local government and citizens have set aside adequate resources to respond to the disaster.
• Hurricane Katrina and Its Effect on the Nation The storm quickly recovered to a hurricane in the southeastern part of the Gulf. When the hurricane turned to the Gulf of Mexico, the management of the oil platforms announced the evacuation of workers.
• Disaster Management: Programs and Approaches The need to facilitate the preparation of the federal government to engage in preventing, responding, and even mitigating the impacts of natural disasters led to the formation of FEMA.
• Hurricane Katrina: The US Emergency Management The United States of America is among the countries that have experienced the effects of such storms, and Hurricane Katrina was one of the most fearsome and devastating disasters in the country’s recent history.
• Genetic and Environmental Impact of the Chornobyl Disaster The ecological impact of the explosion on the lands surrounding Chornobyl comes first. Chornobyl remains the worst in human history due to radioactive contamination.
• Approaching Disaster Security: Book Review The book emphasizes the importance of predicting, creating scenarios, and thinking about the ways to solve them. I would suggest this book to risk assessment experts and average readers interested in how the human mind […]
• Galveston Hurricane 1900 in the Historical Context It was one of the promising coastal cities in the United States during the 18th century because it boasted an excellent seaport that was essential in revenue collection, particularly from the ships that loaded and […]
• The Devastating Flood of 1993: Lessons Learned In order to understand the causes and consequences of the flood that occurred in the summer of 1993, it is necessary to define the meaning of the concept of flood.
• Spiritual Considerations Surrounding Disaster and the Role of Health Nurses The emotional well-being of families and affected individuals during and after a disaster is very important in their physical recovery. Much as spirituality assists during recovery, people struggle to find meaning in their losses and […]
• San Ciriaco Hurricane: Analysis San Ciriaco Hurricane’s historical context describes the locations, groups, and people affected as well as the societal preparedness at the time. The locations affected by the San Ciriaco Hurricane were the mid-Atlantic coast of the […]
• Natural vs. Moral Evil: Earthquakes vs. Murder This problem demonstrates that such justifications for the problem of evil, such as the fact that suffering exists to improve the moral qualities of a person and thus serve the greater good, are unconvincing.
• Hurricane Harvey and Nurses’ Disaster Management In addition, it evaluates and describes the effectiveness of emergency response measures taken in responding to the event and provides examples and rationale.
• Electronic Health Record in Disaster Response Planning That is why medical facilities should create a plan to determine what specific procedures their staff members can take to respond to a natural disaster.
• The National Incident Management System and Hurricane Katrina Finally, ongoing management and maintenance pertains to the establishment of a supervisory center to continually refine the system and perform routine reviews ).
• Augmenting the Disaster Healthcare Workforce Historically, the licensing process, which has been in existence in virtually every state, successfully eliminated fraudsters who purposefully misled and deceived the public. The medical licensure procedure in each state has a long history of […]
• Aspects of Disaster Management Thus, the academic community agrees that religious people may impact the spiritual well-being of victims. Lastly, the spiritual well-being of self and colleagues is also important.
• Hurricane Ida in the United States Hurricane Ida hit the coast of the United States, hitting the state of Louisiana. Finally, I thoroughly learned the recommendations on how to behave in case of a hurricane.
• Poor Communication in the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority The UAE National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority is a quite essential and recently introduced government department that addresses various natural and man-made accidents and issues and maintains the safety of the community.
• Disaster Response Resources: The American Red Cross On a local level, there is a program held by the Ohio administration and is expected to combat mental health crisis by training police officers and paramedics on psychological assistance.
• The Chernobyl Tragedy and Hurricane Katrina The people of Chernobyl were politically and physically disadvantaged, and the blacks in New Orleans were physically and economically vulnerable to the disasters.
• Review of Earthquake Emergency Response The second resource is the supply of food and water that can help survivors wait for the rescue team for three days.
• The 1996 Everest Disaster and Decision-Making It is likely that Krakauer, knowing the composition of his team, expected the guides to provide clear instructions and failed to express his concerns in a timely fashion due to this overreliance.
• The Role of Community Nurses in Disaster Planning Most people usually perceive this content quickly, and it becomes the background knowledge they can apply automatically in case of a disaster.
• Hurricane Sandy and Emergency Plan Moreover, the question of how to determine the level of reliability of the coastal infrastructure was raised. Second, the storm, which had been predicted months in advance, demonstrated the need of having a reliable weather […]
• Ethical News Coverage: Indian Floods 2020 As part of the assessment of the consequences of reporting these events, it should be noted that the materials presented can attract public attention to help people in the affected areas, which is important for […]
• Nursing Roles & Responsibilities in Disaster Response In addition, it is necessary to analyze the real state of the bed fund of medical institutions and the possibility of its re-profiling and deployment of an additional bed fund. Moreover, the joint efforts of […]
• Disaster Management of COVID-19 Pandemic As part of the pandemic, a significant event in healthcare services for Saudi Arabia was the spread of a new genetic line of SARS-CoV-2 in the country.
• Record Keeping in Disaster Management On the one hand, the word incident can be described as an event, situation, or condition emerging in the course of work that led to injuries, damage to health, illnesses, or fatalities. Another motive is […]
