RAPID: Compounding Crises: Facing Hurricane Season in the Era of COVID-19

这项快速反应研究（Rapid）赠款提供资金，以评估参与者的危机暴露、威胁感知、自我和反应效能、情绪反应以及与COVID-19和飓风相关的健康保护行为的参与情况。随着2020年飓风季节的开始，居住在大西洋和墨西哥湾沿岸的数百万美国人将面临双重危机的可能性——COVID-19和飓风暴露——以及相互竞争的缓解策略。专家预测，在2020年飓风季节（6月1日~ 11月30日）期间，大西洋将有4次飓风发展成主要飓风（3、4、5级）。与此同时，在大西洋和墨西哥湾沿岸的许多州，新冠肺炎确诊病例的增加令人震惊。在面临飓风风险的社区中，危机的汇合可能会造成一种站不住脚的悲惨局面，数百万人可能突然被要求逃离即将到来的大飓风，前往避难所，这可能使自己和他人受到COVID-19的威胁。鉴于冠状病毒极有可能通过呼吸道飞沫传播，飓风强风进一步加剧了风险，可能会造成超级传播的环境，并加剧人们对前往避难所的担忧。反复面对这样的危机会加重个人的情绪状态，随着时间的推移，导致功能和决策方面的困难。重要的理论和实践问题是：“在COVID-19大流行期间，人们如何针对飓风的威胁做出积极的决定？”研究小组对来自德克萨斯州和佛罗里达州的居民（n= 1683）进行了一项前瞻性、纵向、流行病学研究，研究小组有他们对以前飓风的暴露、行为和反应的数据。参与者是益普索知识小组的成员，并完成两项调查：一项是在2020年飓风季节开始时，即第一波COVID-19大流行高峰期，第二项是在三级、四级或五级飓风威胁登陆之后。研究人员评估了参与者的危机暴露、威胁感知、自我和反应效能、情绪反应以及与COVID-19和飓风相关的健康保护行为。此外，该团队使用公开可用的数据集创建地理编码变量，将参与者的位置与COVID-19灾害暴露的客观指标（例如，每10,000人死亡，每日病例）和飓风的物理参数（例如，淹没洪水，风速，气温）联系起来。本项目使用COVID-19大流行背景下的前瞻性数据、客观暴露标记和纵向设计，研究了个人对重复暴露于飓风的反应。这些发现对政策制定者、服务提供者、教育工作者和媒体成员交流信息和设计干预措施很有用。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。

This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant provides funding to assess participants’ crisis exposure, their threat perceptions, their self- and response-efficacy, their emotional responses and their engagement in health protective behaviors as relevant to COVID-19 and to hurricanes. As the 2020 hurricane season commences, millions of Americans residing in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts will face the likely possibility of dual crises – COVID-19 and hurricane exposure – with competing mitigation strategies. Experts project that there will be four hurricanes that will develop into major hurricanes (Categories 3, 4, or 5) in the Atlantic during the 2020 hurricane season (June 1st – November 30th). Concurrently, many in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast states are seeing alarming increases in confirmed case of COVID-19. The confluence of crises in communities at risk for hurricane exposure may create an untenable and tragic situation where millions of people may be suddenly asked to flee from an approaching major hurricane to shelters, potentially imperiling themselves and others to COVID-19. Hurricane-force winds further compound the risk given the high potential for Coronavirus to spread via respiratory droplets, potentially creating super-spreading environments and fueling fears about going to shelters. Repeated exposure to such crises can tax individuals’ emotional states, leading to difficulties in functioning and decision making over time. The important theoretical and practical question is: “How do people make proactive decisions regarding the threat of a hurricane in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic?”The research team conducts a prospective, longitudinal, epidemiological study of residents (n=1,683) from Texas and Florida, for whom the team has data on their exposure, behavior, and response to previous hurricanes. Participants are members of Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, and complete two surveys: one at the beginning of the 2020 hurricane season and at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the second after the threat of a major land-falling Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricane. The researchers assess participants’ crisis exposure, their threat perceptions, their self- and response-efficacy, their emotional responses and their engagement in health protective behaviors as relevant to COVID-19 and to hurricanes. Moreover, the team uses publicly available datasets to create geocoded variables that link participant location to objective indicators of disaster exposure to both COVID-19 (e.g., deaths per 10,000, daily cases) and the physical parameters of hurricanes (e.g., inundation flooding, wind speed, air temperature). This project examines individual’s response to repeated exposure to hurricanes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, using pre-COVID, prospectively collected data, objective markers of exposure, and a longitudinal design. The findings are useful to policymakers, service providers, educators, and members of the media to communicate messages and design interventions.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.