RAPID: Emergence of ethnic social network and disaster resilience

飓风哈维是灾难性的、极具破坏性的，它给救灾、恢复和重建带来了前所未有的挑战。许多研究都考察了危机管理和灾难恢复支持范式。然而，这些研究工作大多集中在紧急服务提供者之间的时间关键信息共享上。相比之下，通过基层努力有机形成的社会支持团体利用了社交媒体的互动性，允许其用户积极参与双向或多向的对话、发表评论和反应，这可能为低质量信息的纠正提供机会。本项目通过将社会资本理论纳入正在进行的风险事件的背景下，促进对风险沟通的理解，从而可以评估正在形成的风险感知和正在进行的风险沟通行为。这项研究的重点是休斯顿的华裔社区，他们通过流行的社交媒体平台微信团结在一起。该项目的灵感来自于亲身经历哈维飓风的受害者的故事，研究了这个新兴的种族网络，以及它如何促进灾难恢复能力，这被定义为一个社区承受和从逆境中恢复的持续能力。在现有的在线和离线社会网络的支持下，整个社区的抗灾能力得到了提高，因为普通公民能够在紧急服务提供者和政府机构中断时直接和有效地获得有用的信息和其他社会支持。虽然专注于一个特定的种族群体可能看起来是微观的，但这个案例研究将为共享地理位置的其他社区提供更广泛的影响。具体而言，本研究的目标是对华裔美国微信用户进行调查，以1)评估个人属性，包括他们的心理属性，如危险体验和风险感知，以及人口统计属性，如收入、职业和教育；2)收集关系数据，如接触、联系和连接、群体依恋和嵌入到当地社区；3)确定关键的意见领袖，并制定有效的传播救济/恢复信息的途径。研究的目的是确定(1)现有支持团体的网络结构，包括线上和线下支持团体，并跟踪其在哈维飓风后的直接恢复期的发展和演变；(2)这些网络中主要意见领袖的人口学和心理学属性；(3)提高当地社区抗灾能力的最有价值的信息来源和信息共享途径。数据收集需要对使用社交媒体应用微信的休斯顿大都市区华裔美国居民进行调查。估计误差范围为±4%，95%置信水平，需要590个样本量才能很好地代表休斯顿的华裔美国人口，约33,000人。

Hurricane Harvey was catastrophic and extremely destructive and it presented unprecedented challenges for disaster relief, recovery, and rebuild. Numerous studies have examined the crisis management and disaster recovery support paradigm. Most of these research efforts, however, have focused on time critical information sharing among emergency service providers. In contrast, social support groups that are formed organically through grassroots efforts take advantage of the interactive nature of social media and allow their users to actively engage in two-way or multi-way conversations, post comments and reactions, which may serve to offer opportunities for correction of low-quality information. This project advances understanding of risk communication by incorporating social capital theories in the context of an ongoing risk event, which allows the assessment of risk perceptions as they are being formed and risk communication behaviors in motion.This research focuses on the Chinese American community in Houston, who were united through the popular social media platform WeChat. The project, inspired by stories from victims with first-hand experience with Harvey, examines this burgeoning ethnic network and how it contributes to disaster resilience, which is defined as the sustained ability of a community to withstand and recover from adversity. Buttressed by existing online and offline social networks, the entire community's disaster resilience improved because ordinary citizens were able to receive useful information and other social support directly and efficiently, when access to emergency service providers and government agencies was disrupted. Although focusing on one particular ethnic group may appear microscopic, this case study will offer broader implications for other communities bounded by a shared geographic location. RAPID Specifically, the goal of the proposed research is to conduct a survey among Chinese American WeChat users to 1) assess attributes of individuals, including their psychological attributes such as hazard experience and risk perception, as well as demographic attributes such as incomes, occupation, and education; 2) gather relational data, such as contacts, ties and connections, and group attachments and embeddedness into the local community; 3) identify key opinion leaders and map out effective pathways for the dissemination of relief/recovery information. The research objectives are to determine (1) the network structures of existing support groups, both online and offline, and track their development and evolvement during the immediate recovery periods post-Harvey; (2) the demographic and psychographic attributes that denote key opinion leaders in these networks; and, (3) the most valuable information sources and pathways of information sharing that improve disaster resilience in the local community. The data collection entails a survey among Chinese American residents of the metropolitan Houston area who use the social media application WeChat. With an estimated margin of error at ±4%, 95% confidence level, the sample size needed is 590 to provide good representation of the Chinese American population in Houston, approximately 33,000.