DRC Research
DRC projects have been supported by diverse sources, including: National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sea Grant Program, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI).
Coastal Hazards, Equity, Economic Prosperity and Resilience (CHEER)
DURATION: September 1, 2022 –
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Sarah DeYoung, Joseph Trainor, A.R. Siders[/if 449]
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The UD-led hub — Coastal Hazards, Equity, Economic prosperity and Resilience (CHEER) — is one of five NSF-funded projects announced recently as part of the agency’s Coastlines and People program, which is concentrating its research efforts to protect the natural, social and economic resources of U.S. coasts, and to help create more resilient coastal communities.
This five-year project will be led by Rachel Davidson, a core DRC faculty member and UD professor of civil and environmental engineering. Co-principal investigators include Sarah DeYoung, core DRC faculty member and associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at UD; Linda Nozick, professor and director of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University; Brian Colle, professor and division head of atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University; and Meghan Millea, professor of economics at East Carolina University.
COVID-19: Community Impacts and Adaptation To Crisis: Delawareans Living With HIV/Aids
RESEARCHERS: Tricia Wachtendorf
FUNDING: Internally Funded, Delaware HIV Consortium
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The crisis surrounding COVID-19 impacted communities across the globe. Appreciating that disasters have differential impacts on those affected, this study examined the impact the crisis had on Delawareans living with HIV/AIDS. The study explored issues of preparedness, response, adaptation, and decision-making, among other social consequences, as well as challenges related to health, housing, finances, and support. Over 50 interviews were conducted with clients of the Delaware HIV Consortium to better understand their experiences and needs over the course of the pandemic.
DRC RESEARCH PROJECTS: 36
FILTER BY RESEARCH AREA:
4 Climate Change | 5 Humanitarian Assistance | 6 Infrastructure Risk Management | 12 Protective Actions | 14 Public Health | 15 Response | 3 Social Vulnerability | 4 Warning and Risk Perception | CLEAR ALL
FILTER BY CLASSIFICATION:
11 Active Research | 19 Past Research | 5 Student Research | CLEAR ALL
GUR – A Stated Preference Survey to Model Patient Behavior During a Biological Outbreak
RESEARCHERS: Sue McNeil
FUNDING: UD General University Research (GUR)
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
During a large-scale biological outbreak, public health agencies may employ Points of Dispensing (PODs) to distribute medical countermeasures to affected populations. While the public health community has studied the operation of PODs, little attention has been paid to how patients access PODs and whether the transportation system can support POD access. POD patients’ behaviors and decisions represent a significant obstacle for accurately modeling the traffic impacts of POD operations as little is known of how patients make decisions and what influences these decisions. Our goal is to better understand the patient decision-making process during a public health emergency. In this project, we are designing and implementing a web-based stated preference survey. The stated preference survey will address five distinct decisions: “if patients will go to a POD,” “which POD will they go to,” “when will they go to the POD,” “how will they get there,” and “which route will they take.” Additionally, the survey will examine the effects of providing POD information through news outlets and social media. The survey and data collection design are being structured to calibrate a discrete choice model that can be integrated into the existing transportation model to explore additional scenarios.
