Collaborative Research: E-Government and the Preparation of Citizens for Natural Disasters

市县网站提供了一种新的创新方法，帮助公民减少自然灾害事件的影响。虽然大多数地方制定了灾害计划，并投资于当地应急管理以应对灾害，但个别家庭的准备工作要少得多，种族/少数民族家庭的备灾比率特别低。传统的风险和备灾沟通模式无法接触到或激励居民做好防灾准备。社区网站是一个潜在的强大工具，可以提高防灾能力。然而，关于地方政府发展的研究几乎是空白。危险预防网站或社区居民对这项信息技术的使用情况。这项研究将调查地方政府和居民使用万维网传递和接收风险和准备信息的情况。研究地区将是洛杉矶和迈阿密的社区；这两个地区都受到自然灾害、洛杉矶地区的地震和迈阿密地区的飓风的影响。利用多种数据收集方法和数据来源，本研究将考察地方政府在风险沟通和防灾网站开发方面的决策过程；地方政府网站在灾害相关信息方面的可用性；以及风险沟通和防灾网页在激励居民采取积极措施方面的潜在影响。网站评价数据和居民调查数据将与二手来源公式变量统计分析相结合。将选择八个司法管辖区进行案例研究。将对当地政府专业人员和官员进行访谈，并对这些数据以及背景材料进行定性分析。这项研究的结果将为电子政务和具有重大学术价值的危险文献提供独特的贡献。这项研究将信息技术、政府和公民聚集在一起，围绕一个关键的社区问题：为灾难做好准备。它将有助于我们了解地方政府对网络的总体使用以及对危害的理解；为政策制定者和专业人员提供有关地方政府主页的使用、覆盖和设计的有价值的信息；并检查围绕技术、社区安全和对公民的服务的公共决策过程。这项研究还将对教育和整个社会产生更广泛的影响。研究结果将为政策制定者提供有关通过网络进行风险沟通的宝贵信息，以及利用其社区网站进行备灾的障碍。这一知识可用于消除障碍，改善对种族/族裔少数群体的危险传播，激励公民加强灾害规划，从而有望有助于减少灾害造成的人员和财产损失。

City and county websites offer a new and innovative method to help citizens reduce the impacts of natural disaster events. While most localities prepare a disaster plan and invest in local emergency management to respond after disasters, individual households are far less prepared, and preparedness rates are particularly low for racial/ethnic minority households. The traditional modes of risk and preparedness communication have failed to reach or motivate residents to prepare for disasters. The community website is a potentially powerful tool to increase hazard preparedness. However, there is virtually no research on the development of local governments. web sites for hazard preparation or the usability of this information technology by community residents. This research will investigate the use of the World Wide Web by local governments and residents for delivering and receiving risk and preparedness information. Study areas will be communities in the Los Angeles and Miami; both areas are subject to natural disasters, earthquakes in the Los Angeles area andhurricanes in the Miami region. Using multiple data collection methods and sources of data, the research will examine the local government decision-making process for website development for risk communication and hazard preparedness; usability of local government websites for hazard-related information; and the potential impact of risk communication and disaster preparedness Web pages in motivating residents to take proactive measures. Website evaluation data and resident survey data will be combined with secondary sources formultivariate statistical analysis. Eight jurisdictions will be selected for case studies. Interviews with local government professional staff and officials will be conducted and these data, along with background materials, will be analyzed qualitatively. The results ofthis research will provide a unique contribution to the E-government and hazards literature of significant intellectual merit. The study brings together information technology, government, and citizens around a critical community issue: preparing for disasters. It will contribute significantly to our understanding of local government use of the web in general as well as for hazards; provide valuable information to policy makers and professionals about the use, coverage, and design of local government home pages; and examine the public decision-making process surrounding technology, community safety, and service to citizens. The research also will have broader impacts to education and society as a whole. The results of the research will provide valuable information to policymakers about risk communication via the web, and about impediments to use of their communities' websites for disaster preparedness. This knowledge can be used to remove barriers, improve hazard communication to racial/ethnic minorities, motivate increased disaster planning by citizens, and thus, promises to contribute to a reduction in human and property losses from disasters.