This study focuses on the coping responses of the bereaved immediate family and close friends of persons who died as a result of the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in southwestern Washington on May 18, 1980. Three major research questions were addressed: Is there a relationship between illness and three life events: presumed death of a close relative or friend, confirmed death of a close relative or friend, and loss of one's permanent of recreational residence? Do self-efficacy and social supports act as intervening variables to buffer the negative effects of stress on one's health when coping with loss? What are the perceived effects of the media on coping with loss following a disaster? Subjects for this study included 155 respondents. Mailed questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data approximately 11 months post-disaster from bereaved, property loss and control subjects. Data were gathered primarily by standardized measures and were analyzed by univariate, multi-variate, correlational, and content-analysis techniques. The first study question results indicate that when compared to controls, the bereaved of confirmed dead were adversely affected by their loss in areas of negative life events, hassles, depression, and somatization; the bereaved of presumed dead reported being adversely affected by negative life events and depression; the permanent-property loss subjects adversely affected by negative life events. The second study question compared the combined bereaved group (n = 69) and the control group (n = 50) to examine the buffering roles of self-efficacy and social support. For the bereaved, stress accounted for 35% of the variance (p < .001) in depression. After statistically controlling for stress, both self-efficacy and social support were significant predictors of depression (p < .05). In contrast, stress accounted for 44% of the variance in depression for the controls, but neither self-efficacy nor social support made additional contributions in the prediction of any of the health outcome variables. Findings from the third study question indicate that the confirmed bereaved reported significantly more (p < .05) negative effects resulting from the media than any of the other study groups. Factors that might account for the findings and clinical interventions were suggested.

Eine geschlossene ökonomische Theorie der Naturkatastrophen existiert bislang nicht. Arbeiten, die sich dieses Themas aus volkswirtschaftlicher Sicht annehmen und dabei vor allem die langfristig wirksam werdenden ökonomischen Prozesse betrachten, besitzen folglich Pioniercharakter. Denn die entsprechend erweiterte Fragestellung geht über die der Versicherung hinaus: Wie sind die Folgen für eine Wirtschaft bzw. ein Wirtschaftssystem einzuordnen? Je nach regionaler, sektoraler und zeitlicher Abgrenzung - letzteres im Sinne der Einwirkzeit nach Auftreten der Katastrophe - führt zu unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen des Schadens und damit auch der Möglichkeiten, derartige Schäden aufzufangen und eine Volkswirtschaft selbsttragend und nachhaltig zu stabilisieren. Zu den wichtigen Leistungen des Verfassers zählen die definitorische Aufbereitung, eine deskriptive Analyse von Naturkatastrophen und eine Reihe von Fallstudien, die die Schadensklassifikation vorbereiten, in einem zweiten Schritt die Herausarbeitung stilisierter Fakten für Naturkatastrophen auf theoretischer Grundlage, die dann in einem schätzbaren Wachstumsmodell münden. Wichtig ist hierbei insbesondere die Abbildung der je nach Schadensart und nach zivilisatorischen Stand sehr unterschiedlich wirkenden Vernetzung: Wird durch einen Wirbelsturm ein Finanzzentrum bedroht oder führt ein Vulkanausbruch zum Verlust der Ernährungsgrundlage? Die ökonomische Analyse der unterschiedlichen Pfade des Wiederaufbaus nach einer Katastrophe und das Herausarbeiten entsprechender Muster ist als besonderer Beitrag zu betrachten, weil sie einen neuen Blick auf die Katastrophenfolgenabschätzung bieten. Aufgabe dieser Arbeit ist es, das tatsächliche Ausmaß der genannten Auswirkungen qualitativ und vor allem quantitativ zu erfassen. Von vorrangigem Interesse sind dabei zum einen die Folgen der Katastrophenauswirkungen für das wirtschaftliche Wachstum des betroffenen Landes, zum anderen die Einflußfaktoren für den Umfang dieser Katastrophenauswirkungen. Aufgrund des im weiteren Verlauf deutlich werdenden Mangels an einschlägiger empirischer Literatur wählt diese Arbeit einen umfassenden Ansatz zur Beantwortung der Problemstellung. Den Überlegungen liegt eine dreistufige Struktur zugrunde, wobei die erste Stufe innerhalb einer volkswirtschaftlichen Arbeit nicht zu lösen ist. Es handelt sich dabei um die Bestimmung der Eintrittswahrscheinlichkeit bzw. des Eintrittszeitpunktes einer Naturkatastrophe. Dieser ist die Basis für die zweite Stufe: das Ausmaß der Katastrophenfolgen. Sind diese bekannt, können in der dritten Stufe die Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft bestimmt werden.