HAZARDS SEES TYPE 2: Dynamic Integration of Natural, Human, and Infrastructure Systems for Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Tricia Wachtendorf
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
We are developing a new computational framework to support hurricane evacuation management. The framework, called the Integrated Scenario-based Evacuation (ISE), explicitly represents uncertainty in hurricane evolution and can be used to support robust, adaptive, and repeated decision-making. The hazard is represented with an ensemble of probabilistic hurricane scenarios, population behavior with a dynamic decision model, and traffic with a dynamic user equilibrium model. Components are integrated in a multi-stage stochastic program to provide a tree of evacuation order recommendations and an evaluation of the risk and travel time performance for that solution. The recommendations advance the state-of-the-art because: (1) they are based on an integrated hazard assessment that includes the effects of storm surge, wind waves, tides, river discharge, inland flooding, and wind; (2) explicitly balance competing objectives of minimizing risk and travel time; (3) offer a well-hedged solution robust under the range of hurricane evolutions; and (4) leverage the substantial value of decreasing uncertainty during an event. The first version has been developed and demonstrated in North Carolina. Additional PIs: R. Kolar, Oklahoma, B. Blanton, UNC Chapel Hill, L. Nozick, Cornell, and B.Colle Stony Brook
Infrastructure System Damage Modeling with Data from the 2010-2011 Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquakes
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson
FUNDING: Internally Funded
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The goal of this research is to develop new infrastructure system damage models using statistical methods that are new for this application. Specifically, we are analyzing a large, uniquely comprehensive dataset of water supply system damage from the 2010-2011 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes. We are comparing generalized linear models, boosted regression trees, and random forest models to see which provide the best fit to the data and the best predictive power. The research aims to improve prediction of water supply system pipeline damage in future earthquakes and improve methods for modeling lifeline damage in extreme events in general. Co-Principal Investigators: Matthew Hughes (University of Canterbury) and Misko Cubrinovski (University of Canterbury)
JHU/CDC: Composite of Post-Event Well-Being (Copewell)
DURATION: August 15, 2017 – August 14, 2020
RESEARCHERS: James Kendra
FUNDING: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins University
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
COPEWELL is a systems dynamics model of community functioning and well-being during and after a disaster, designed to be used as a predictor, pre-event, of peri- and post-event resilience at the county level. Current project activities include initial sharing of the model, validation, stakeholder engagement, and evaluation. Principal Investigators: Jonathan M. Links, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness; Additional Co-PI: Tom Inglesby, MD, UPMC Center for Health Security
Justice and Evaluation of U.S. Managed Retreat
RESEARCHERS: A.R. Siders
FUNDING: Internally Funded
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Managed retreat – the purposeful movement of people and assets away from hazardous areas – is a controversial and potentially transformative climate adaptation strategy. A series of projects are exploring the environmental justice implications of managed retreat in practice and theory; the potential for managed retreat to promote transformative adaptation; how narratives of retreat in media affect public perceptions; and what lessons can be learned from historic examples.
Mental Health Impacts of the Covid-19 Response on the Public Health Workforce in the U.S.
DURATION: January 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney
FUNDING: Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Research
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The prolonged response to the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the mental health of the public health workforce. As we enter the ninth month of pandemic response with COVID-19 cases surging across the U.S., the pressures placed on the public health workforce are intensifying. Given unprecedented simultaneous challenges – the length, intensity, and politicization of the public health response, the potential for overlapping outbreaks of influenza, and the need to plan and implement a vaccination campaign – it is critical to identify protective factors that may mitigate the ongoing mental health impacts on a public health workforce already near its breaking point.
Mission First, Greyshirts Always: An Exploration into the Reintegration Experiences of Short-Term Volunteers Following Disaster Response Operations
RESEARCHERS: Roni Fraser
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Following a disaster, waves of helpers and voluntary organizations converge to the disaster area and provide immediate assistance and emotional support to survivors. This study sought to expand on previous research related to disaster volunteerism and reentry experiences to contribute to the gap in knowledge related to permanent disaster volunteer re-integration and resilience. Through primary data and qualitative interviews with 25 volunteers from Team Rubicon, a national disaster response nonprofit results found that volunteers engaged in additional volunteer activities and communicated with fellow volunteers as strategies for successful post-operation re-integration. Through a social capital approach, bonding and bridging capital was crucial in the development of resilience among volunteers. This study is critical to consider given the reliance on volunteers in the disaster response and recovery process and the need to ensure the mental well-being of disaster survivors and disaster volunteers. To best promote the resilience capacity among volunteers, organizations should focus on the volunteer experience related to billet conditions, diversity of membership and volunteer roles, development of organizational trust, and appreciation of volunteer service throughout the volunteer’s membership. Future research should expand on these findings by quantitatively exploring the volunteer reentry experience with a larger sample of NVOAD volunteers and the role that linking capital may have in influencing the volunteer reentry experience.
NFWF: Resilience Through Regeneration in Northeast Wilmington
DURATION: January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney
FUNDING: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The project uses innovative “resilience through regeneration” design techniques that capitalize on the reuse of vacant and abandoned properties for green infrastructure and use landscape performance measures to quantify resilience and flood risk reduction benefits. Together with hydrologic and flood resilience, social, economic, and public health performance of designs will be measured and reported to the community based on their expressed priorities for improvements to public health, recreational access, and economic opportunities and to federal, state, and local stakeholders that will be involved in future funding, permitting, and implementation of the resilient masterplan for Northeast Wilmington.