• Disaster Preparedness Advertisement The management of hospices in regions that are highly likely to be hit by a hurricane will plan to have enough supply of medicine and food among other necessities.
• Chornobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster as Historical Event The major process going on in the world affairs of the time was the Cold War, the main players of which were the Soviet Union and the USA.
• Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster: Primary and Secondary Sources In case of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster, the most relevant primary sources include reports, documents, and local newspapers of that time, photographs, and interviews of witnesses. By analyzing secondary sources, one can get a […]
• War in Ukraine: A Humanitarian Disaster Belarus, a close ally of the Russian Federation, provided its territory as the ground for the invasion while rejecting its direct participation in the conflict.
• Chornobyl, the Type-Site of Nuclear Disaster The station began to operate in 1977 in the former Soviet Union, and about 14000 people lived in the town before the explosion.
• International Disaster Management: Tonga The international community has been relatively quick to respond to the disaster and its effects despite the challenges of establishing communication and following Tonga’s security guidelines to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
• Critique of the ACPO Policy: Disaster Victim There is often a lack of understanding that identifying individual bodies and even bodily fragments is the first and perhaps most crucial step in starting and supporting the grieving process that allows families and the […]
• California Earthquakes of the 20th Century Ultimately, the current essay examines the most devastating earthquakes in California in the 20th century and proposes a hypothesis of when the next large earthquake might strike.
• News Accounts of the 1996 Everest Disaster The case of the 1996 Everest disaster shows the influential nature of leadership decisions on a larger group of people. It is crucial to understand that leaders must avoid such biases in order to ensure […]
• Hurricane Elsa: Characteristics, Causes, and Damages With a decent amount of warm water, the cycle will continue and cause the hurricane to form due to the generation of speedy winds and storm clouds.
• National Disaster Medical System The purpose of the paper is to determine the primary goals and objectives of the NDMS as well as identify its structure and functions.
• Addressing the Threat of Flash Flood to Birmingham, Alabama The purpose of the work is to identify the key stages of threat addressing, including mitigation steps, preparedness and communication mechanisms, and response and recovery measures to address the outcomes of such disasters.
• Emergency Planning Team for New Orleans in Case of Hurricane Katrina Considering the fact that the specified areas are likely to be affected in the first place, it is reasonable to suggest that the priority should be the evacuation of the target population group.
• Hurricane Harvey, Its Effects and Importance Harvey started in the middle of August 2017 as a weak typhoon in the Gulf of Mexico, beginning from a tropical wave off the west bank of Africa.
• Disaster Management Documents and Principles The challenging task of ensuring the security of citizens is one of the key priorities of the government. In this way, the security of citizens is ensured by the identified entities and programs.
• Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team’s Activity Overall, funeral directors and DMORT together form a team responsible for the arrangements concerning the burial of the deceased after severe incidents or disasters.
• California Wildfire Disaster: The Emergency Response Given the complexity of the problem and the difficulty of incorporating efforts to avert the crisis, the scope of the document will be limited to the review of communication strategies and immediate emergency responses.
• Human Activity and Growing Number of Earthquakes The pieces that support the opposing view claim that the data about their number may be distorted due to the lack of difference in the development mechanism of natural and artificial earthquakes.
• Researching the Earthquake Due to human activity, artificial earthquakes occur, and their number increases every year following the strengthening of destructive human impact on the planet.
• The Flood Stories in Different Cultures The scientific community recognizes that the oldest flood myth known to humanity is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of Utnapishtim, who attained immortality by escaping from the flood on a ship.
• Hurricane Katrina and Failure of Emergency Management Operations The apocalyptic scenes following the destruction caused by one of the biggest disasters in American history, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, were a direct reflection of the U.S.government’s failure to prepare for and respond to such […]
• Earthquake Disasters: Medical Response and Healthcare Challenges Therefore, an earthquake disaster infers abrupt and immense shaking of the ground for a duration and magnitude that can infringe the day-to-day activities. The last role of healthcare personnel in triage and intervention is to […]
• Human Rights Issues: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans Hurricane Katrina is considered one of the worst calamities in the history of the United States. The law of the United States gives the government the responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens.
• Corruption During Disaster Relief One of the most notable elements about most of the disasters that have been documented in various parts of the world is lack of adequate preparation in case of their occurrence.
• Kathmandu, Disaster Management Strategies It is estimated that about 40% of the building that was on the valley were destroyed and more than 25% of the households in Kathmandu.
• Haiti Earthquake of 2010 Overview The purpose of this paper is to review the location and physical cause of the event, its human impact from it, and some of the interesting facts related to the disaster.
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Disaster nursing research: A scoping review of the nature, content, and trends of studies published during 2011–2020

