Proximity to Extreme Events: The Effect of Katrina-Rita on Optimistic Bias in Gulf Coast Counties

令人惊讶的是，人们对飓风易发地区的人们如何感知飓风风险缺乏科学的理解。关于人类住区和一般自然灾害的一个持久问题是个人倾向于低估与其居住地有关的风险。一种可能理解这一点的方法是乐观偏见，当个人认为自己比其他人更不可能受到未来事件的伤害时，就会出现这种偏见。乐观偏见在危险健康行为（如吸烟）方面有充分的记录，在各种自然灾害情况下，包括洪水和地震，也观察到乐观偏见。这项研究将着眼于在卡特里娜-丽塔极端事件之后，墨西哥湾沿岸各县的人们如何看待飓风风险：两个主要飓风在25天内登陆，彼此相距约300英里。该研究将检验飓风风险的乐观偏见作为与卡特里娜-丽塔登陆区距离的函数，看看这种极端事件的接近程度是否对飓风风险的乐观偏见程度有任何影响。假设是，在距离极端事件更远的地方，人们对飓风风险的乐观倾向会更高。我们将对紧靠墨西哥湾沿岸的县（不包括卡特里娜-丽塔造成极端破坏的地区）的个人进行邮件调查。这片70英里宽的狭长地带有最大的飓风风险，是近700万人的家园，平均每平方英里有300人。抽样策略将产生一个大约800个响应的数据集，随机分布在海湾地区。考虑到沿海人口的持续增长、沿海发展对飓风经济影响的作用以及未来更强飓风的趋势，更好地了解人们如何应对飓风风险变得越来越紧迫。沿海社区、各州和联邦政府正开始重新评估他们的飓风应急计划。与保险业一样，社区规划者也面临着沿海发展方面的难题。这项研究将深入了解个人对飓风风险的倾向，并将为风险沟通的发展和实施提供信息，旨在最好地告知个人即将到来的和长期的飓风风险。

There is a surprising lack of scientific understanding of how individuals in hurricane-prone areas perceive hurricane risk. One enduring problem with respect to human settlement and natural hazards in general is the tendency of individuals to underestimate the risk associated with where they live. One way to possibly understand this is optimistic bias, which occurs when individuals see themselves as being less likely than others to be harmed by events in the future. Optimistic bias is well documented for risky health behaviors (e.g., smoking) and has also been observed in a variety of natural hazard contexts, including floods and earthquakes. This study will look at how individuals in Gulf Coast counties perceive hurricane risk in the wake of the Katrina-Rita extreme event: two major hurricanes making landfall within 25 days and approximately 300 miles of each other. The study will examine optimistic bias for hurricane risk as a function of distance from the Katrina-Rita landfall zone to see if the proximity of such an extreme event has any effect on the degree of optimistic bias for hurricane risk. The hypothesis is that higher levels of optimistic bias for hurricane risk will be seen at greater distances from the extreme event. We will conduct a mail survey of individuals in counties that lie immediately on the Gulf Coast (excluding the area of extreme destruction from Katrina-Rita). This 70-mile wide strip of land has maximum hurricane risk and is home to nearly 7 million people, with an average of 300 persons per square mile. The sampling strategy will result in a dataset of approximately 800 responses distributed randomly around the Gulf. A better understanding of how people orient toward hurricane risk is of increasing urgency given the continued growth of the coastal population, the role of coastal development in the economic impact of hurricanes, and a trend toward stronger hurricanes in the future. Coastal communities, states, and the federal government are beginning to reassess their hurricane emergency planning. Community planners also face difficult questions with respect to coastal development, as does the insurance industry. This study will provide insight into individuals' orientation toward hurricane risk and will inform the development and implementation of risk communications designed to best inform individuals about both impending and long-term hurricane risks.