Firefighting is a dangerous and difficult task. Simulation affords researchers and practitioners the ability to examine performance and training in adverse conditions while preserving life, offering repeatable scenarios, and reducing costs. Multiple Resource Theory is used in this study as a model for assessing alternate sensory channels for information delivery when the optimal channel is not available. Specifically, this study tests the influence of a waist-worn vibrotactile display to assist navigation when visibility is reduced in a firefighter simulation. The present study measures participants' objective performance and self-reported workload while navigating a simulated fireground. Results from 70 research participants revealed statistically significant differences between the experimental and control conditions for completion time and overall workload scores. Workload and performance emerged as significantly correlated in both the experimental and control conditions; however, no statistically significant correlations were found for the spatial anxiety hypotheses. The results of this study indicate that participants engaged in a simulated search and rescue task in a low visibility environment benefit from the assistance of a vibrotactile display as a tool. Participants' performance scores and self-reports show that they had more mental resources to engage in the search and rescue task more quickly when assisted by a vibrotactile tool. Evidence was found to demonstrate a statistically significant association between workload and performance. The implications of this study have real world consequences for training for dangerous tasks to maximize performance and save lives while minimizing risks to personnel.

At the point of injury, critical medical tasks include locating and identifying an injury as well as applying the appropriate initial care. Over the past decade, to increase the fidelity of wound representation and ultimately the quality of medical care, a considerable amount of research and development has occurred to improve simulated wounds during training, primarily at the point of injury. As material and techniques mature and as more relevant data is collected on tissue properties, examining what fidelity is required for training at the point of injury is crucial. The main objective of this effort was to assess a three dimensional silicone wound versus a two dimensional tattoo wound for training and to examine differences in user perceptions and treatment time. This was accomplished with a test population of 158 City of Orlando Fire Department First Responders which were randomly assigned to each group (three dimensional silicone wound group versus a two dimensional tattoo wound group). The data analyses incorporated the use of non-parametric statistics (Mann-Whitney U Test) to compare the differences between the two groups on depth perception, sense of urgency, immersion, and time on task. Other factors that were examined included the costs for the average tattoo wound and silicone wound as well as the number of uses before the synthetic wound is visibly damaged. The data results indicated that at the point of injury, there were relatively few statistically significant differences in the survey data or time on task between the silicone and tattoo wounds. Additionally, the cost analysis revealed that the silicone wound is significantly more expensive than the tattoo wound. Supporting the military and civilian first responder communities, the results of this study provides statistically reliable data on the use of trauma tattoos as a tool for mastering point of injury treatment during training exercises.

As a quintessential role of government, emergency and crisis management requires coordination between levels of government and private and nonprofit sector organizations. Hurricane Irma in 2017 was used as the context in examining interorganizational network effectiveness. Effective and efficient policy implementation and service delivery can be key indicators of collaborative networks; however, it was equally important to understand what factors determine the effectiveness of those collaborative networks. Using network theory and network governance as the theoretical foundations, this study measured and compared the designed versus implemented networks during disaster response. The guiding research for this study was: What factors facilitate effective implementation of interorganizational networks in response to disasters? Using a mixed-method approach, this research surveyed Florida emergency managers on their use and reliance on plan and policy documents to make decisions, analyzed the policies and plans and After-Action Reports of seven (7) Central Florida counties, utilized Twitter data to understand how social media demonstrates interorganizational networks, and employed focus group interviews to gain clarification about the differences between designed and implemented disaster response networks. This research will demonstrate the practical need to examine the interorganizational network differences between designed and implemented for disasters and crises, how policy change and adaptation can reflect the lessons learned from disaster response.

Governments provide resources that enable people and neighborhoods to return to normalcy after emergencies, which enhances community resilience. Past research found that such resources are not always equitably utilized by communities, where oftentimes communities with high social vulnerability receive fewer resources. COVID-19 was one of the largest and most widespread public health emergencies. In response to the emergency, the United States (U.S.) government sponsored the creation and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccines reduce the probability of severe illness and death, making them an important resource for community resilience. This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design to examine three research questions related to social equity in vaccine administration: (1) What is the relationship between community social vulnerability and COVID-19 vaccine administration?; (2) Did individuals trying to access the COVID-19 vaccine encounter administrative burdens?; and (3) How do the administrative burdens experienced by individuals when trying to access the COVID-19 vaccine provide a better understanding of the relationship between social vulnerability and COVID-19 vaccine administration? County level data for all U.S. counties were analyzed to examine the first research question. Findings indicate that there was an association between counties with higher wealth-related social vulnerability and lower county vaccination rates, but counties with higher employment-related and ethnicity-related social vulnerability were associated with higher vaccination rates. Qualitative interview data from 31 individuals revealed that few individuals faced administrative burdens when trying to access the COVID-19 vaccines, but a variety of resources and support services were used to access the vaccines. However, not everyone had equal access to resources, as individuals indicated that resources required wealth for access, and many resources were provided by employers. In addition, results revealed that ethnicity often presented psychological barriers to getting vaccinated. These results suggest that the resources invested in vaccination efforts materialized for some, but not all types of vulnerability. Emergency managers and policymakers should consider these results when providing resources meant to enhance community resilience following future emergencies and crises.