NIEHS: Comprehensive Tools and Models for Addressing Exposure to Mixtures During Environmental Emergency-Related Contamination Events
DURATION: April 1, 2017 – March 31, 2022
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney
FUNDING: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Comprehensive tools and models for addressing exposure to mixtures during environmental emergency-related contamination events. Overall Program Description: Climate change and shifts in domestic economic activity markedly increase risks from catastrophic chemical contamination events resulting from weather-related or anthropogenic emergencies. The complexities of hazardous chemical exposures, potential adverse health impacts, and the need to rapidly and comprehensively evaluate the potential hazards of exposures to complex mixtures call for novel approaches in the Superfund Research Program. This Center brings together a team of scientists from biomedical, geosciences, data science and engineering disciplines to design comprehensive solutions for complex exposure- and hazard-related challenges. Our overall theme is to characterize and manage both existing and environmental emergency-created hazardous waste sites through the development of the tools that can be used by first responders, the impacted communities, and the government bodies involved in site management and cleanup. Our case study is a hurricane or flooding event that impacts Galveston Bay/Houston Ship Channel area and leads to exposure to contaminated sediments.
NSF COLLAB RSH CRISP TYPE 2: Defining and Optimizing Societal Objectives for the Earthquake Risk Management of Critical Infrastructure
DURATION: September 1, 2017 – August 31, 2021
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, James Kendra
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Critical infrastructure systems, such as electric power and water supply, must be designed, managed, and operated so they function reliably and efficiently even in the case of an extreme event. Nevertheless, the way infrastructure system services meet societal needs and the way disruptions of those services impair the ability to meet societal needs are not well understood. In this project, we will define the societal objectives for infrastructure system performance in earthquakes and develop a method to comprehensively optimize a broad range of risk management strategies to meet them, including component design, upgrading, and repair and restoration planning. Specific project tasks include: (1) Developing a probabilistic scenario-based model of the risk of multiple infrastructure systems to earthquakes with the ability to evaluate alternative risk management strategies; (2) Integrating the complementary strengths of social media, household surveys, and economic impact analyses to empirically assess societal objectives, users’ adaptive strategies in responding to disruptions, and the relationships between them and traditional measures of system functioning; (3) Developing an optimization model to optimize risk management to meet societal objectives; and (4) Demonstrating models through a full-scale case study for electric power and water in collaboration with our partners at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
DRC RESEARCH PROJECTS: 36
FILTER BY RESEARCH AREA:
4 Climate Change | 5 Humanitarian Assistance | 6 Infrastructure Risk Management | 12 Protective Actions | 14 Public Health | 15 Response | 3 Social Vulnerability | 4 Warning and Risk Perception | CLEAR ALL
FILTER BY CLASSIFICATION:
11 Active Research | 19 Past Research | 5 Student Research | CLEAR ALL
NSF EAGER: Risk Objects In Public Health Crisis: An Exploratory Investigation Of Stigma, Role-Triage, And Cautionary Measures
DURATION: October 1, 2015 – August 31, 2019
RESEARCHERS: James Kendra, Tricia Wachtendorf
ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATOR: Sarah Sisco, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
DRC, in partnership with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will conduct research on the management of the Ebola crisis in NYC. This study focuses on the generation of stigma in epidemic (or epidemic threatened) environments. In particular, we explore who is involved in the generation of stigma labels, why these labels emerge, the consequences they generate, and how various stakeholders promote, resist, or contend with stigma. The project seeks to learn how public officials, in an environment of scientific uncertainty and multijurisdictional conflict and contradiction, can counter stigmatization and mitigate the creation of risk.
NSF HAZARD SEES TYPE 2: Next Generation, Resilient Warning Systems For Tornados And Flash Floods
RESEARCHERS: Joseph Trainor
ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATOR: Brenda Philips, Umass Amherst)
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
On this project, researchers are working as part of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary team to explore the basic science to support the next generation of warning systems for rapid-onset hazards such as tornadoes and flash floods. In particular, we are working to better understand how to predict and disseminate warnings in shorter time windows and with smaller warning spaces. In order to do this, the project combines new radar and mobile phone technology with an improved understanding of human responses to warnings in order to better meet the goal of keeping people and property safe. DRC researchers are using focus groups, surveys, and short questionnaires on a cell phone app to better understand how people decide if specific weather is threatening or not. In addition to other factors, we are specifically focused on how different times and places people find themselves in when they receive warnings might change how they respond to them. We are also exploring how warnings delivered on mobile phones differ from other types of dissemination methods. For example, we are examining the ability of apps to deliver individualized storm warning information to people and whether people give their attention differently to warnings received through their phones than they might to more traditional methods of warning delivery.