1. background.

All over the world, disasters cause significant suffering, injuries, and health problems. Every year, nurses are involved in disaster preparedness, disaster response, and recovery mitigation, playing a vital role in disaster management and in helping the individuals affected by disasters [1] , [2] . The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the world the enormous importance of qualified and dedicated nurses who are prepared to care for individuals, families, and the community in exceptional circumstances. However, besides the pandemic, during the first six months of 2020, more than 100 other disasters occurred, affecting 50 million people [3] .

Disaster nursing has been said to be “doing the most, for the least, by the fewest” [4] . The International Council of Nursing (ICN) has defined eight domains of disaster nursing competencies: preparation and planning, communication, incident management systems, safety and security, assessment, intervention, recovery, and law and ethics [2] , showing that disaster nursing consists of a broad scope of knowledge, skills, and scientific interests. In addition, responding to a disaster is a highly challenging experience that affects nurses both professionally and personally [5] . Despite the long history and prevalence of disasters and the large number of affected people and health professionals involved in disaster management, the evidence base for disaster health knowledge in general is quite weak [6] . To change this, nurses are encouraged to contribute to building a robust and scientifically based foundation of knowledge around disaster nursing [2] . One important step towards an increased evidence base is to describe the current scientific interests, trends, gaps, and limitations in the available research. Scoping reviews can be used to respond to such interests by mapping the existing research in a given field in terms of its nature, content, and volume [7] . This scoping review aimed to investigate the nature, content, and trends of original disaster nursing research in the last 10 years.

A scoping review was conducted in accordance with the steps described by Arksey and O'Malley [7] and the analysis methodology described by Sucharew and Macaluso [8] .

2.1. Stage 1: Identifying the research question

In this study, the research question was defined as: What are the areas of interest, designs, study populations, and trends of original disaster nursing studies published in scientific journals in the last 10 years?

2.2. Stage 2: Identifying relevant studies (search strategy)

A structured search was conducted in the PubMed database, CINAHL Plus Full Text database, and Web of Science. The search terms used were “disaster nursing” and “disaster AND nursing” (see Table 1 ). The search in all three databases was conducted on January 10, 2020, and limited to original papers published in English between 2011 and 2020. In the CINAHL Plus with full text database, academic journals were marked, and in the Web of Science, the source setting of “Article” was selected.

* means truncation

2.3. Stage 3: Study selection

The study selection process was conducted using Covidence software (Covidence systematic review software, Veritas Health Innovation, Melbourne, Australia). All papers identified in the literature search were exported to Covidence, and duplications were searched for and removed ( Fig. 1 ). Thereafter, all records were screened by reading the title and abstract. To be included, the original research paper had to report on a perspective of disaster nursing practice or model or be indexed with the keyword “disaster nursing”. Both qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, Delphi studies, and case reports were included. Papers were excluded if they were a literature review, an educational paper aiming to educate the reader, or a personal debate publication. If there were doubts about whether to include or exclude the paper, the paper was included for a full review. The full text review assessed the whole paper and its eligibility for the study. In this stage of the selection process, the exact reason for exclusion was documented ( Fig. 1 ). In accordance with the selected method, no quality appraisal was made. [8]

2.4. Stage 4: Charting the data

After inclusion, all included studies were assessed, and information on the following details and information was extracted: author(s), year of publication, study location, aim and/or focus of the study, design and methodology used to gather data, study population, intervention type, and comparator (if any). The charting around the aim/focus of the study was inspired by the eight ICN competencies for disaster nursing. [2]

2.5. Stage 5: Collating, summarising, and reporting the results

Based on the charting, a summary of the results in writing was produced. All data from the Covidence database were imported to SPSS (IBM Corp. Released 2016. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 27.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.), where they were analysed, summarised, and visualised by basic numerical analysis of the extent, nature, and distribution of the studies included [7] . After the results were preliminarily summarised, they were presented for discussion in an academic disaster nursing course in which 20 voluntary clinical nurses participated. Some participants had professional experience in disaster nursing deployments or research activities, while others did not. The discussions were used to inform the interpretation of the results.

In all, 247 studies were included in the review. Most were published in 2020 (48 papers), followed by 2015 (34 papers) and 2016 (30 papers), with an overall increasing trend (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 ).

3.1. Focus of the research studies

The most common areas of focus ( Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 ) were preparedness or training among nurses or nursing students (n = 123, 50%). Within this group, some studies explored the competence needed or measured, levels of self-evaluated preparedness, and other measured levels of perceived preparedness before and after training. In addition, papers describing different concepts related to disaster training or instruments to measure disaster preparedness among nurses or nursing students were reported. Among the instruments used to measure disaster nursing preparedness, the Disaster Preparedness Perception Scale for Nurses, the Nurses’ Perceptions of Disaster Core Competencies Scale, and the Disaster Nursing Competence Assessment were used (one study per instrument).

The second most common focus was describing the lived experiences of authentic disasters (n = 53, 22%). Most of these papers (79%) described nurses’ experiences. These experiences were mainly focused on personal and professional experience gained and were sometimes included from a personal development perspective. In addition, four papers described nursing students’ experiences, and six papers described the affected peopleś experiences.