My dissertation consists of two essays that explore important aspects of empirical corporate finance, specifically the importance of political factors and public attention that come in to play in the granting of post-disaster loans. The first paper, “Natural disasters, public attention, and disaster lending”, examines how public attention (as measured by a Google search metric that I constructed) to local natural disasters affects firms’ access to debt. I hypothesize that the lending behavior of creditors in the aftermath of a natural disaster would be strongly influenced by two factors: (1) direct governmental pressure on local and foreign banks, and (2) indirect pressure from local community sentiment. National governments are influenced by public attention around the local natural disaster. They also use the degree of public attention to pressure private banks and state banks to make disaster loans to firms affected by the natural disasters. I posit that the influence and effectiveness of the governmental pressure would be a function of the degree to which the embedding economy has state-owned banks and nationalized banks. Governmental pressure would be limited in its impact in economies that are private (as in the United States or the United Kingdom). The empirical investigation in my first paper will make use of two novel multidimensional cognitive indices using machine learning. The first index (natural disaster intensity index) captures the intensity of the natural disaster. The second index measures the degree of public attention to natural disasters in the local community and is constructed by using Google Trends search data (web searches, image searches, online news searches, and YouTube video searches). Using firm-level and natural disaster data from 30 countries, I document that firms are able to borrow more when there is a heightened public attention to the natural disaster. I also find that different types of media searches (i.e., web searches, online news searches, image searches and YouTube video searches) have differential impact on public attention, and hence, on incremental borrowing by affected firms. I examine the change in debt likelihood as a function of the proportion of image searches (i.e., relative importance of image searches divided by the total of all four types of searches). Here, I observe a nonlinear relationship between the increase in debt likelihood and the proportion of image searches. The increase in debt likelihood has an “inverted U-shaped” relationship with the degree of image searches. I also find similar relationship between the increase in debt likelihood and the proportion of online news searches and web searches. The response of debt likelihood to public attention is higher in countries with a higher historical vulnerability to natural disasters. The response of debt likelihood to public attention is higher following earthquakes and wildfires. I also document an increase in debt likelihood following disasters to which there is heightened public attention in economies with a smaller fraction of state-owned banks. This relationship also obtains in economies with a smaller fraction of foreign banks in the banking sector. This paper addresses important issues of access to debt financing for firms affected by natural disasters. I construct various indices of the degree of community attention and use them as proxies for the importance of political factors and governmental pressure that can influence the change in leverage following the natural disaster. I use novel metrics of public attention based on big data and media search using machine learning for firms around the world. Firms affected by the natural disaster are often at the mercy of access to finance from the relief efforts of the local government and the local banking sector. The availability of disaster loans may have dramatic and long-run effects on the ability of the community to cope with the disaster. Lack of access to capital in such situations (including Covid-19) is an important societal issue, affecting corporate bankruptcies and unemployment. The issue is how the private sector will react to natural disasters with or without government support. This paper provides a novel and behavioral explanation for disaster financing and examines several predictions using novel data and novel metrics to measure the intensity of community sentiment and attention. The second paper, “Polls, Politics and SBA Disaster Loans”, examines the effect of certain important political factors (e.g., the current national popularity of the incumbent U.S. President) on the federal disaster relief effort through the SBA (Small Business Administration)’s disaster loan program. Following natural disasters, there often is a staggering amount of economic damage and even loss of life. A call for government intervention usually follows. In this paper, I use different types of presidencies (i.e., the environmental presidency, the semi-environmental presidency, the pandering presidency, and the classic presidency) to explain the expected impact of current presidential popularity on the willingness of the incumbent U.S. President to authorize federal disaster relief. I also study the influence of the presidential popularity and various related political factors on the intensity of the relief approved and administered through the SBA disaster loan programs. This paper consists of two parts. The first part investigates the impact of the current presidential popularity on the willingness of the incumbent U.S. President to authorize federal disaster relief. Using a unique sample of 1,118 presidential disaster declaration requests from 1991 to 2020, I document an inverted U-shaped effect of the current presidential popularity on the likelihood of a presidential authorization for federal disaster relief. I hypothesize that these results are consistent with the prediction of the semi-environmental presidency model. When the current presidential popularity of the incumbent U.S. President is below 50%, the popularity benefits of using a generous federal disaster relief is important and explains the positive relationship between her popularity and the likelihood of approval. The U.S. President acts like an environmental U.S. President. However, if presidential popularity is greater than 50%, the incumbent U.S. President will be more cautious about authorizing federal disaster relief since the opportunity cost of foregoing important non-environmental related policy initiatives may be higher than the benefits of approving federal disaster relief. The incumbent U.S. President may also supplement the powers granted to her in the U.S. Constitution with the acquired informal powers when her current popularity is higher than 50% in order to realize her own non-environmental related political agenda more easily. In this case, an increase in the U.S. President’s current level of popularity would lead to a decline in the likelihood of her approving federal disaster relief, and they would not be acting as an environmental U.S. President. The second part of this paper investigates how the personal popularity of the incumbent U.S. President impacts the allocation of federal disaster relief to affected counties through the SBA following the authorization of federal disaster relief. I document that the SBA will approve larger amount of disaster loans to disaster-affected households, businesses, and non-profit organizations when the current popularity of the incumbent U.S. President increases. I find that this result is amplified when the incumbent president is (1) a Republican, (2) a second-term president, and (3) not contesting an election in that year. The main findings are robust to different measures of presidential popularity and various estimation methodologies. My contributions in this paper highlight a new venue for politics in climate change in the area of disaster relief. I explore how current public standing of the incumbent U.S. President impacts the disaster relief effort using the SBA disaster loan program. I believe that this is an important area of the interaction of politics and climate finance. Natural disasters and responses to it have become an important topic of the study of climate change, given the increasing frequency and severity of disasters arising from climate change. The politics involving the current pandemic and relief efforts has put this topic in prominent relief (See COVID-19 crisis). / Business Administration/Finance

