Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Considering COVID-19 through the Lens of Hazard and Disaster Research

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dc.contributor Sociology
dc.contributor Center for Coastal Studies
dc.creator Ritchie, Liesel
dc.creator Gill, Duane
dc.date 2021-07-09T18:29:25Z
dc.date 2021-07-09T18:29:25Z
dc.date 2021-06-30
dc.date 2021-07-08T14:24:11Z
dc.date.accessioned 2023-03-01T18:51:47Z
dc.date.available 2023-03-01T18:51:47Z
dc.identifier Ritchie, L.; Gill, D. Considering COVID-19 through the Lens of Hazard and Disaster Research. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 248.
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10919/104136
dc.identifier https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10070248
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/281548
dc.description Decades of social science research have taught us much about how individuals, groups, and communities respond to disasters. The findings of this research have helped inform emergency management practices, including disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us—researchers or not—have attempted or are attempting to make sense of what is going on around us. In this article, we assert that we need not examine the pandemic in a vacuum; rather, we can draw upon scholarly and practical sources to inform our thinking about this 21st century catastrophe. The pandemic has provided an “unfortunate opportunity” to revisit what we know about disaster phenomena, including catastrophes, and to reconsider the findings of research from over the years. Drawing upon academic research, media sources, and our own observations, we focus on the U.S. and employ disaster characteristics framework of (1) etiology or origins; (2) physical damage characteristics; (3) disaster phases or cycles; (4) vulnerability; (5) community impacts; and (6) individual impacts to examine perspectives about the ways in which the ongoing pandemic is both similar and dissimilar to conceptualizations about the social dimensions of hazards and disasters. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic is not merely a disaster; rather, it is a catastrophe.
dc.description Published version
dc.format application/pdf
dc.format application/pdf
dc.language en
dc.publisher MDPI
dc.rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
dc.rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject COVID-19
dc.subject Disasters
dc.title Considering COVID-19 through the Lens of Hazard and Disaster Research
dc.title Social Science
dc.type Article - Refereed
dc.type Text
dc.type StillImage


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