Health effects of disasters , both from a short- and long-term perspective, was the third most common focus of the disaster nursing research papers (n = 45, 18%). Among these 45 papers, the majority (37; 83%) reported on mental health aspects, such as post-traumatic stress, depression, or grief. Other outcomes used were quality of life (n = 4), injuries and physical health (n = 3), and the overall health effects resulting from evacuation from one hospital to another due to a natural disaster (n = 1). Most of the studies relied on self-rated instruments to measure health (n = 31) or individual interviews (n = 8), while six studies utilised medical records. The health outcomes of nurses (n = 10) or nursing students (n = 1) deployed in a disaster were the focus of 11 studies, all investigating mental health effects.

In 17 papers (7%), perspectives on community preparedness were presented. Strategies to promote disaster preparedness in a community and to analyse community networking efforts in disaster preparedness and the role of community nurses in disasters were described.

Nursing management was presented in 13 studies (5%), covering topics such as how to organise a disaster response, with the focus on nursing homes and emergency departments; leadership strategies to enable a resilient nursing response; and perceived information needs among nurses responding to an Ebola outbreak.

Law and ethical considerations, such as experiences of ethical or moral issues or conflicts when providing care in a disaster setting, were the focus of five papers (2%), four of which pertained to authentic disaster experiences and one to disaster simulation debriefs.

Three papers (1%) evaluated the effects of specific disaster nursing interventions . One study evaluated the effects of a single-time intervention regarding posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within a simulated study sample of 2,642,713 individuals. The second study compared three different models of teaching psychological first aid to increase nurses’ knowledge and self-efficacy, using a study sample of 30 nurses, and a third study evaluated mental health training intervention among 113 healthcare professionals in Haiti.

3.2. Disaster settings and study location

Many studies were related to training or preparedness (n = 123, 50%) with no specific authentic disaster event in focus; however, most papers referred to natural disasters (see Table 2 ). The category of “other” (21 studies, 8%) included two chemical events, four nuclear power events, one bus accident, one train crash, one flight crash, one mass gathering situation, two military settings, and nine studies in which no specific study setting or event was identified.

** One study used simulated cases (n = 2642713). The second study included 30 participants divided into three groups an the third included 125 in the test and 255 in the control group.

The most common study locations were the USA (n = 257, 23%), followed by China (n = 32, 13%), Iran (n = 26, 11%), Japan (n = 22, 9%), Korea (n = 11, 5%), Australia and Turkey (n = 10 each, 4%), Indonesia (n = 8, 3%), Brazil and Israel (n = 7 each, 3%), and other international settings (n = 6, 2%). All other study locations (Ghana, Greece, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, India, Island, Israel, Jordan, Liberia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom) had fewer than five studies published.

3.3. Research designs and study populations

Most papers used a quantitative research design (n = 161, 61%). Surveys, both paper-based and online, were the most common method of gathering data for these studies (n = 155, 96% of all quantitative papers), followed by interviews (n = 3, 2%) and medical records (n = 3, 2%). For the 71 qualitative design papers (29% of all papers), individual interviews were used to gather data in 55 papers (78%), while focus groups were employed in eight studies (15%) and written personal reflections or qualitative surveys in the remaining studies. A mixed methods design was used in 10 papers (4%), nine of which (90%) used surveys combined with interviews, and one used medical records and interviews.

Nurses were the most common study population (n = 138, 56%), followed by the affected population (n = 61, 25%), nursing students (n = 39, 16%), and institutions such as universities or medical facilities (n = 9, 4%). The sample sizes also varied, from five participants to over 224,116 (not including simulated cases). The study populations for each focus area and their sample sizes are shown in Table 2 .

For studies reporting on health effects from disasters, the timing of the data collection related to a particular disaster varied between 30 days and two years after the disaster, with a median time of seven months (n = 22). The data for one study was retrospectively gathered from medical records and therefore was able to accurately report the physical injuries resulting from the event. When displaying the year of publication and study focus ( Fig. 3 ), the trend was that all focuses had increased despite studies indicating that the health effects among the affected population had decreased. Additionally, an increased interest in including nurses and nursing students in the studies could be observed between 2019 and 2020 ( Fig. 4 ).

4. Discussion

This review showed an increasing interest in disaster nursing research, with the greatest focus on the preparedness and competence aspects. Mental health outcomes and psychosocial wellbeing dominated in the studies describing the physical health effects from disasters. When exploring the lived experiences of disasters, most studies presented such experiences from the nurses’ perspective.