NSF HDBE: Collaborative Research: Leveraging Massive Smartphone Location Data to Improve Understanding and Prediction of Behavior in Hurricanes
DURATION: September 1, 2020 – August 31, 2023
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Tricia Wachtendorf, Sarah DeYoung
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
In this project, newly available anonymous smartphone location data will be used to dramatically improve understanding of how people behave during hurricanes (e.g., how many people will evacuate, when, how, from where, and to where). In this project, we will promote the progress of science by capitalizing on the availability of a new type of data—anonymous location information from smartphones—to make a leap forward in understanding and predicting the behavior of the population during hurricane evacuations. The project will advance national welfare and benefit society by substantially improving the ability to manage future evacuations. During a hurricane, officials make many highly consequential decisions, including issuing official evacuation orders, messaging the public, opening shelters, staging materials, and staff, implementing special traffic plans, executing support for vehicle-less populations, and preparing to undertake rescues. All of these depend directly on how many people are expected to evacuate, when, how, from where, and to where. By providing a more accurate and nuanced prediction of population behavior during hurricanes, this project will enable officials to make those decisions in a more informed and effective way. Our practitioner partners from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Florida and North Carolina state emergency management agencies will also help us share findings with the larger emergency management community. Combining the power of the new data with domain expertise based on traditional survey and interview data will advance the science.
NSF LEAP HI: Embedding Regional Hurricane Risk Management in the Life of a Community: A Computational Framework
DURATION: September 1, 2018 – August 31, 2023
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Joseph Trainor
FUNDING: Cornell University, East Carolina University, National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
A breakthrough in disaster risk reduction will require an approach that views disasters not as abnormal events but as a regular part of a community’s evolution, and disaster risk management as inextricably interwoven with the normal activities of everyday life. In this project, a novel computational modeling framework will be developed using this approach to improve understanding of the underlying dynamics that lead to escalating regional natural disaster risk, and to support design and analysis of public policy interventions to address them. In a system-wide analysis, the Multistakeholder Disaster Risk Management (MDRM) framework will explicitly consider perspectives of and interactions among multiple key stakeholders (government, primary insurers, and homeowners), multiple diverse interventions (e.g., home strengthening, insurance, land use planning), and not just actions that are explicitly risk-focused but “risk-influential” actions as well. The MDRM computational framework will include seven interacting mathematical models representing physically-based simulation of damage, losses, and ways to strengthen homes; decision-making by each main stakeholder type including oligopolistic competition among insurers; and the changing building inventory and regional economy that provide the context. It will be developed with a full-scale application for hurricanes in North Carolina. This project promises improved understanding of the creation and management of regional natural disaster risk by, for the first time, uniting the conceptualization of disasters as part of the normal life of a community with the power of quantitative, dynamic engineering modeling of risk, decision-making, and economics. Principal Investigators: Linda Nozick, Cornell University, and Jamie Kruse, East Carolina University
NSF SCC-CIVIC-PG TRACK B: An Integrated Scenario-Based Hurricane Evacuation Management Tool to Support Community Preparedness
DURATION: February 1, 2021 – May 31, 2021
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Tricia Wachtendorf
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
As a hurricane approaches, emergency managers must determine when and where to issue official evacuation orders. It requires integrating large amounts of uncertain, changing information to make consequential decisions in a short time frame under pressure, and the stakes are high. An opportunity exists to leverage recent research—in particular, the Integrated Scenario-based Evacuation (ISE) tool—to help meet that challenge. This team designed the ISE tool to be run for a particular hurricane as it approaches the U.S. When run at a point in time, it generates a set of contingency plans and defines the circumstances under which to implement each, depending on how the hurricane evolves. Each plan includes recommendations about whether or not to issue an evacuation order for each geographic evacuation zone, and if so, when. While the new technology has promise, moving from research to practice brings its own challenges. The objectives of Stage 1, therefore, are to: (1) Determine how the new tool and its output can support emergency managers’ natural decision-making process; (2) Conduct a needs assessment for the tool; and (3) Advance understanding of community innovation in disaster management. The Stage 2 objective is to implement an operational prototype of the ISE-based decision support tool for North Carolina. The emergency manager partners will ensure the tool is of practical use; the researchers will ensure it reflects the best science, and the industry partner will ensure its impact is sustainable by hosting it on their platform.