Health and well-being are key focuses for international organizations and governments around the world as one of the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs). The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic since late 2019 has led to not only substantial life losses, but also negative social and economic impacts that are relatively comparable to the "Spanish Flu" pandemic. The insights from public administration literature suggested that emergency and crisis management require collaborative efforts from various stakeholders across sectors and levels. However, the existing literature that studied the COVID-19 pandemic response under network perspective is still scarce in developing countries, especially in Thailand in particular. Understanding the structures of the COVID-19 pandemic response networks and their effectiveness can provide insights for not only scholarly theoretical development, but also lessons learned for practitioners in developing future pandemic response system. The current study builds upon the network governance literature by providing multiple case studies of Thailand's provincial COVID-19 pandemic response networks. Specifically, it is aimed to explore the characteristics of the network structures in COVID-19 pandemic response networks in Samut Sakhon province, and the relationship between network structures and network effectiveness of this initiative. Furthermore, the current study is also aimed at comparing the network structures and network effectiveness between different geographical-administrative structures, as well as between different policy processes, to examine the influence of the regional administration and the local municipality administration on the provincial COVID-19 pandemic response networks in Thailand. This study applies a Multi-Theory, Multi-Level Network Governance (MTML) framework as key conceptual framework for studying Thailand's provincial COVID-19 pandemic response networks. It adopts a comparative multiple-case case studies research design with the purposive sampling and snowball sampling strategies. The semi-closed-ended roster of the organization list and interviews were used for social network data collection. Descriptive social network statistics, network visualization, and MR-QAP regression are key data analyses methods for this study. The descriptive findings suggest that Thailand's provincial COVID-19 response networks in Samut Sakhon province demonstrate the centralized network structures that the provincial administration actors and the district administration actors are the key policy actors in several network relationships in all districts and at the provincial level. The explanatory analyses suggest that policy institutional rules networks and the actual policy ties are key predictors for the resources allocation networks in all districts and the provincial networks, whereas there is no consensus for network characteristics as predictors for perceived network effectiveness. Study's theoretical contributions, its limitations, and implications for research and practice are also discussed.

Over the past two decades, public organizations have been encouraged and, at times, required to incorporate evidence in their decision-making processes. Evidence broadly refers to data and or knowledge that is gathered, analyzed, and used to generate a conclusion. Despite arguments and the intrinsic assumption that using evidence to inform decisions will improve organizational performance, there is limited empirical research to support this assertion. The proposed study addresses this gap in research and others in the context of local flood risk management. Specifically, using primary data gathered from local floodplain managers and secondary data from the US Census and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this study seeks to determine (1) the extent to which organizations responsible for managing flood risks exhibit a culture that uses evidence to inform decision making; (2) the predictors of an organization exhibiting a culture that uses evidence to inform decision making; (3) whether organizations exhibiting a culture that uses evidence to inform decision making experience better flood risk management performance outputs (e.g., implementation of mitigation measures) and outcomes (e.g., increased flood resilience); (4) the types of evidence organizations use to manage flood risks; (5) the type of evidence that is associated with better flood risk management performance outputs and outcomes; and (6) whether knowledge of an effective flood risk management program for improving organizations' ability to deal with potential climate change impacts influences an organization's decision to adopt the program. Data gathered from an online survey of 342 floodplain managers in Florida and Texas provided insights into these six research aims. First, respondents reported their organization moderately uses evidence to inform decision making. Additionally, the main factors impacting an organization's culture of evidence usage was if the community had experienced more presidential disaster declarations and if the floodplain manager identified as male and had obtained the Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM) licensure. Results also indicated that an organization's culture of evidence usage had not statistical effect on flood risk management performance outputs and outcomes. Rather, the main factors impacting flood risk management performance outputs and outcomes include perceptions of flood risk, participation in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Community Rating System (CRS) program, employee capacity to use evidence, and organizational capacity to manage flood risks. Respondents reported a slightly higher usage of professional evidence compared to scientific evidence; however, neither type of evidence were associated with better flood risk management performance outputs and outcomes. Finally, knowledge of an effective flood risk management program for improving organizations' ability to deal with potential climate change impacts did not appear to influence an organization's decision to adopt the program.

