Cumulative Effects: {Prior Disaster} + COVID-19 

An Open Access Research Protocol and Question Bank 

Members of CADAN invite all researchers and disaster professionals to download and use our new Research Protocol and Question Bank.

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Our Mission 

In April 2020, CADAN members were awarded a grant as an NSF-funded Working Group to develop a Research Agenda to study the Cumulative Effects of Successive Disasters in communities impacted by prior disasters and now dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal is to facilitate the study of these effects across different communities through a shared research protocol and questions, allowing for comparison of different experiences and outcomes. We are making this Research Protocol and Question Bank available as a free and open access resource, and we invite all researchers and disaster professionals to make use of this tool. We also hope, though do not require, that you will join us in sharing your findings to support a broader understanding of the effects of successive disasters on communities coping with multiple disasters. 

CADAN COVID-19 Working Group: Cumulative Effects of Successive Disasters 

Working Group Description:

The Research Agenda of our Working Group is motivated by the belief that research can actively contribute to the reduction of unnecessary suffering during and after disasters. In enacting this research, our purpose will be to understand how successive disasters change awareness and capacities for people across various domains of life and work (such as their awareness of organizations, preparedness behaviors, resources, potential roadblocks, etc.). We will approach this overarching goal through an integrative, ethnographic methodology for studying past experiences of disaster and present experiences of COVID-19. Our research will focus on learning from survivors, civic actors, disaster response professionals, and other agents of recovery whose roles may overlap. 

Working Group Leads 

Working Group Members 

  • Alexa Dietrich, Wagner College 

  • A.J. Faas, San Jose State University 

  • Alessandra Jerolleman, Jacksonville State University 

  • Adam Koons, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency 

  • Julie Maldonado, Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network 

  • Keely Maxwell, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

  • Laura Olson, Jacksonville State University 

  • Namrita Singh, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 

  • Laura S. Meitzner Yoder, Wheaton College 

Priority Research Topics and Specific Research Questions: 

Our group proposes to address empirical gaps in disaster studies using a research framework organized around the investigation of 

1) how changes in awareness are brought about by past disaster experiences 

2) how new awareness may or may not lead to new capacities, strategies and skills 

3) how these new capacities, strategies, or skills do or do not translate into responses to the current pandemic 

4) how civic actors, disaster response professionals, and other agents of recovery understand their own roles and are aware of the roles of other groups. 

The work will ultimately be used to inform comparisons across communities, across cumulative disaster experiences, and across types of actors. 

Attribution 

CADAN [Culture and Disaster Action Network]. 2020. Cumulative Effects of Successive Disasters Research Protocol. CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Groups for Public Health and Social Sciences Research. Working Group: Katherine E. Browne and Caela O’Connell (leads), Alexa Dietrick, A.J. Faas, Alessandra Jerolleman, Adam Koons, Julie Maldonado, Keely Maxwell, Laura Yoder, Laura Olson, Namrita Singh (members) 

This COVID-19 Working Group effort was supported by the National Science Foundation-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (NSF Award #1841338). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, SSEER, or CONVERGE.