DesignSafe Dataset Award Winner: State Hazard Mitigation Plans and Social Vulnerability

About the Webinar

Session Abstract: U.S. state, territorial, and tribal government officials develop State Hazard Mitigation Plans (SHMPs) to assist in reducing the risk of disaster impacts on people, physical infrastructure, and the natural environment. This presentation will summarize an applied research project that analyzed the inclusion (or exclusion) of social vulnerability indicators and potentially vulnerable populations in SHMPs approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency between 2016 to 2021. The featured dataset includes qualitative and quantitative data collected from plans from all 50 states and 5 inhabited U.S. territories. This session will describe the dataset and delve into the study to provide an overview of how socially vulnerable populations such as people with disabilities, elderly adults, children, veterans, and immigrants, are discussed in hazard mitigation plans. The presentation will summarize the numerical counts of which population groups were mentioned or omitted in SHMPs. It will also offer qualitative data to showcase best practices for how socially vulnerable populations were discussed in plans. The dataset and the associated research can help State Hazard Mitigation Officers (SHMOs), agency officials, and others identify gaps and opportunities for assisting socially vulnerable people in hazard mitigation planning.

Presenters

Mary Angelica Painter is a research associate at the Natural Hazards Center. She seeks to understand the development and adoption of new ways to engage with socially vulnerable communities in the context of natural hazards, while also incorporating the effects of the role of government, policy, and politics. Her work is driven by a philosophy of collaboration, where the community, decision-makers, researchers, and everyday people are involved in finding solutions together.

Melissa Villarreal is an Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Forest Service. Her research is centered around disaster recovery trajectories of vulnerable populations. Villarreal received several accolades for her research on the recovery trajectories of Mexican-origin women after Hurricane Harvey. Additionally, she is a William Averette Anderson Fund (BAF) Alumna, which is dedicated to advancing the success of minority professionals in hazards and disaster fields.

Lori Peek is professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. She also leads the National Science Foundation-funded CONVERGE facility. Peek is the author of multiple award-winning books, and she helped co-develop natural hazard school safety guidance for the nation. She established the CONVERGE Data Ambassadors Program and has co-published multiple datasets and social science research instruments on DesignSafe!

Channie Singh is an undergraduate research assistant at the Natural Hazards Center and the BioMod Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. Singh’s research efforts and passion lie at the heart of the intersection of art and science, and she seeks to understand how this connectivity can unite people of various backgrounds, identities, and expertise to uplift all members of all communities.