The network resilience of safety confirmation and social capital during natural disasters: the comparison of the U.S. and Japan

Abstract

This study discusses safety confirmation systems and how Social Capital (SC) affects the resilience of the safety confirmation network for natural disasters in the U.S. and Japanese society. When a large-scale disaster occurs, people desire to inform their loved ones of their safety status and search for their loved one’s status in a chaotic environment. Safety confirmation is the action of confirming the current status of people in disaster areas by collecting safety, injury, missing, and death information and sending the contact request. First, this study summarized the safety confirmation resources. The U.S. approach focuses on the missing and dead, while the Japanese approach focuses on the survivors and tries to define the remaining people who are missing and dead. Second, the social background that formed the SC was compared. Third, how SC affects the safety confirmation network in and between communities was analyzed. The case areas were Honolulu County in the U.S. and Aichi prefecture in Japan, and 1,324 samples were analyzed by ordinal logistic regression. The safety confirmation network reflected the social and SC structure for each country. The ethnic diversity in the network provided high resilience. Honolulu’s network was more open beyond the community and connected more with others. Residents’ economic network was linked to the safety confirmation network. Aichi’s network was more closed in the community and connected with kinship or neighbor ties. Trust and interaction with others shaped the foundation of the safety confirmation network. Finally, the integrated safety confirmation system was discussed.