University public-private partnerships for addressing student emergency needs: A literature review.

Abstract

University-community partnership is an effective strategy for improving a university's disaster resiliency and preparedness.1 In times of disaster, having established partnerships with organizations in the community ensures a timely response to students' needs and reduces the cost of disaster management efforts. The purpose of this study is to understand the current state of knowledge on coordinated and collaborative disaster management efforts, such as public-private partnerships, for addressing the needs of university students in the event of a natural disaster (eg, a hurricane). We conduct a literature review of published works using four keywords of partnership, university, hurricane, and student. The emergent pattern in the published work shows weak signs of university-community partnerships for addressing the needs of university students during a natural disaster, and few case studies focus on the needs of this vulnerable population. We further discuss the main findings and recommendations in the findings section. Future research should use this holistic literature review as a blueprint for understanding the research gaps on collaborative disaster management for university students.