Disaster Research Methods

The field of disaster research is relatively new in the United States, as a specific field of study, with the first disaster research center being founded in the early 1960s. The field itself is now highly multi-disciplinary, drawing from the social sciences, anthropology, political science, computer science, engineering, earth sciences, psychology, and medicine and public health. These academic fields have intersected with the practice community by informing holistic emergency planning for all members of a community. Furthermore, these research outputs have informed federal and state policy, the private sector, and community organizations to inform program design and implementation. Translating research into practice remains a constant challenge in this rapidly evolving field. The methodological approaches to disaster research are just as diverse and have become increasingly complex with the advent of big data, the ubiquity of spatial information, and novel cross-disciplinary research. As a new era of compound and cascading disasters has triggered a constant “response” mode within the field of emergency management, the need for practitioners and research with a fluency in research and evaluation methods is required to critically evaluate or generate high quality and ethically based research.