Disaster Volunteers Research Articles

Emergent groups in disaster research: Varieties of scientific observation over time and across studies of nine natural disasters

There is an increasing emphasis on the diversity of disaster volunteering among disaster researchers. Our aim was to review the extent to which, and in what forms, emergent groups in the aftermath of natural disasters are examined as a topic of research. We review previous crisis and disaster management research, focusing particularly on those parts of the disaster research literature which treat with volunteerism. We describe and discuss how this research has evolved 1960–2016, and analyse how different forms of volunteerism, particularly emergent groups, have been researched following nine natural disasters. We utilize the Disaster Research Center typology to systematize and categorize research from different disaster contexts. The review shows that research on disaster management is fraught with an understanding of organization in disaster contexts based on the primacy of established formal organizations. We suggest a more fine‐tuned conceptualization of disaster volunteerism and we call for further research on actor motivations.

“Pay it forward” and Altruistic Responses to Disasters in Japan: Latent Class Analysis of Support Following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Since the emergence of borantia (volunteers) in 1995, Japanese society has developed disaster volunteerism to enable citizens to help one another. Survivors from areas affected by disasters over the past two decades have returned to assist survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011 Tohoku Earthquake) through volunteering. This chain of support is known as a “pay it forward” network. Using latent class analysis, this article statistically demonstrates that different patterns of support behavior appeared after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and that people who were supported by others following disasters were more likely to help (e.g., through volunteering, donating goods, etc.). The class characterized as “pay it forward” was found to display high-support behaviors, and this was not only explained by traditional theory (i.e., dominant status model, resource model), but also by theories related to economic status and educational background. Results indicate that developing volunteerism in Japan accelerates network support.

A Mobile and Web Application for Mapping Disaster Volunteers’ Position in Indonesia

<span>Indonesia is a country located on top of some tectonic plates that bring potential natural disasters. Disaster management system is considered essential in controlling the situation in the site both before and after the disaster takes place. In disaster situation, the government and society are involved in a volunteer team in order to help minimize victims and support survivors. However, the volunteering activities are often hindered since there are problems in the disaster site. One of the problems is late responses due to poor coordination among volunteers that drives the delay in disaster relief. Therefore, it is necessary to have an application that maps the positions of volunteers in a disaster site, so that the disaster management coordinator can disseminate volunteers to disaster areas based on needs. The purpose of the study is to propose an application called ‘MyMapVolunteers’ that effectively and efficiently detects the position of the volunteers in order to improve disaster management service. In this case, real time and location based service technology will able to detect the position of each volunteer. ‘MyMapVolunteers’ is composed of two platforms, which are mobile and web applications. Mobile platform is an application that uses GPS function provided by the smartphone to find the volunteers’ location coordinates and then send the data of the location automatically and manually. The web platform is used to receive volunteers’ location data and to present them in google map, therefore disaster management coordinator can monitor the positions of and search for volunteers faster.</span>

Psychological Debriefing Intervention: From The Lens Of Disaster Volunteers

Psychological Debriefing Intervention: From The Lens Of Disaster Volunteers

Preparation Measures of Volunteers in Disasters in Hospitals of Tehran

Preparation Measures of Volunteers in Disasters in Hospitals of Tehran

Development of Voluntary Organizations and Multi-layered Local Communities: A Case Study of a Local Disaster Volunteer Group in Midori Ward, Nagoya, Japan

Development of Voluntary Organizations and Multi-layered Local Communities: A Case Study of a Local Disaster Volunteer Group in Midori Ward, Nagoya, Japan

Help Disaster Volunteers Assess Their Readiness

The Volunteer Management ReportVolume 21, Issue 12 p. 4-4 Training Procedures Help Disaster Volunteers Assess Their Readiness First published: 21 November 2016 https://doi.org/10.1002/vmr.30531Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume21, Issue12December 2016Pages 4-4 RelatedInformation

Understanding Voluntary Disaster Workers with Their Burnout Pattern and the Group Differences in Secondary Traumatic Stress and World Assumptions

Understanding Voluntary Disaster Workers with Their Burnout Pattern and the Group Differences in Secondary Traumatic Stress and World Assumptions