The recent increase in the number of disasters and complexities surrounding existing emergency management efforts necessitate cross-sector collaboration and coordinated response. While previous scholarly works have discussed emergency management efforts from a collaborative perspective, little consideration has been paid to the role public-private-nonprofit partnerships (PPPs) play in emergency management and disaster response. Understanding the outcomes of PPP can be particularly important for emergency managers who make decisions under uncertain conditions and complex situations. The purpose of this study is to operationalize emergency management PPPs and assess the role of these networks on three outcomes organizational resilience, PPP institutionalization, and PPP effectiveness. To this end, this study developed an interdisciplinary conceptual framework using literature from public administration, emergency management, and health management disciplines. Using the proposed conceptual framework, this study designed a web survey for emergency managers and operators (i.e., practitioners) in public, private, and nonprofit sectors in Florida. The findings of this study can help emergency managers across multiple sectors and policymakers to better understand the factors that contribute to successful PPPs in emergency management and assist them in planning for, managing, and utilizing their resources when collaborating with other organizations in response to disasters. This study also provides policy and practical implications for federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as local emergency management offices from public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

As social media platforms have become vital means of communications, it has become imperative for emergency managers and policy makers to understand how people are interacting with different agencies on these platforms for enhancing community response coordination during disasters. Although many public agencies have already adopted social media platforms for crisis communication purposes, empirical evidence on whether and how these agencies are effectively engaged on these platforms is lacking. This research aims to examine crisis communication activities of a variety of agencies on Twitter in response to Hurricane Irma in 2017. In this study, we analyzed 13,353 hurricane-related tweets posted by the local agencies from eight counties in East Central Florida as well as federal, state, and other levels of organizations during the hurricane response period. An engagement metric was applied on these tweets to determine which agencies were most active in disseminating information during Hurricane Irma. The results revealed the most engaged local agencies in Twitter during Hurricane Irma for crisis communications and the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) associated with them in coordinating disaster response activities. We further investigated Twitter profiles and relevant attributes of these actively engaged agencies, and the contents of the hurricane-related tweets during Hurricane Irma. The study found that local agencies remain active and engaged in Twitter during a disaster compared to other levels of agencies. The ESF representing communication (ESF #2) was one of the most frequent ESFs associated with these active agencies. The results also provided insights on crisis communication performance of these agencies in terms of the three dimensions of social media engagement including popularity, commitment, and virality, which are correlated to the counts of like, reply, and retweet of each post, respectively. The study includes recommendations to local government and partner organizations and emergency managers to improve crisis communication in social media and suggests future research directions.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between an individual's perceptions of the attributes of food storage and his adoption of food storage practices. Food storage is defined as the practice of preserving and storing basic food commodities as a reserve supply. This practice is encouraged as a preparatory measure to provide security for families in the midst of emergencies, whether physical, economic, or social in nature. It becomes especially appropriate in developing areas where physical disasters (such as earthquakes and floods) coupled with social and economic instability, individually and on a national scale, pose constant threats to family security. This study was conducted in one such country, Guatemala.

Disasters are responsible for main disruptions in individuals and communities' lives, affecting their prosperity. The research on this topic is motivated by the increasing number of natural hazards deteriorating into catastrophic events as a result of antropogenic factors. By focusing on how institutions, their decision-making processes, and procedural arrangements, affect multi-actor coordination in international and national disasters, with a three-paper structure, this work represents a systematic investigation of the role of institutions in disaster operations. The second chapter investigates the decision-making process of the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) about the strategy of coordination to adopt when civilians and militaries are involved in humanitarian operations in disaster-affected countries. The results of the archival research, content, analysis, and interviews, show that in insecure settings, such as where the disaster affected-country has low state capacity, civilians and militaries are more likely to merely coexist in the field rather than cooperating. The third and fourth chapters explore the role of political representation and electoral competition in the United States (US) and how differences in the political status between States and Territories can affect their emergency management capabilities in the preparedness, response, and recovery phases. Chapter three investigates political representation via content analysis and interviews, showing how the limited representation and no voting rights at the Congress can prevent Territories in advocating for emergency management legislation and budgeting. Chapter four investigates electoral competion via statistical and spatial analysis, showing how being a State or a Territory, does not matter when it comes to the federal public assistance, and what it does is the electoral competitiveness of the county/municipality and whether it hosts government's offices.