Disaster research

Wenger, D.E. 1987. Collective behavior and disaster research. Pp. 213-238 in Sociology of Disasters Contribution of Sociology to Disaster Research, R.R. Dynes, B. De Marchi, and C. Pelanda, eds. Milan, Italy Franco Angeli Libri. 

Dynes, R. R., Quaranteiii, E. L. (1977). Organizational communications and decision making in crisis. Disaster Research... 

Center Report Series No. 17 Available from Disaster Research Center, Newark, Delaware. 

Geospatial Information System (GIS) with pre-loaded demographic and standardized data definitions for all frequently used sources of government information is a powerful tool for disaster research and nurses are ideally situated to use the tool because of their close relationship with communities. It may be impractical for a researcher from outside the local community to populate a GIS in advance since disasters do not follow a predictable pattern. However, a populated GIS that is utilized for community-based public health research could be designed during the prevention and preparedness phases of disaster planning. 

Sorting out the ethical issues in relation to conducting research in disasters is a worthwhile starting point. Ownership of data can be an issue. If data are collected in a community that has just experienced a disaster, the data belongs to that community. They should have first call on the dissemination and implementation of findings. Just as in mainstream health care research where participants in the form of patient groups are heavily involved in research so too should be the case in disaster research. Nurses are in a prime position to develop this process whether they wish to use an action research approach or carry out projects that are immedi-... 

Lavin, R. P. (2006). HIPAA and disaster research Preparing to conduct research. Disaster Management and Response, 4(2), 32-37. 

Around 50000 survivors are estimated to be suffering from long-term health effects that are termed as Bhopal syndrome due to a lack of information on the exact constituents of the gas cloud other than MIC. The Indian Council for Medical Research established a field office called Bhopal Gas Disaster Research Centre (BGDR) immediately after the accident. In addition, International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB)... 

U of Delaware Disaster Research Center (Nigg) Disaster Recovery as a Social Process and similar studies Multiple Open Literature (www)... 

Emergency Response Following the September 11, 2001, Attack on the World Trade Center. Disaster Research Center, Preliminary Papers, Nr. 329. 

Enarson, E. et al. 2006. Gender and Disaster Foundations and Directions . In Rodriguez, Havidan, et al. (eds). Handbook of Disaster Research, New York Springer, 2006... 

The work of disaster researchers that struck me as most useful when I got to the stage of writing up my own material on the Mods and Rockers was the sequential model that they have developed to describe the phases of a typical disaster. The following is the sort of sequence that has been distinguished ... 

Some of these stages have no exact parallels in the Mods and Rockers case, but a condensed version of this sequence (Warning to cover phases 1 and 2 then Impact then Inventory and Reaction to cover phases 5, 6 and 7) provides a useful analogue. If one compares this to deviancy models such as amplification, there are obvious and crucial differences. For disasters, the sequence has been empirically established in the various attempts to conceptualize the reactions to deviance this is by no means the case. In addition, the transitions within the amplification model or from primary to secondary deviation are supposed to be consequential (i.e. causal) and not merely sequential. In disaster research, moreover, it has been shown how the form each phase takes is affected by the characteristics of the previous stage thus, the scale of the remedy operation is affected by the degree of identification with the victim. This sort of uniformity has not been shown in deviance. 

While parallel processes developed in the warning before each Mods and Rockers event, a crucial difference was that there were very few of the factors tending to produce denial, disbelief, defence and other such end-products described in disaster research. There was little warning before the initial Clacton event, but the inventory build-up and reaction to this and subsequent events was such that the widely disseminated warnings and threats were generally believed. Few were predisposed to erect the elaborate defence mechanisms that are used, for example, to discount the possibility of nuclear warfare. The inventory, particularly the prediction factor, was crucial in building up a reaction to deviance identical to the sensitization which occurs in an effective disaster warning ... 

Eariy journalistic accounts of disasters have given way to more sophisticated methods of data collection and theorization. The body in the USA most responsible for this development is the Disaster Research Group of the National Academy of Science, National Research Council. The most comprehensive accounts of their findings and other research are to be found in G. W. Baker and D. W. Chapman, Man and Society in Disaster (New York Basic Books, 1962) and A. H. Barton, Social Organisation Under Stress A Sociological Review of Disaster Studies (Washington, DC National Academy of Sciences, 1963). See also A. H. Barton, Communities in Disaster (London Ward Lock, 1970). 

From Barton, Social Organization Under Stress op. cit. pp. 14-15 D. W. Chapman, A Brief Introduction to Contemporary Disaster Research , in Baker and Chapman, op. cit. pp. 7-22 j. G. Miller, A Theoretical Review of Individual and Croup Psychological Reaction to Stress , in G. H. Grosser eto/. (Eds), The Threat of Impending Disaster. Contributions to the Psychology of Stress (Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT Press, 1964), pp. 24-32. 

QuaranteUi, E. L. 1980. Evacuation Behavior and Problems Findings and Implications from the Research Literature, Disaster Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. 

Westgate, K. 1975. Flixborough—the Human Response, University of Bradford, Disaster Research Unit, Occasional Paper no. 7, January (reprinted September 1976). 

Rodrigues, H., Enrico, Q., Russel, D. 2006. Handbook of Disaster Research, 611pp. 

Lynch, M.C., The Macondo oil field disaster. Journal of Disaster Research, 6, 2011, 482-485. 

Stallings RA (ed) (2002) Methods of disaster research. Xlibris Corporation, USA... 

Dynes RR, Drabek TE (1994) The structure of disaster research its policy and disciplinary implications. Int J Mass Emerg Disasters 12(l) 5-23... 

Quaratelli EL (1991) More and worse disasters in the future social factors involved. University of Delaware, Disaster Research Center, preliminary paper 173... 

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