The changing landscape of disaster volunteering: opportunities, responses and gaps in Australia

There is a growing expectation that volunteers will have a greater role in disaster management in the future compared to the past. This is driven largely by a growing focus on building resilience to disasters. At the same time, the wider landscape of volunteering is fundamentally changing in the twenty-first century. This paper considers implications of this changing landscape for the resilience agenda in disaster management, with a focus on Australia. It first reviews major forces and trends impacting on disaster volunteering, highlighting four key developments: the growth of more diverse and episodic volunteering styles, the impact of new communications technology, greater private sector involvement and growing government expectations of and intervention in the voluntary sector. It then examines opportunities in this changing landscape for the Australian emergency management sector across five key strategic areas and provides examples of Australian responses to these opportunities to date. The five areas of focus are: developing more flexible volunteering strategies, harnessing spontaneous volunteering, building capacity to engage digital (and digitally enabled) volunteers, tapping into the growth of employee and skills-based volunteering and co-producing community-based disaster risk reduction. Although there have been considerable steps taken in Australia in some of these areas, overall there is still a long way to go before the sector can take full advantage of emerging opportunities. The paper thus concludes by identifying important research and practice gaps in this area.

A Suggestion of Geospatial Information and Utilization Method on Disaster Volunteer Centers: Cases in Supporting Activities

A Suggestion of Geospatial Information and Utilization Method on Disaster Volunteer Centers: Cases in Supporting Activities

Study on the Promotion of the Working Generation’s Participation in Voluntary Disaster Prevention Activities

Study on the Promotion of the Working Generation’s Participation in Voluntary Disaster Prevention Activities

Children and Terrorism and commentaries

Children and Terrorism and commentaries

Examining New York City Hospitals’ Nonuse of Medical Volunteers in Disasters.

To describe hospitals’ perceptions of the New York City Medical Reserve Corps (NYC MRC); clarify administrative, legal, and clinical obstacles to the use of NYC MRC volunteers; and identify possible strategies to overcome these barriers. We administered an informational questionnaire to 33 NYC hospitals and conducted 2 facilitated discussion groups comprising 62 hospital representatives. The most commonly reported hospital barriers to the use of MRC volunteers were concerns about the clinical competence of the volunteers, their lack of familiarity with medical technology used clinically in a hospital setting, and the potential for institutional liability. Although the NYC MRC has the potential to assist the health care system in the event of a disaster, NYC hospitals will need clarification of the clinical and legal issues involved in the use of MRC volunteers for patient care.

Buildng the ISRPM disaster acute rehabilitation team program

Program/Project Purpose: Rehabilitation response following a natural disaster has been progressively documented as an essential strategy for recovery and relief. In order to respond quickly, rehabilitation professionals, policy makers, relief volunteers and health officials need adequate training. The International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine arranged a directive to improve rehabilitation after disasters by creating a training program built off of the first hand documentation of past disasters around the world. Structure/Method/Design: After putting together a preliminary online framework for the Disaster Acute Rehabilitation Team curriculum, three University of Michigan students travelled to China, Chile and Taiwan individually to conduct interviews with disaster victims, doctors, health officials, nurses, volunteers and hospital administration in post-disaster areas to assess their personal postdisaster rehabilitation experiences. Dozens of interviews were conducted and over 20 hours of video and over 2,000 photographs were collected. The student/physician team consolidated this information in the form of training videos for rehabiliation physicians, online quizzes, tutorials, disaster photography, and realistic disaster scenarios. We organized all of this information into a framework for initial trials as a PowerPoint presentation. Outcomes & Evaluation: The framework for the core curriculum consists of 3 modules: a module for training rehabilitation professionals who will respond immediately to a natural disaster, another module for training rehabilitation professionals who will be team leaders and a third for rehabilitation professionals who will coordinate with national emergency planning organizations and NGO’s. All of the modules have been successfully completed and edited by international disaster experts from the International Society for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The next step consists of making the modules internet friendly and inviting physicians to become trained in disaster rehabilitation. Going Forward: It is imperative that the rehabilitation response be rapid and efficient to improve survival rate following natural disaster. The DART curriculum provides a method for rehabilitation professionals who are involved in disaster work to plan and respond more effectively. The first-hand experience gained through interviews with rehabilitation professionals and tours of the disaster sites allowed for the production of a core curriculum and the preemptive planning for acute rehabilitation response during a natural disaster. The next challenges includes finalizing our curriculum into website format and recruiting rehabilitation physicians from around the world to become trained in Natural Disaster Response. Funding: No Funding Source As of Now. Abstract #: 01ETC096