Natural hazard-induced disasters have become a priority concern for international humanitarian child protection actors due to the increase in their intensity, frequency, and the risks they pose for children worldwide. In responding to natural hazard-induced disasters, international humanitarian child protection actors are giving increasing attention to the role of the family in promoting children's well-being. The current interventions implemented to support families in these crisis settings are limited by the lack of grounded understanding of what family is in different contexts, and an understanding of how families adapt to contextual stressors. Using a combination of a literature review, meta-ethnography and critical reflection on how to strengthen humanitarian practice, this dissertation examines how families respond, adapt and can be better supported in natural disaster settings. Key findings are that families draw upon cultural strategies of adaptation to navigate changes in their environment and support their children’s well-being. These strategies are often disrupted by external humanitarian responders, however, hindering the ability of families to adapt and causing unintended harm. Current family-level interventions are limited by their reliance on Northern conceptions of the nuclear family, their failure to recognize the rich diversity of family arrangements and supports that exist, and their predominant focus on dynamics within the family unit, often neglecting to fully consider the interactions families have with their social and physical surroundings. This dissertation provides evidence for why and how current interventions to strengthen families in humanitarian contexts should be realigned in a manner that gives greater attention to families’ adaptation strategies, including cultural and relational aspects, builds on local strengths and avoids causing unintended harm.

The purpose of this descriptive study is to determine if there is a difference in citizen trust in Orange County government regarding the handling of disaster. Various dimensions like competence, benevolence, and integrity can determine a citizen's trust within its government. Disasters, such as man-made and natural, are described as a disruption to society through widespread damage to people and material. Counties experience man-made and natural disasters. Depending on its response to the incidents, counties can determine if the citizens view the county as a trustworthy and responsible government body. This study explored if there were differences in citizen trust in government response to different disasters and if citizens of different demographics had differing levels of trust. This study found that 1) there is no statistical difference between the average citizen trust scores between the two disasters 2) there is no statistical difference between the average citizen trust scores for the two groups, and 3) there is no statistical difference between the overall average citizen trust score between older and younger generations.

Bakgrund: Naturkatastrofer har omfattande konsekvenser för miljö, samhälle och människors hälsa.Sjuksköterskor har en viktig roll i omhändertagandet av utsatta och sårbara individer drabbade avkatastrofer. För att vara förberedda på katastrofmiljön och att effektivt kunna tillgodose dedrabbades omvårdnadsbehov är det nödvändigt att sjuksköterskor har relevant kunskap ochkompetens i ämnet. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva sjuksköterskors erfarenheter av att arbeta och vårda vid en plötslignaturkatastrof. Metod: Litteraturstudie där elva originalartiklar analyserats med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i de två kategorierna miljö och vårdande. Subkategorier inom miljö varyttre förhållanden och säkerhet, resursbrist och vårdmiljö samt katastrofmiljön och sjuksköterskanspsykiska hälsa. Subkategorier inom vårdande var skadehantering och bedömning, etiska dilemman,psykologiskt stöd samt personlig kompetens. Slutsats: Resultatet påvisade att sjuksköterskor möter utmaningar i katastrofmiljön och känslomässigpåverkan relaterat till den höga arbetsbelastningen och patienternas lidande. Det ställs höga krav påsjuksköteterskans kompetens och förmågor vid vård av katastrofoffer. För att säkerställa attsjuksköterskor har en god beredskap för arbete i katastrofer eller andra kriser behövs mer utbildning iämnet.Nyckelord: Erfarenheter, / Background: Natural disasters have extensive consequences for the environment, society, and humanhealth. Nurses have a significant role in caring for the vulnerable disaster victims. To be prepared forthe disaster environment and to be able to cater for the patients’ nursing needs, nurses need to haverelevant knowledge and competence. Purpose: To describe nurses’ experiences of working and providing care during a sudden onset naturaldisaster. Method: A general literature review where 11 original articles were analysed using qualitativecontent analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in the main categories environment and caregiving. Subcategories wereexternal conditions and safety, lack of resources and care environment, the disaster environment andnurses’ mental health, injury management and assessment, ethical dilemmas, psychological support, andpersonal competence. Conclusion: In natural disasters nurses are challenged by the disaster environment and affectedemotionally by the high workload and the suffering of the patients. There are high demands on thenurses’ competence and abilities in caring for disaster victims. To ensure that nurses are well preparedfor working in disasters or other crises, more education is needed.

