Collaborative Research: RUI: Ethics of Care and Compounded Disaster

当灾难发生时，医护人员会迅速做出反应，救治伤员和救治病人。但当灾难接二连三地发生时，会发生什么呢？卫生保健工作者如何应对灾情的持续需求？这个项目记录了医护人员如何应对灾情，照顾病人，以及在一场重大自然灾害后努力重建医疗保健系统。这项研究很重要，因为灾害和突发卫生事件正变得更加频繁和严重。因此，收集有关卫生保健工作人员如何对旷日持久的危机状况做出情绪反应的数据，有助于设计更有效的应对措施。该项目的更广泛影响包括培训人数不足的学生学习人类学，以及扩大人数不足的学生对科学的参与。该项目的数据将被传播，以改善灾后条件下的医疗保健服务。该项目由文化人类学和既定的刺激竞争研究计划联合资助。该项目通过对波多黎各的灾难恢复调查，考察医疗保健提供的伦理是否在“复合灾难”的条件下发生变化。波多黎各的基础设施在2017年被飓风玛丽亚摧毁，并在新冠肺炎大流行开始时仍在持续的紧急状态下运行。这项研究的中心问题是：医护人员在飓风玛丽亚期间和之后的经历是否改变了他们的护理伦理？关爱伦理是指指导和激励那些从事关爱他人工作的人的实践和自我理解。调查人员假设，医护人员发展了一种新的护理伦理，借鉴了先前存在的文化特征，但反映了在飓风玛丽亚之后形成的新的团结感、更高的效率和共同的目标。调查人员预计，这种新的护理伦理是通过地震群和新冠肺炎等复杂灾害的演变或转变的。研究设计包括通过个人访谈、远程焦点小组和现场参与者观察来收集数据。该项目有助于科学地了解灾害改变社区的根本文化过程；复合灾害是否对这些社区产生几何或指数影响；以及在这种情况下，关怀伦理是否会发生根本变化。这个项目产生的理论解释了潜在的文化过程，通过这些过程(1)灾难改变了社区，(2)护理人员建立了帮助灾难恢复过程的实践和自我理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

When a disaster strikes, health care workers spring into response, treat the injured and aid the sick. But what happens when disasters keep happening, one after another? How do health care workers cope with the constant demands of disaster conditions? This project documents how health care workers responded to disaster conditions, cared for patients, and worked to rebuild the health care system following a major natural disaster. The research is important because disasters and health emergencies are becoming more frequent and more severe. Therefore, gathering data on how the health care work force responds emotionally to prolonged crisis conditions can aid in designing more effective responses. The broader impacts of this project include the training underrepresented students in anthropology and broadening participation for students underrepresented in science. Data from the project will be disseminated to improve healthcare delivery in post-disaster conditions. This project is jointly funded by Cultural Anthropology, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) This project examines whether the ethics of healthcare provisioning transform under conditions of "compounded disaster," through an investigation of disaster recovery in Puerto Rico, whose infrastructure was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, and was still operating under conditions of sustained emergency at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The central question of this research is: Did health care workers' experiences during and after Hurricane Maria transform their ethics of care? The ethics of care refers to the practices and self-understanding that guide and motivate those who do the work of caring for others. The investigators hypothesize that health care workers developed a new ethics of care that drew upon pre-existing cultural features, but reflects a new sense of solidarity, greater efficacy, and shared purpose forged in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The investigators anticipate that this new ethics of care has evolved or transformed through compounding disasters including earthquake swarms and COVID-19. The research design includes data collection through individual interviews, remote focus groups, and on-site participant observation. The project contributes to the scientific understanding of the underlying cultural processes through which disasters transform communities; whether compounded disasters have a geometric or exponential impact on these communities; and also, if the ethics of care fundamentally change under these circumstances. This project generates theory to explain the underlying cultural processes through which (1) disasters transform communities and (2) care workers forge practices and self-understandings that aid in the process of disaster recovery.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.