Disaster nursing is both a general clinical competence that all nurses should possess and a specialist competence that requires specific knowledge and skills. Reflecting on the disaster nursing competencies described by the ICN [2] , this review shows that the domains of nurses’ preparation and planning for deployment in disasters have been well covered by studies, while the domains of communication, incident management systems, safety and security, assessment, intervention, recovery, and law and ethics have been less covered. When reflecting on the overall research interests against the disaster management cycle [9] , most studies covered the preparedness or mitigating phase, while fewer focused on the aspects of response or recovery. This large volume of preparedness, training, and competence literature is, in one way, welcomed, since a 2018 literature review concluded that nurses were ill-prepared for disaster responses [10] . However, many studies reviewed relied on vague descriptions of disaster nursing competence rather than more comprehensive knowledge of what clinical disaster nursing actually entails and what nurses require to function effectively in different disaster situations [11] . As reported by Lebrague et al. [10] , many of the tools used to measure preparedness among nurses are based on self-reporting, and a variety of instruments are used, which makes it difficult to compare different forms of preparation. Given the limited studies on experiences from real-life disaster nursing, nursing management, and specific disaster nursing interventions, relevant questions are how to know what to be prepared for, how to ensure that the preparations reflect what nurses will face in a real disaster, what methods and interventions are likely to be effective, and what are the actual needs of the disaster-affected populations.

Very few studies have reported on disaster nursing interventions. Given the large number of nurses involved in disaster response, this is somewhat surprising. Previous research has suggested that there is a need for a paradigm shift in healthcare decision making in disasters, moving towards a more reliable and robust evidence base for interventions at all stages of disaster management [6] , [12] , Therefore, greater efforts are needed to develop and evaluate effective nursing interventions, methods, and approaches to manage disasters, both from a clinical and theoretical perspective. No study was found that related to terrorist attacks or shootings, and just one reported on the health effects and victimś experiences from a bus accident. Therefore, this review indicates the need to broaden the research focus and study settings to build a comprehensive foundation of knowledge in responding to future disasters in all areas, including nursing preparedness and clinical disaster nursing.

The lack of conformity in disaster health research, such as when to inventory and describe health effects, how to report experiences from specific events, and how to evaluate new interventions, limit the possibilities to compare and evaluate disaster health effects and response strategies [13] . Many studies in this review focused on health effects, in particular mental health effects. The median of sample sizes in studies on health effects varied between 12 and 224,116, with a median of 226 participants. Small sample sizes tend to report a higher level of mental health problems [14] . However, the median sample size found in this review was larger than in a previous review of disaster mental health studies, in which the median was 150 study participants [14] .

Most studies relied on a study population of nurses or nursing students. This might be the result of the large focus on disaster preparedness among these groups, but it can also serve as a reminder of the need to increase the number of studies focused on the affected population. As in many other disciplines, the inclusion of the target population is of importance during the whole research process. Within disaster research, this might be a challenge for many reasons. However, including the affected populations and beneficiaries of nursing care in disasters would add value both clinically and theoretically. However, conducting disaster nursing studies can be challenging from both a practical and scientific perspective. Gathering personal information related to one’s health, wellbeing, and experience from disaster-affected populations, including the professionals deployed in such circumstances, demands awareness and sensitivity [15] , [16] . When using a qualitative design, this review showed that most studies gathered data using individual interviews, and only a few used focus group interviews. Since disasters involve experiences that are traumatic or distressing among both survivors and professional responders, focus groups might be a suitable way to gather data and, at the same time, provide opportunities for social support to the study participants [17] . Moreover, because disasters might reduce the possibility of physically reaching the study participants [16] due to destroyed infrastructure or security aspects, remote data gathering methods, such as drone pictures, online surveys, digital interviews, social media, and similar methods, might be useful to enable disaster nursing research in the future. As an example, social media has been previously used to reach study participants in a natural disaster context [18] , [19] . As in all research, the protection of study participants’ integrity and wellbeing must be a high priority, regardless of the data gathering methodology used, and the potential risks and benefits must be balanced in relation to the individual, as well as to the society as whole [20] . However, failing to conduct scientific studies on disasters due to methodological or ethical challenges might also be unethical [21] .

One specific challenge that might reduce the possibility of conducting research in the very early stages of a disaster is related to the formal procedures for obtaining ethical approval [22] . Infrastructural damage, severe impacts on essential societal functions, or the loss of professionals may reduce the practical possibilities of processing such applications. Delays in processing time can also reduce the possibility of gaining the necessary permissions quickly. However, the regulations and processes around securing ethical permission vary, and it sometimes may be possible to plan for and apply for the necessary permissions beforehand [23] . In any case, researchers should prepare their studies and ethical protocols so that these can easily be adapted to different emergencies as needed [23] . If the research is being conducted in other countries or contexts where the researcher is less familiar, it is recommended to work closely with local partners from the start in order to ensure contextual awareness, such as local ethical, cultural, and practical circumstances [22] . The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, on the other hand, is a long-lasting, worldwide situation that offers different and, to some extent, new possibilities to gain scientific knowledge on nursing in pandemics. It is possible, but not certain, that such knowledge would also be applicable in other disasters.

Since disasters strike all over the world and most often are unexpected, a scientific base that includes both the preparedness, mitigating, response, and recovery phases is essential for clinical nurses to act in accordance with best practices and provide evidence-based care. This review provides an overview of recent disaster nursing research that can offer both insight and inspiration for nurses to contribute to developing such a scientific base for disaster nursing. Additionally, it emphasises the need for further development and scientific evaluation of the strategies, interventions, and methods used in clinical disaster nursing.

