Collaborative Research: E-Government and the Preparation of Citizens for Natural Disasters

市县网站提供了一种新的创新方法来帮助公民减少自然灾害事件的影响。 虽然大多数地方都制定了灾害计划并投资于当地应急管理以应对灾后，但个别家庭的准备工作却远远不够，少数民族家庭的准备率特别低。 传统的风险和防备沟通模式未能影响或激励居民做好防灾准备。 社区网站是加强灾害准备的潜在强大工具。 然而，目前对于地方政府发展的研究却几乎没有。社区居民进行危险准备或使用该信息技术的网站。 这项研究将调查地方政府和居民使用万维网传递和接收风险和准备信息的情况。研究区域将是洛杉矶和迈阿密的社区；这两个地区都遭受自然灾害，洛杉矶地区发生地震，迈阿密地区发生飓风。 该研究将利用多种数据收集方法和数据源，考察地方政府为风险沟通和灾害准备而开发网站的决策过程；地方政府网站获取灾害相关信息的可用性；以及风险沟通和备灾网页对激励居民采取积极措施的潜在影响。网站评价数据和居民调查数据将与二手来源相结合进行多元统计分析。 将选择八个司法管辖区进行案例研究。 将与当地政府专业人员和官员进行访谈，并对这些数据以及背景材料进行定性分析。 这项研究的结果将为电子政务和具有重要智力价值的危害文献做出独特的贡献。 这项研究将信息技术、政府和公民聚集在一起，围绕一个重要的社区问题：为灾难做好准备。 它将极大地有助于我们了解地方政府对网络的总体使用以及危害；向政策制定者和专业人士提供有关地方政府主页的使用、覆盖范围和设计的有价值的信息；并审查围绕技术、社区安全和公民服务的公共决策过程。 该研究还将对教育和整个社会产生更广泛的影响。 研究结果将为政策制定者提供有关通过网络进行风险沟通以及使用社区网站进行备灾的障碍的宝贵信息。这些知识可用于消除障碍，改善与少数种族/族裔的危险沟通，激励公民加强灾害规划，从而有望有助于减少灾害造成的人员和财产损失。

City and county websites offer a new and innovative method to help citizens reduce the impacts of natural disaster events. While most localities prepare a disaster plan and invest in local emergency management to respond after disasters, individual households are far less prepared, and preparedness rates are particularly low for racial/ethnic minority households. The traditional modes of risk and preparedness communication have failed to reach or motivate residents to prepare for disasters. The community website is a potentially powerful tool to increase hazard preparedness. However, there is virtually no research on the development of local governments. web sites for hazard preparation or the usability of this information technology by community residents. This research will investigate the use of the World Wide Web by local governments and residents for delivering and receiving risk and preparedness information. Study areas will be communities in the Los Angeles and Miami; both areas are subject to natural disasters, earthquakes in the Los Angeles area andhurricanes in the Miami region. Using multiple data collection methods and sources of data, the research will examine the local government decision-making process for website development for risk communication and hazard preparedness; usability of local government websites for hazard-related information; and the potential impact of risk communication and disaster preparedness Web pages in motivating residents to take proactive measures. Website evaluation data and resident survey data will be combined with secondary sources formultivariate statistical analysis. Eight jurisdictions will be selected for case studies. Interviews with local government professional staff and officials will be conducted and these data, along with background materials, will be analyzed qualitatively. The results ofthis research will provide a unique contribution to the E-government and hazards literature of significant intellectual merit. The study brings together information technology, government, and citizens around a critical community issue: preparing for disasters. It will contribute significantly to our understanding of local government use of the web in general as well as for hazards; provide valuable information to policy makers and professionals about the use, coverage, and design of local government home pages; and examine the public decision-making process surrounding technology, community safety, and service to citizens. The research also will have broader impacts to education and society as a whole. The results of the research will provide valuable information to policymakers about risk communication via the web, and about impediments to use of their communities' websites for disaster preparedness. This knowledge can be used to remove barriers, improve hazard communication to racial/ethnic minorities, motivate increased disaster planning by citizens, and thus, promises to contribute to a reduction in human and property losses from disasters.