SCC-PG: Online Role-Playing Games for Improving Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration in Concurrent Disaster Response Planning

有效的社区级灾后应对和恢复需要协调参与应对的所有利益攸关方的行动。但是，现有的灾害响应和恢复管理方法通常低估了这种多方利益相关者协调的作用，特别是社区居民的参与。文献还就如何应对重叠或同时发生的灾害提供了有限的建议，特别是在其中一场灾害是大流行病的情况下。当地方当局必须同时应对多个事件时，这就成了问题；对特定灾害（如大流行病）的反应是孤立的；同时发生的灾难加剧了对社会弱势群体成员不成比例的影响。因此，对“重叠”或“并发”灾害进行有效和公平的响应规划需要更好和更有效的理解。这项智能和互联社区规划拨款（SCC-PG）研究推进了美国国家科学基金会的使命，即通过对面对多种灾害时影响不同社区利益相关者灾害响应行动的因素产生科学知识，促进科学进步。本研究还促进了对利益相关者合作在灾害应对规划中的作用和价值及其成功因素的认识。最后，本研究推进了NSF的使命，即通过关注山间西部地区的灾害响应，促进国家健康、繁荣和当地社区的福利，山间西部地区面临着快速和缓慢发生的灾害事件（如野火、极端高温事件、地震和气候变化）的重大风险。该SCC-PG项目采用社区参与技术、定性调查方法和桌面角色扮演游戏（RPG），为开发在线多人ai介导的RPG奠定基础，以改善利益相关者之间的协作，以应对同时发生的灾害。该项目考察了四个研究主题：i)影响各种社区利益相关者（如居民、非营利组织、政府和公用事业供应商）响应决策的因素；（ii）改善利益相关者之间的互动和协作以作出反应所需的信息、数据或通信结构类型；信息交流和协作对个人和集体一级作出的应对决定的影响；（四）多利益攸关方同时灾害应对规划的有效和公平的沟通或协作结构的特点。这项研究的结果以及随后的SCC-IRG研究将有助于任何从事灾害应对规划的社区确定既更加公平又能同时应对流行病和其他灾害的应对行动，并将社会和基础设施层面结合起来的应对行动。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Effective community-level post-disaster response and recovery requires that actions of all stakeholders involved in response be coordinated. But existing approaches to disaster response and recovery management typically underemphasize the role of such multi-stakeholder coordination, particularly the involvement of community residents. Literature also provides limited advice on how to address overlapping or concurrent disasters, especially where one of the disasters is a pandemic. This becomes problematic when local authorities must respond to multiple events at once; when response to specific disasters (e.g., pandemics) is siloed; and when disaster concurrency exacerbates disproportional impact on socially vulnerable community members. Effective and equitable response planning for ‘overlapping’ or ‘concurrent’ disasters, therefore, requires better and more effective understanding and this Smart and Connected Communities Planning Grant (SCC-PG) study advances the NSF’s mission to promote the progress of science by generating scientific knowledge of factors affecting disaster response actions of diverse community stakeholders in the face of multiple hazards. This study also advances knowledge of the role and value of inter-stakeholder collaboration in disaster response planning as well its success factors. Lastly, this study advances NSF’s mission to promote national health, prosperity, and welfare of local communities by focusing on disaster response in the Intermountain West, which is at significant risk from fast and slow-onset disaster events such as wildfires, extreme heat events, earthquakes, and climate change.This SCC-PG project employs community engagement techniques, qualitative inquiry methods and table-top role-playing games (RPGs) to lay the foundation for development of an online multi-player AI-mediated RPG to improve inter-stakeholder collaboration in response planning for concurrently occurring disasters. The project examines four research topics: i) factors affecting response decisions of various community stakeholders (such as residents, non-profits, government, and utility providers); (ii) types of information, data or communication structures needed to improve inter-stakeholder interaction and collaboration for response; (iii) effect of information exchange and collaboration on response decisions made at the individual and collective level; and (iv) characteristics of effective and equitable communication or collaboration structures for multi-stakeholder response planning for concurrent disasters. The results of this study and the subsequent SCC-IRG research will help any community undertaking disaster response planning to identify response actions that are at once more equitable, can work simultaneously for pandemics and other disasters, and integrate social and infrastructural dimensions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.