RAPID: Field Investigation on the Socio-Technical Features of Post-Disaster Re-sponse Logistics in the Aftermath of the Nepal Earthquake

灾害会造成毁灭性的人员、社会和经济损失。这些事件的极端和经常是突然的性质给参与运送重要救济物资的组织带来了重大挑战。毫无疑问，确保救灾物资的有效和及时流动是一项具有挑战性的工作，具有巨大的经济和社会影响。提高灾后人道主义后勤（PD-HL）的技术水平和实践水平是极其重要的。作为快速反应研究基金（Rapid）资助的实地工作的一部分，该小组将研究当地社会网络（当地社区的一个组成部分）如何与作为救灾工作一部分的技术任务相互作用。这一点很重要，因为研究已经强调了PD-HL操作中社会和技术方面之间相互作用的性质会影响灾害响应的有效性。这些“社会技术互动”反映了技术任务的结构方式，以及社会网络集成（或不集成）和执行技术任务的方式。在灾后环境中，整个社会系统都处于压力之下，PD-HL的社会方面具有巨大的重要性，在决定工作的有效性方面发挥着巨大的作用。从实际的灾害反应中学习对于帮助减少灾害对我们的公民和经济的负面影响是非常重要的。该小组将研究社会网络识别、收集、运送和分发救援物资的机制。具体来说，团队将收集有关组织参与、活动、角色、协作和位置的易逝数据。这些数据将用于测试从先前事件中得出的假设，这些假设利用了对社会技术相互作用如何影响反应的洞察。数据收集将包括与参与PD-HL工作的个人进行简短、非正式和深入的访谈，访谈涉及各级行动（例如，国际、国家、区域、地方和社区各级），来自所有团体（例如，已建立的、紧急的、扩展的）和各级权力（例如，决策者、业务人员）。此外，还将收集关键和非关键供应流量估计、救灾工作面临的挑战、为应对挑战而制定的解决方案以及关键供应品未满足需求的估计等方面的信息。这项工作非常重要，因为加强对社会技术相互作用的了解将有助于实施促进灾害反应效率和限制有问题的做法和行为的负面影响的程序。这样做将减少灾害对美国和国外的总体影响。

Disasters can generate devastating human, social, and economic losses. The extreme and frequently sudden nature of these events poses significant challenges for the organizations involved in the delivery of critical relief supplies. Ensuring an efficient and timely flow of critical supplies to a disaster is, without any doubt, a challenging endeavor with huge economic and social impacts. Improving the state of the art and practice of post-disaster humanitarian logistics (PD-HL) is extremely important. As part of the fieldwork funded by this Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant, the team will study how the local social networks - an integral part of the local community - interact with the technical tasks that are part of the relief effort. This is important because research has highlighted that the nature of the interactions between the social and the technical aspects in PD-HL operations influence disaster response effectiveness. These "socio-technical interactions" reflect the way in which the technical tasks are structured, and the way in which the social networks are integrated (or not) and perform the technical tasks. In post-disaster environments - where the entire social system is under stress, the social aspects of PD-HL acquire tremendous importance - playing a huge role in determining the effectiveness of the effort. Learning from actual disaster responses is an important to help minimize the negative impacts of disasters on our citizens and the economy.The team will study the mechanisms through which social networks identify, gather, deliver, and distribute relief supplies. Specifically, the team will collect perishable data on organizational involvement, activity, roles, collaboration, and location. These data will be used to test assumptions derived from pre-vious events taking advantage of the insight gained on how the socio-technical interactions influence the response. Data collection will include short and informal and in-depth interviews with the individuals involved in the PD-HL efforts, at all levels of action (e.g., international, national, regional, local, and community levels), from all groups (e.g., established, emergent, extending), and at all levels of power (e.g., decision-makers, operational personnel). Furthermore, information will be gathered on critical and non-critical supply flow estimates, challenges to the relief effort, solutions developed to contend with challenges, and estimates of unmet demands of critical supplies. The work is very important because an enhanced understanding of the socio-technical interactions will facilitate the implementation of procedures that foster disaster response effectiveness and limit the negative impacts of problematic practices and behaviors. Doing so would reduce the overall impacts of disasters in the United States and abroad.