Disasters, whether natural or man-made have become an issue of mounting concern all over the world. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are yearly phenomena that have devastating effect on infrastructure and property and in most cases, results in the loss of human life. Floods are amongst the most prevalent natural disasters. The frequency with which floods occur, their magnitude, extent and the cost of damage are escalating all around the globe. Accra, the capital city of Ghana experiences the occurrence of flooding events annually with dire consequences. Past studies demonstrated that remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) are very useful and effective tools in flood risk assessment and management.  This thesis research seeks to demarcate flood risk areas and create a flood risk map for the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area using remote sensing and Geographic information system. Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) is used to carry out the flood risk assessment and Sentinel-1A SAR images are used to map flood extend and to ascertain whether the resulting map from the MCA process is a close representation of the flood prone areas in the study area.  The results show that the multi-criteria analysis approach could effectively combine several criteria including elevation, slope, rainfall, drainage, land cover and soil geology to produce a flood risk map. The resulting map indicates that over 50 percent of the study area is likely to experience a high level of flood.  For SAR-based flood extent mapping, the results show that SAR data acquired immediately after the flooding event could better map flooding extent than the SAR data acquired 9 days after.  This highlights the importance of near real-time acquisition of SAR data for mapping flooding extent and damages.  All parts under the study area experience some level of flooding. The urban land cover experiences very high, and high levels of flooding and the MCA process produces a risk map that is a close depiction of flooding in the study area.  Real time flood disaster monitoring, early warning and rapid damage appraisal have greatly improved due to ameliorations in the remote sensing technology and the Geographic Information Systems.

This thesis explores how traumatic memories of the Tangshan earthquake have been constructed in literature, documentary works, and films. Through analyzing the narrative construction of the Tangshan earthquake in the form of film and literature, this thesis studies the relationship between state power and individual agency in the representation of this natural disaster. It argues that the cultural representation of this natural disaster reflects a subtle shift: one from the dominant nationalistic narrative to the narrative centering on individuals’ psychological trauma. It suggests the high degree of state control and politicization is what is similar between a natural disaster such as the Tangshan earthquake and other political events. To some extent, the Tangshan earthquake has become a political event to promote the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda. Therefore, this thesis engages existing scholarship on political traumas to research the Tangshan earthquake. It is indicating a subtle shift because it is a slow-changing process and there is no mark to signal a radical departure from the earlier nationalism accounts. There also exists more interlaces and interconnections between the state and individual in the range of sources I have examined. And the overlay of the different narratives reflects the complexity of reality and history.

Yes / ¿Part 1: The congestion of humanitarian space¿, assesses what affect the rapid proliferation of the international aid community¿s presence in Sri Lanka has had on local level relationships and emergency response capacities. It contends that the burgeoning presence of aid agencies resulted in humanitarian assistance becoming a hotly contested and competitive activity. It goes on to identify the possible factors that have contributed to the rapid congestion of this space in suggesting an explanation of why the humanitarian communities¿ normative standards appear to have failed.

This thesis brings a new approach to research of non-performing loans (NPLs), stepping away from the traditional macroeconomic and bank-specific focused literature by exploring the relationship between NPLs and natural disasters across all 50 US states, aiming to understand to what extent and how natural disasters affect financial instability as reflected by NPLs. Using fixed effects models with Beck and Katz robust standard errors the study analyses annual state-level NPL-ratio, a measure of NPLs to total loan portfolio value with natural disasters measured as the number of disasters, cost of disasters, and deaths from disasters. Macroeconomic variables are included as controls, the included variables are by personal income, unemployment rate, and tax collection. The studied period is 1984 to 2019. Support for the notion that the NPL ratio is affected by natural disasters is found, however, the results are conflicting as the number of disasters is found to increase the NPL ratio according to the theoretical expectation, however, not when interactions are added to the model. Whilst, contrary to previous research the number of deaths from disasters is found to decrease the NPL ratio. The results are thus deemed ambiguous. However, the thesis contributes to the field by highlighting the need for further research into similar research questions and providing a new approach to NPLs in the US context.