5. Limitations

This review has several limitations. Since the aim of a scoping review is not to describe or synthesise the research findings [7] , quality appraisal is not mandatory in such reviews [8] . Neither the actual quality of the included studies nor the levels of evidence could therefore be reported, as in a traditional systematic review. Even if not mandatory, though, quality appraisal could benefit the overall outcome and add value in scoping reviews, which could be considered in future scoping reviews in this area of inquiry. Further, the specific reference for each of the included studies is not presented under the results as this is not feasible or of interest in a scoping study that provides a descriptive account of available information [8] . Thus, selection bias may occur in scoping reviews, leading to the exclusion of available data on a topic [8] . This study included only the last 10 years of published papers from three databases, relying on the indexing of the study using “disaster nursing” as a keyword or index word. This means that several papers of interest might have been missed. Index words that could have been included are, for example, major incident, catastrophe, mass casualty incident, and other similar terms. However, the choice was made to stay with the disaster term, since that term is the one used by the ICN. The choice of search terms might also have influenced the finding that few studies addressed the lived experiences of disaster victims, if these were not indexed using the keyword “disaster”, but, for example, a specific disaster event instead. The authoŕs impression was that more studies from the early years of the review were not indexed as disaster nursing studies. However, this is an undocumented indication. This review was conducted by only one researcher. However, the results were discussed with disaster nursing research colleagues, who contributed with their thoughts and conclusions. It would have been preferable to have at least two authors, but as no formal quality appraisal was made, the negative effect from using a single author was limited. In addition, since literature reviews were excluded, this scoping review does not show how reviews contribute to the evidence base of disaster nursing and in what areas systematic literature reviews are used to increase clinical nursing in disasters. These are research questions that deserve further attention.

There are many priorities for disaster nursing research in the future. To identify gaps in the evidence base within disaster nursing research, further scoping and systematic reviews are needed. Therefore, an overview of existing reviews within the field of disaster nursing would also be helpful in identifying gaps in knowledge and evidence. Since few studies describe or evaluate disaster nursing interventions and care provided to disaster victims, effective ways to promote health and wellbeing among both affected populations and the nurses themselves requires further attention. Additionally, successful nursing management strategies and methods can have great impact both on the affected population and the nurses deployed in disasters. Given the practical challenges of conducting research studies in a disaster context, such studies might have to be prepared beforehand and may require, to some extent, different methods and considerations. Strategies to increase the inclusion of disaster-affected populations within the research activities, not only as study samples but also in the planning, conducting, dissemination, and implementation phases, are desired within disaster nursing, as has been done in other fields of research.

6. Conclusion

In recent years, the number of disaster nursing science publications has increased. However, since disaster nursing consists of many domains and different phases, scientific inquiry should mirror this complexity. Therefore, there is a need to broaden the research focus and increase research studies on the response and recovery perspectives of disaster management, such as nursing management, nursing interventions, health outcomes, and ethical issues, in order to contribute to a robust scientific base of clinical disaster nursing. In addition, nurses should be encouraged to plan for disaster research studies beforehand and to consider the inclusion of the affected populations in this process to a greater extent.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all the participants in the disaster nursing course who volunteered to discuss the findings of this study and added valuable perspectives to the results.

Natural disasters, public attention and changes in capital structure: international evidence

• Research Article
• Published: 24 May 2024

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• Balbinder Singh Gill 1  

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In this study, I examine whether public attention to a natural disaster affects the likelihood of firms using external financing (only debt, only equity, or a mix of debt and equity) following the disaster. The helpful (or harmful) view of public attention predicts that increasing public attention to the disaster can help companies to use (or hinder them from using) external financing following the disaster. For this investigation, I construct two indices: (1) an index of public attention to natural disasters and (2) an index of natural disaster intensity. Consistent with the prediction of the helpful view, the likelihood of using a combination of debt and equity financing in the aftermath of a severe disaster is higher when people pay more attention to it. By contrast, when people pay less attention to severe disasters, firms are more likely to use only debt or equity financing, which confirms the harmful view. I provide evidence that the moderating effect of public attention on the relationship between the likelihood of using external financing and natural disaster intensity varies across types of natural disasters and types of online information sources (websites, online news, images, and YouTube videos). Furthermore, smaller firms that often face difficulties obtaining external financing are more likely to benefit from increased public attention to disasters when they want to use only debt financing and less likely to benefit when using equity financing. Finally, I provide evidence that the substitution of internal funding sources for external sources in the aftermath of a disaster depends on the level of public attention to the disaster.

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Industry market reaction to natural disasters: do firm characteristics and disaster magnitude matter?

Does the green inspiration effect matter for stock returns? Evidence from the Chinese stock market

Research from Pew Research Center shows that, of all salient issues, natural disasters generate the highest attention among the public in the United States at any given time (Pew Research Center 2010 ).

