Managing Evacuee Ingress: Network Interactions and Community Hosting Performance

该项目解决了灾害期间大规模疏散的相关挑战。先前关于灾难疏散的研究主要集中在如何以及为什么大量的人离开灾区。相反，该项目关注的是社区如何吸收和管理迁入其地区的撤离人员的需求。这是一个重要的问题，因为撤离人员的需求远远超出了如何让他们远离危险的狭隘问题。该研究将着眼于政府机构在疏散期间如何与非政府机构（如志愿组织、信仰团体和私营部门服务提供者，如养老院）进行互动。具体来说，它考察了(1)在管理进入特定地理区域的撤离人员时，政府和非政府组织如何共同完成关键任务；(2)政府和非政府组织在接待撤离人员时如何以及为什么互动和合作（或为什么不互动）；(3)这些组织互动对撤离人员的疏散管理实践和结果意味着什么。研究人员将开发一个分析框架，通过检查佛罗里达州、阿拉巴马州、德克萨斯州和路易斯安那州最近的主要飓风疏散，来解释疏散管理的表现；它还将这些地区的结果与俄克拉荷马州和加利福尼亚州的其他主要疏散进行比较。调查人员将通过创建与疏散管理相关的社区资源清单，测量和评估组织“网络”如何相互作用，以及通过识别、测量和评估“托管”社区中疏散人员管理绩效的关键指标来进行分析。这个项目的好处体现在几个方面。该研究的潜在影响包括：(1)通过更好地了解社区在接待即将到来的撤离人员方面的表现来改善未来的规划和准备工作，(2)改善该地区的规划和准备工作，特别是帮助那些最容易受到疏散负面影响的人（例如老年人，残疾人，低收入家庭），以及(3)推进该地区的研究生和专业培训。该项目在研究创新方面也有好处：(1)它首次提供了系统的经验证据，说明了政府和非政府组织（包括非营利组织和营利性组织）的网络如何单独或协调地应对灾难疏散，以管理进入托管地区的撤离人员的需求；(2)它确定并提供了一份社区层面的绩效指标清单，用于衡量撤离人员迁入新地区时的需求得到了多大程度的满足——这些指标目前尚不存在；(3)它提供了证据，说明当社区被要求管理进入其地区的撤离人员的需求时，哪些因素对社区相对较强或较弱的绩效最重要。总之，这个项目代表的研究将有助于改善美国的灾难疏散管理实践。

This project addresses challenges associated with mass evacuations during disasters. Prior research on disaster evacuations has mostly focused on how, and why, large numbers of people move out of a disaster area. This project instead addresses how well communities can absorb and manage the needs of evacuees moving into their area. This is an important issue because the needs of evacuees extend well beyond the narrow question of how to get them out of harm's way. The study will look at how governmental agencies interact with nongovernmental agencies (e.g. voluntary organizations, faith-based groups, and private sector service providers like nursing homes) during an evacuation. Specifically, it examines (1) how governmental and nongovernmental organizations perform in terms of working together on critical tasks when managing evacuees entering a given geographic area, (2) how and why governmental and nongovernmental organizations interact and collaborate (or why not) while hosting evacuees, and (3) what these organizational interactions mean for evacuation management practices and outcomes for evacuees. The researchers will develop an analytic framework to explain evacuation management performance by examining recent major hurricane evacuations in Florida, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana; it will also compare outcomes in those areas to other major evacuations in Oklahoma and California. The investigators will conduct analyses by creating an inventory of community resources related to evacuation management, measuring and assessing how "networks" of organizations interact, and by identifying, measuring and assessing key indicators of evacuee management performance in a "hosting" community.The benefits of this project take several forms. The potential impacts of the study include the following: (1) improving future planning and preparedness efforts by better understanding community performance in terms of hosting incoming evacuees, (2) improving planning and preparedness in this area especially helps those most vulnerable to the negative effects of an evacuation (e.g. elderly, disabled persons, lower incomes families), and (3) advancing graduate student and professional training in this area. The project also offers benefits in terms of research innovation: (1) for the first time, it provides systematic empirical evidence that accounts for how networks of governmental and nongovernmental organizations (both nonprofit and for-profit) separately, and in coordination, respond to disaster evacuation on the issue of managing the needs of evacuees entering a hosting area, (2) it identifies and provides a list of performance measures at a community level for how well the needs of evacuees are met when they move into a new area - measures that do not exist at present, and (3) it produces evidence on what factors are most important to relatively stronger or weaker performance for communities when they are required to manage the needs of evacuees entering their area. In sum, this project represents research that will help improve disaster evacuation management practices in the United States.