Community Partnerships: Teaching Volunteerism, Emergency Preparedness and Awarding Red Cross Certificates in Nursing School Curricula

Natural, manmade disasters and disease outbreaks are an international experience. Effective response to a public health emergency hinges on a well-prepared interdisciplinary team. Yet nursing school faculty are often perplexed about how to best teach these valuable skills. Based on The American Red Cross Student Nurses Education Model, this presentation will review and demonstrate effective methods to improve workforce capacity and core skills. More than 1,000 nursing students from all over the United States took the American Red Cross Pilot Course designed by Dr. Cheryl Schmidt and her colleagues. As the program expands, hundreds, and potentially thousands, of nursing students will be better prepared to serve as disaster volunteers. The program presented in this article is based on Dr. Schmidt's and Nowak's research. It reviews teaching strategies that were evaluated using an experimental design examining disaster preparedness skill formation and partnerships with volunteer disaster relief agencies. Results indicated that students, when taught by a brief integrated format, will effectively learn core disaster nursing skills and enlist in disaster volunteer efforts.

Co-production with disaster volunteers: the key to longer term crisis recovery

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of enabling disaster recovery initiatives to be more successful in the longer term, many are not as effective as anticipated. This paper suggests that one of the reasons for this apparent weakness is that the voice of the community is under represented in the recovery phase and that the centralized, directive form of planning and decision making commonly found in post disaster scenarios reduces the range and type of, as well as commitment to, the decisions made for long term disaster recovery. Using qualitative data from the Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand the paper demonstrates that the government (at both local and national levels) had adopted a centralised approach. There was evidence of some new governance arrangements emerging but it appeared that, for the most part, neither local volunteer groups nor community were integrated into such arrangements. The concept of co-production is proffered as offering potential for more effective longer term cr...

Mobile Serious Game Design for Training Ethical Decision Making Skills of Inexperienced Disaster Volunteers

Mobile Serious Game Design for Training Ethical Decision Making Skills of Inexperienced Disaster Volunteers

被災地における自主防災計画づくり支援と防災まちづくりへの展開

被災地における自主防災計画づくり支援と防災まちづくりへの展開

Roles of Leisure in the Post-Disaster Psychological Recovery after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

The roles of leisure have been significantly underexplored in postdisaster psychological recovery contexts. In this study, we explore this topic through a case study of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami (GEJE). In July 2012, in-depth interviews were conducted with both survivors and disaster volunteers to examine postdisaster life. A culturally unique term tanoshimi was used in the interviews, which means fun or hobby. The interview data suggested that tanoshimi served as both emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies, and that it became meaningful for survivors as an opportunity to explore new purpose in life, a source of normalcy and continuity, and a context to express personal transformation. The findings are discussed in relation to leisure-based stress coping, transcendence of negative life events, and Japanese cultural influences. Potential implications of leisure research to disaster relief are suggested.

Moderating effects of empathic concern and personal distress on the emotional reactions of disaster volunteers.

This study examines stress and mood outcomes in community volunteers who undertook one week's worth of post-disaster relief work in L'Aquila, Italy, which had been hit by an earthquake four months earlier. The study team obtained pre- and post-relief work data from 130 volunteers involved in activities such as preparing food for the displaced, cleaning the camps and distributing clean linen. The Perceived Stress Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Profile of Mood States were administered at the start and at the end of the aid activities. Psychopathological symptoms and empathy were assessed in the beginning, using the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, respectively. The results show that, following the assistance work, volunteers displayed decreases in perceived stress, general distress, anxiety and anger, as well as increases in positive emotions. The empathy facets empathic concern and personal distress showed different patterns in modulating the post-disaster relief work adaptation for some of the mood outcomes.