National governments can use this heightened public attention to pressure the private sector to participate in natural disaster recovery and mitigation. Private sector firms, initially unwilling to help firms impacted by a natural disaster, are less likely to resist social pressure; if they did, their reputations would suffer. As a result, they would react positively to the call of the national government to participate in natural disaster recovery and mitigation (Becerra et al. 2014 ; Ballesteros et al. 2017 ).

The sample period began in 2008 because the Google Search data (YouTube, image, and news-based search) that were used to construct the Public Attention to Natural Disasters Index have only been publicly available since 2008. The sample period ended in 2017 since the Climate Change Disruptions Index only contains data through 2017.

The focus was on large natural disasters, which are defined as meeting at least one of the following criteria: (1) 10 or more people were reported to have been killed, (2) 100 or more people were reported to have been affected, (3) a state of emergency was declared, or (4) international assistance was requested (Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters 2018 ). Furthermore, I excluded droughts, mass movements, epidemics, and volcanic activities from the sample since they dropped out of the regression analysis due to collinearity.

For example, American companies mobilized $565 million for disaster relief efforts following the earthquake and the resulting tsunami in South Asia in 2004. According to a breakdown of this amount by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $73 million, $79 million, $140 million, and $273 million came from customer donations, employee-matching contributions, in-kind donations, and cash contributions from companies, respectively (Thomas and Fritz 2006 ). Banks can also participate in disaster relief efforts. For instance, the employees of Bank of America donated $754,000 to help those affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The bank itself matched this amount and donated an additional $3.5 million to help affected individuals to recover from these two hurricane events (Ferry 2017 ).

People have a selfless concern for the wellbeing of others affected by natural disasters and are willing to participate actively in disaster relief and rescue efforts (Kaniasty et al. 2020 ; Poteyeva et al. 2007 ). People can also indirectly participate in disaster relief by applying pressure on governments, private employers, and banks (Ferry 2017 ; Lemieux 2014 ; Wei et al. 2018 ).

For example, the native currency for Australian firms is the Australian dollar (AUD). Additionally, I observed that the financial reports of Australian firms are also in nonnative currencies, such as the pound sterling (GBP), the Canadian dollar (CAD), the yuan renminbi (CNY), the euro (EUR), the New Zealand dollar (NZD), the Singapore dollar (SGD), USD, and the rand (ZAR). This suggests that firms’ financial statements in nonnative currencies are probably prepared by the parent companies located outside Australia.

I removed the United States as the largest country, in terms of surface area, from my sample since the natural disaster intensity and the public attention to natural disaster measures were constructed at the country-year level. This ensured that the magnitude of the estimated coefficients for the natural disaster variables were not overestimated.

For example, using the search term would require that I use the French translation of flood (i.e., inondation ) instead of “flood” for dominantly French-speaking countries. The search term results would be under-representative of the true search term activity if I only used the English word “flood” instead of the French word “ inondation ” for dominantly French-speaking countries.

I omitted natural disasters with no information available about their start and end dates.

I used the book value of common/ordinary stock (capital), which is different from total stockholder equity. Total stockholder equity is the sum of common/ordinary stock (capital), capital surplus, nonredeemable preferred stock, redeemable preferred stock, retained earnings, treasury stock, and nonredeemable noncontrolling interest.

The correlation between natural disaster-related variables tends to be high. This could signal the presence of a multicollinearity issue. As a result, I present a joint statistical significance test of all the natural disaster-related variables used in the logistic regression model.

The use of conservative clustering levels for standard errors can lead to biased estimates of the standard errors when the number of clusters in one dimension is less than 50 (see, e.g., Cameron and Miller 2015 ; Kézdi 2004 ; Mackinnon and Web 2016 ). In my study, the number of clusters for the year (9), industry, and country dimensions was less than 50. The standard error estimated by the cluster-robust variance estimator converged to the true standard error when the number of (balanced) clusters for the used dimension(s) approached infinity (Wooldridge 2003 ).

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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to Lalitha Naveen, J. Jay Choi, and Kose John for their unwavering support and patient advice. I have learned immensely from them. I owe special thanks for the comments and feedback that have substantially improved the paper from Lalitha Naveen, Kose John, J. Jay Choi, and conference participants at the American Finance Association Conference (2020), Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics Conference (2019), Financial Management Association Conference (2019), and Young Economists Symposium (2019). I also thank seminar participants at Temple University (2019) and Stevens Institute of Technology for their helpful comments and feedback. All errors are my own. An earlier version of this paper was titled “Do natural disasters bias creditors?”

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1.1 Search topic used in google trends

This Appendix details the search topics used in Google Trends to construct the multidimensional index of Google search engine based public attention to the earthquake, extreme temperature, flood, landslide, storm, and wildfire. I use the same search topics to collect information for the four different types of search engines by type of natural disaster. The four different types of search engines are website-based, YouTube-based, image-based, and news-based search engine.

2.1 Natural disaster intensity and public attention to the natural disaster by country

This Appendix contains detailed information about the mean of natural disaster intensity, and public attention to the natural disaster by country.

3.1 Variable definitions

This Appendix details the construction of all the variables used in the empirical analysis.