NSF: Information Chain Support for Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery
RESEARCHERS: James Kendra
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
This project seeks to develop and implement a tuple based information retrieval system that efficiently retrieves information from the big data environment, i.e. InfoChain. This system is being designed for practical application in the emergency management information environment and is being evaluated as it interfaces with the Disaster Research Center’s existing Resource Collection catalog database, DISCAT. Currently, a new search engine is being developed that will provide enhanced functionality and capabilities to DISCAT. The platform is also being designed with broader applications beyond emergency management information mining in mind.
NSF: Multi-Perspective Evacuation Performance
DURATION: September 1, 2015 – August 31, 2020
RESEARCHERS: Joseph Trainor
FUNDING: National Science Foundation
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
This project combines sociological, engineering, and economics approaches to explore the question of what makes an evacuation a success or a failure. This question is explored from two perspectives: that of the transportation agencies charged with managing an evacuation, and that of the individual households who participate in the evacuation. Through focus groups, a survey, and simulations, this project is exploring how these two groups experience evacuations, and by what criteria they deem an evacuation “good” or “bad”. The project will attempt to quantify these criteria into measurable variables, which can be used to form models to evaluate how much of a success or failure an evacuation is, according to these two perspectives. These models could be used to evaluate the impact of different evacuation strategies, in order to enable authorities to conduct evacuations that are more successful, both for the agencies that manage them and the households that participate in them. Project Status as of January 2018: The design phase of the project has been concluded, and the design of data collection instruments is complete. IRB approval on design and data collection methodology and instruments has been obtained, and the project has entered the data collection phase. Additional Principal Investigators: Pamela Murray-Tuite (Virginia Tech), Praveen Edara (University of Missouri), Konstantinos Triantis (Virginia Tech)
Promoting Community Resilience In New York City After Hurricane Sandy: A Model-Based Approach
RESEARCHERS: James Kendra
FUNDING: Johns Hopkins University, New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene Office, US Department of Health and Human Services
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
This project is a collaborative effort between the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, and the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A sample of 2,087 households were randomly sampled using random digit dialing to cell phones and landlines in NYC between September 2014 and May 2015. The project aims to identify factors that influence community resistance, resilience, and recovery in NYC; develop a predictive model of resilience; and, identify possible candidate interventions in order to promote disaster resilience and recovery strategies in NYC. Principal Investigators: Jonathan M. Links, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness, and Sarah Sisco, New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
The Emergency Medical Services Delivery in Mass Gathering Events: A Case Study Of The Hajj
RESEARCHERS: Abdulhadi Al Ruwaithi
FUNDING: Umm al-Qura University
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Mass gatherings occur more frequently in today’s world, and they have increased in size and magnitude. They can be organized/regular events or non-organized/irregular events, local or international, and peaceful or aggressive. One of the best well-known of these international mass-gathering events is the Hajj (or pilgrimage to Mecca), which occurs annually when over three million people come to a defined area within a very well-known schedule to perform a set of specific Islamic rituals. Over its long history, the Hajj has been prone to many documented risks -either security-related risks, health-related, or others- which are attributed to factors such as transportation, human mistakes, and diverse international attendance. Several instances happened in the past when those risks materialized. It is in this context that studying the response of public health and emergency organizations in these mass-gathering events can generate knowledge for improving the safety of those attending these events. This dissertation project focuses on investigating the emergency medical services delivery system in the Hajj sites, to reveal the factors associated with the EMS systems’ successes and failures during both regular times and emergencies. The project aims to understand factors that impact the EMS process within the Hajj mass gathering context. A mixed-methods approach is utilized by which the patients’ presentation statistics are analyzed and a stratified sample of EMS ambulance crews are interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The quantitative approach is used to evaluate the EMS response time and inform the sample stratification process. The qualitative approach (interview data) is used to evaluate the intra- and inter-organizational coordination between the ambulance operators and other agencies in the Hajj.
TNC: Legal Tools for Floodplain Management
RESEARCHERS: A.R. Siders
FUNDING: The Nature Conservancy
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Climate change and development are exacerbating flood-risk across the United States. Numerous legal tools exist to help local governments minimize flood risk, and this project seeks to understand and address challenges that limit the ability of local governments to use these tools or shape the outcomes they are able to achieve. The team developed communication tools to facilitate conversations about managed retreat with government officials and members of the public. Interviews with officials who have administered floodplain property acquisition programs explore how federal policy shapes local decisions and how variations in local administration affect participant outcomes. Case studies of municipalities that have adopted progressive development regulations explore what factors enable the adoption and enforcement of progressive laws.
