Quick Response Disaster Research: Opportunities and Challenges for a New Funding Program

Abstract

Quick response research conducted by social scientists in the aftermath of a disaster can reveal important findings about hazards and their impacts on communities. Research to collect perishable data, or data that will change or be lost over time, immediately following disaster has been supported for decades by two programs in the United States, amassing a collection of quick response studies and an associated research culture. That culture is currently being challenged to better address power imbalances between researchers and disaster-affected participants. Until recently, Canada has not had a quick response grant program. In order to survey the state of knowledge and draw from it in helping to shape the new program in Canada, this article systematically analyzes the body of research created by the two US programs. The results reveal a wide-ranging literature: the studies are theoretically, conceptually, topically, and methodologically quite unique to one another. This diversity might appropriately reflect the nature of disasters, but the finding that many studies are not building on previous quick response research and other insights indicate opportunities for how a new grant program in Canada can contribute to growing a robust subdiscipline of disaster research.

Linking Disaster Risk Reduction and Healthcare in Locations with Limited Accessibility: Challenges and Opportunities of Participatory Research

“…A further participatory research challenge emerges for combat research, which also applies to terrorism research, that wars or terrorist attacks would be needed in order to carry out the participatory research for determining how to mitigate further illness or injury. This form of “ambulance chasing” for disaster-related research has been critiqued [ 70 ] and is known as both a challenge and opportunity for research, which is pre-planned to occur in response to emerging and evolving adverse situations [ 139 ].…”

Cultural Competence for Hazards and Disaster Researchers: Framework and Training Module

“…Quick response research, which is typically conducted in the immediate aftermath of disaster with the goal of collecting perishable data, is a hallmark of social science and engineering disaster research (Oulahen et al 2020;Wartman et al 2020;Peek and Guikema 2021). The training module acknowledges that building cultural competence is not easily achieved in such a rapid time frame.…”

Interdisciplinary Theory, Methods, and Approaches for Hazards and Disaster Research: An Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The time dimension associated with postdisaster research has also led researchers from different institutions and disciplines to rapidly form teams to collect perishable or ephemeral data (Wartman et al., 2020 ). This process has been encouraged and sometimes required by funding agencies as well as organizations that support such research, including, for example, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's Learning from Earthquakes program and the Natural Hazards Center's Quick Response Research program (Oulahen, Vogel, & Gouett‐Hanna, 2020 ).…”