Estimation results

Table 2 shows the coefficient estimates of the explanatory variables based on estimates from a multinomial logistic regression model. The multinomial logistic regression model has three dependent variables: only debt (model 1), only equity (model 2), and both debt and equity (model 3). The base outcome of the multinomial logistic regression model is the fourth dependent variable (no debt and equity). To estimate the nonlinear regression models, I use sampling probability weights to adjust the regression parameters and standard errors for the multinomial logistic regression model. The sampling probability weight is the inverse of the number of firms in a country. Standard errors are robust for heteroskedasticity and clustered at the firm level. The model includes the year, Fama and French (1997) industry, and country fixed effects. The line containing “Joint significance of natural disaster variables” reports the Chi 2 test-statistic from a Wald test of joint statistical significance of the included natural disaster intensity, the public attention to the natural disaster, and the interaction between these two variables. The null hypothesis is that the estimated coefficients on these variables are jointly 0. I use asterisks to denote statistical significance at 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level, respectively. Variable definitions are in Appendix C .

Table 3 shows the joint impact of the different types of public attention to the natural disaster and the natural disaster intensity on the likelihood of only debt, the likelihood of only equity, and the likelihood of both debt and equity. The multinomial logistic regression model has three dependent variables: only debt (model 1), only equity (model 2), and both debt and equity (model 3). The base outcome of the multinomial logistic regression model is the fourth dependent variable (no debt and equity). The model includes control variables, year, Fama and French ( 1997 ) industry, and country fixed effects same as from Table  2 . of Appendix D . In the last row, I report the Chi 2 test-statistic from a Wald test of joint statistical significance of natural disaster intensity, the different types of public attention to the natural disaster, and the natural disaster intensity × the public attention to the natural disaster by type of public attention to the natural disaster. The null hypothesis is that the estimated coefficients on all these variables are jointly 0. I use asterisks to denote statistical significance at 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level, respectively. Variable definitions are in Appendix C .

Table 4 shows the joint impact of the public attention to the different types of natural disaster and the intensity of the different types of natural disasters on the likelihood of only debt, the likelihood of only equity, and the likelihood of both debt and equity. The multinomial logistic regression model has three dependent variables: only debt (model 1), only equity (model 2), and both debt and equity (model 3). The base outcome of the multinomial logistic regression model is the fourth dependent variable (no debt and equity). The model includes control variables, year, Fama and French ( 1997 ) industry, and country fixed effects same as from Table  2 of Appendix D . In the last row, I report the Chi 2 test-statistic from a Wald test of joint statistical significance of the intensity of the different types of natural disasters, the different types of public attention to the natural disaster, and the interaction between natural disaster intensity and public interest in natural disasters by type of natural disaster. The null hypothesis is that the estimated coefficients on all these variables are jointly 0. I use asterisks to denote statistical significance at 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level, respectively. Variable definitions are in Appendix C .

Table 5 shows the joint impact of the public attention to the natural disaster and the natural disaster intensity on the likelihood of only debt, the likelihood of only equity, and the likelihood of both debt and equity conditional on the internal financial constraint measure (size of the firm). The multinomial logistic regression model has three dependent variables: only debt (model 1), only equity (model 2), and both debt and equity (model 3). The base outcome of the multinomial logistic regression model is the fourth dependent variable (no debt and equity). The model includes control variables, year, Fama and French ( 1997 ) industry, and country fixed effects same as from Table  2 of Appendix D . In the last row, I report the Chi 2 test-statistic from a Wald test of joint statistical significance of the internal financial constraint measure, natural disaster intensity, the public attention to the natural disaster, and the natural disaster intensity × the public attention to the natural disaster x internal financial constraint measure. The null hypothesis is that the estimated coefficients on all these variables are jointly 0. I use asterisks to denote statistical significance at 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level, respectively. Variable definitions are in Appendix C .

Table 6 shows the joint impact of the public attention to the natural disaster and the natural disaster intensity on the likelihood of only debt, the likelihood of only equity, and the likelihood of both debt and equity conditional on cash holdings. The multinomial logistic regression model has three dependent variables: only debt (model 1), only equity (model 2), and both debt and equity (model 3). The base outcome of the multinomial logistic regression model is the fourth dependent variable (no debt and equity). The model includes control variables, year, Fama and French ( 1997 ) industry, and country fixed effects same as from Table  2 of Appendix D . In the last row, I report the Chi 2 test-statistic from a Wald test of joint statistical significance of natural disaster intensity, public attention to the natural disaster, cash holdings, and the natural disaster intensity × the public attention to the natural disaster  ×  cash holdings. The null hypothesis is that the estimated coefficients on all these variables are jointly 0. I use asterisks to denote statistical significance at 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level, respectively. Variable definitions are in Appendix C .

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Gill, B.S. Natural disasters, public attention and changes in capital structure: international evidence. Ann Finance (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10436-024-00442-9

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Received : 27 December 2023

Accepted : 30 April 2024

Published : 24 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10436-024-00442-9

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