Collaborative Research: RUI: Ethics of Care and Compounded Disaster

当灾难来袭时，卫生保健工作者迅速响应，治疗伤员，救助病人。但是，当灾难一个接一个地发生时，会发生什么呢？卫生保健工作者如何应对灾害条件下的持续需求？该项目记录了卫生保健工作者如何应对灾害条件，照顾病人，并在重大自然灾害后努力重建卫生保健系统。这项研究很重要，因为灾害和突发卫生事件正变得越来越频繁和严重。因此，收集有关卫生保健工作人员如何在情绪上应对长期危机状况的数据，有助于设计更有效的应对措施。这个项目更广泛的影响包括培训在人类学方面代表性不足的学生，扩大在科学方面代表性不足的学生的参与。将传播该项目的数据，以改善灾后条件下的保健服务。该项目由文化人类学和促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该项目通过对波多黎各灾难恢复的调查，研究医疗保健提供的伦理是否在“复合灾难”条件下发生转变，波多黎各的基础设施在2017年被飓风玛丽亚摧毁，并且在2019冠状病毒病大流行开始时仍在持续紧急情况下运行。本研究的核心问题是：卫生保健工作者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？关怀伦理指的是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。研究人员假设，卫生保健工作者开发了一种新的护理伦理，它借鉴了先前存在的文化特征，但反映了一种新的团结意识，更大的效力，以及在飓风玛丽亚之后形成的共同目标。研究人员预计，通过地震群和COVID-19等复杂灾害，这种新的护理伦理已经演变或转变。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收集数据。该项目有助于科学地理解灾害改变社区的潜在文化过程；复合灾害对这些社区的影响是几何的还是指数的；而且，在这种情况下，如果护理的伦理从根本上改变。这个项目产生了理论来解释潜在的文化过程，通过这些文化过程(1)灾难改变了社区，(2)护理工作者在灾难恢复过程中形成了帮助的实践和自我理解。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。

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.