RAPID: Emergence of ethnic social network and disaster resilience

飓风哈维是灾难性的和极具破坏性的，它给救灾、恢复和重建带来了前所未有的挑战。许多研究对危机管理和灾后恢复支助模式进行了审查。然而，这些研究工作大多集中在紧急服务提供商之间的时间关键信息共享上。相比之下，通过基层努力有机形成的社会支持小组利用社交媒体的互动性质，允许其用户积极参与双向或多路对话、发表评论和反应，这可能有助于提供纠正低质量信息的机会。该项目通过将社会资本理论融入正在发生的风险事件的背景下，促进了对风险沟通的理解，这使得可以评估正在形成的风险认知和动态的风险沟通行为。本研究以休斯顿的华裔美国人社区为研究对象，他们通过流行的社交媒体平台微信团结在一起。该项目的灵感来自与哈维有第一手经验的受害者的故事，考察了这个新兴的种族网络以及它如何有助于灾难恢复能力，灾难恢复能力的定义是一个社区承受逆境和从逆境中恢复的持续能力。在现有的线上和线下社交网络的支持下，整个社区的抗灾能力得到了提高，因为当紧急服务提供商和政府机构的接入中断时，普通公民能够直接和有效地获得有用的信息和其他社会支持。尽管聚焦于一个特定的种族群体可能看起来很微观，但这一案例研究将为受共同地理位置限制的其他社区提供更广泛的影响。具体而言，这项研究的目标是在美籍华裔微信用户中进行一项调查，以1)评估个人的属性，包括他们的心理属性，如危险经历和风险认知，以及人口属性，如收入、职业和教育；2)收集关系数据，如联系人、关系和人脉，以及群体依恋和融入当地社区；3)确定关键意见领袖，并制定有效的救援/恢复信息传播路径。研究目标是确定(1)现有支持小组的网络结构，包括线上和线下，并跟踪其在哈维事件后立即恢复期间的发展和演变；(2)表示这些网络中关键意见领袖的人口统计和心理特征；以及(3)提高当地社区抗灾能力的最有价值的信息来源和信息共享途径。数据收集需要对休斯敦大都市地区的华裔美国居民进行调查，他们使用社交媒体应用微信。在估计误差为±4%，95%的置信度水平下，需要590个样本量才能很好地代表休斯敦的华裔美国人，大约33,000人。

Hurricane Harvey was catastrophic and extremely destructive and it presented unprecedented challenges for disaster relief, recovery, and rebuild. Numerous studies have examined the crisis management and disaster recovery support paradigm. Most of these research efforts, however, have focused on time critical information sharing among emergency service providers. In contrast, social support groups that are formed organically through grassroots efforts take advantage of the interactive nature of social media and allow their users to actively engage in two-way or multi-way conversations, post comments and reactions, which may serve to offer opportunities for correction of low-quality information. This project advances understanding of risk communication by incorporating social capital theories in the context of an ongoing risk event, which allows the assessment of risk perceptions as they are being formed and risk communication behaviors in motion.This research focuses on the Chinese American community in Houston, who were united through the popular social media platform WeChat. The project, inspired by stories from victims with first-hand experience with Harvey, examines this burgeoning ethnic network and how it contributes to disaster resilience, which is defined as the sustained ability of a community to withstand and recover from adversity. Buttressed by existing online and offline social networks, the entire community's disaster resilience improved because ordinary citizens were able to receive useful information and other social support directly and efficiently, when access to emergency service providers and government agencies was disrupted. Although focusing on one particular ethnic group may appear microscopic, this case study will offer broader implications for other communities bounded by a shared geographic location. RAPID Specifically, the goal of the proposed research is to conduct a survey among Chinese American WeChat users to 1) assess attributes of individuals, including their psychological attributes such as hazard experience and risk perception, as well as demographic attributes such as incomes, occupation, and education; 2) gather relational data, such as contacts, ties and connections, and group attachments and embeddedness into the local community; 3) identify key opinion leaders and map out effective pathways for the dissemination of relief/recovery information. The research objectives are to determine (1) the network structures of existing support groups, both online and offline, and track their development and evolvement during the immediate recovery periods post-Harvey; (2) the demographic and psychographic attributes that denote key opinion leaders in these networks; and, (3) the most valuable information sources and pathways of information sharing that improve disaster resilience in the local community. The data collection entails a survey among Chinese American residents of the metropolitan Houston area who use the social media application WeChat. With an estimated margin of error at ±4%, 95% confidence level, the sample size needed is 590 to provide good representation of the Chinese American population in Houston, approximately 33,000.