Posted: September 13th, 2017

Respond to Students Post

Respond to Students Post

write a meaningful response to each student post. A good way to start your response to each student post is to write like the following ( I agree with you post or I

like your post because…. <give explanation why you like this post? and what is important about it? and why this post is right and why it is interesting?)

FIRST QUESTION
Since disasters can’t be disasters unless humans are involved, it’s important to spend some
time focusing on how humans behave relative to disasters. As you get through the lectures and
readings you’ll find that many of the old stereotypes about human behavior in disasters have
been found by sociologists to be unsupported upon critical examination. What can emergency
public health planners incorporate from what sociologists have shown to be typical human
behavior in disasters, in order to enhance the affected population’s post-disaster health
outcome? Given what you have learned to date, do you think we do a good job of utilizing
research findings when designing governmental and non-governmental disaster response and
recovery programs? Why or why not? Provide some examples, if possible.
STUDENT POST # 1
Sociologists unearth that human beings portray common behaviors in the presence of an
emergency. Emergency troops such as police officers, firefighters, and medical teams need to
understand typical human behavior in a disaster. Several misconceptions arise as sociologists
unearth empirical data on the matter. As a result, the section reveals some commonly mistaken
acts in disasters and their effect on disaster management.
Community resilience, rather than social disintegration, is a common trait in post-disaster
behavior. The media portrays disasters as catastrophes that bring social breakdown. For
example, it shows people expressing anti-social behavior such as crime and violence. However,
community resilience remains ignored as a normal human trait. Societies affected by disaster
tend to make an initiative to help each other and rebuild themselves. For example, victims of
Hurricane Katrina continue to make efforts to rebuild the society (Novick, Lloyd, Cynthia Morrow,
and Glen, 664).
Panic is a common element in disasters. However, the term remains misused. Sociologists
believe that panic is an irrational fear that causes people to act in anti-social ways. It occurs in
disasters. However, most victims experience a rational fear that causes them to act in a normal
way. For example, victims of a fire help each other to leave a burning building.
A major challenge in disaster management is providing warnings. Authorities raise alarm over
impending disasters such as volcanoes (Novick, Lloyd, John and Marr, 5). However,
communities continue to stay in the same locality. The behavior is common in disasters. People
try to downplay the seriousness of a threat before coming to terms with the severity of the
condition.
The traits above show that disaster management teams need to make efforts to plan rescue
efforts. For example, authorities should provide detailed warnings that reveal the severity of a
situation. People need to understand that they face personal danger in order to evacuate. Police
forces must focus on traffic control rather than crime prevention. Current disaster management
teams use misguided beliefs to formulate action plans. Hence, the current disaster management
plans fail to acknowledge rational human behavior.
STUDENT POST # 2
There are existing common myths about how people respond to disasters. In the studies of
Quarantelli & Russell (1996), Russell & Mentzel (1990), and many others reveal that the
common beliefs that people panic, loot, become helpless, and desperately need aid and shelter
are untrue. These authors reveal that the belief that emergency workers refuse to help due to
fear of the disasters are also untrue. Instead, these researchers reveal that people have
become more altruistic and remain rational during the events of disasters. With this information
at hand, it is only important that emergency public health planners consider planning and
implementing programs that would allow disaster response workers and victims to work together
with full participation and open communication. I think that in order to enhance the affected
population’s post-disaster health outcome, workers can work closely with the victims by openly
communicating with them so that workers may identify their exact needs. It may as well become
an opportunity for the workers to attain cooperation since these people are at their best state to
respond to the actions that should be done to alleviate their condition. So far, I believe that
governmental and non-governmental disaster responses still need to improve in the aspect of
understanding disaster victim responses. In the 2014 World Disaster Report of the Red Cross,
it reveals that the need to focus on Culture and risk is important in order to understand how
people treat and respond to disaster. This is essential, especially recalling the refusal response
of almost 100,000 people in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina and had to be rescued
because they ignored the warnings and wanted to stay at their place. Perhaps emergency
workers can study culture further, especially with people who are likely to be victims of disasters
so that we can gain their participation as a response to disaster.
SECOND QUESTION
Mitigation is all about risk reduction. So, what is the relationship between human behavior and
risk? Please use both past and current examples to demonstrate your understanding of how
risk is created. Finally, what is the relationship between risk and vulnerability?
STUDENT POST # 1
Human behaviour and risk has been connected to one another. People who use to behave
carelessly can have higher risks of getting into accidents than people who are cautious and
careful to the things that they do and say. On a larger scope, there are many instances
regarding human behaviour can greatly affect risk and hazards that a person or group of people
will experience.
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (2001), said that people who are able to practice or being
educated with a disaster response program and other workshops can have a lower rate or low
possibility of being at risk to danger. In addition to that, a psychopath who is deemed to have an
unstable psychological behaviour can bring harm or risk to other people that are surrounding
him or her. This is in line of terrorist attacks that is happening all around the world now. Their
behaviour is a threat to the safety of people and therefore also brings risk to other civilian.
The scope of risk, threat, and human behaviour is large that it can also be applied on our
everyday lives, in school, office, and in our house. Blayney and Eijnde (2005) said that human
behaviour has a matrix of hazards in the laboratory safety of people. People should be aware of
the occupational safety and health management around the world. Managing these risks
includes many aspects, safety rules, attitudes, opinions, as well as hazard and risk perception.
Risk and vulnerability on the other hand also have their relationship. Risk can be managed and
mitigated in order to lessen vulnerability while vulnerability itself can be treated and should be
identified to correct them (Wimmer, 2014).
STUDENT POST # 2
It is my understanding that risk exists where hazards and humans (and their structures) meet,
and that vulnerability is a key determinant of the degree of risk.
One way that risk is created is by increasing the points of contact between humans and
hazards, for example by allowing extensive infrastructure to be built in the most hazardous
areas. Surely in every place in the country (and the world) hazards exist, and therefore cannot
be completely avoided by humans. However, allowing human build up in the most hazard-prone
areas creates unnecessary risk. For example, the vast infrastructure that has been built on Key
West, Florida is good example of something that probably should not have happened, from a
risk reduction perspective. One can also find numerous, less intentional examples of this kind of
development in cities around the world, where slums sprout up in hazard prone parts of the city,
simply because that is the only space left.
Another way that risk can be created (or exacerbated) is through an increase in number,
severity and frequency of hazardous events. One example of this is climate change. Climate
change is predicted to (and perhaps has already begun to) increase the frequency and severity
of extreme weather events. An increasing number of severe weather events increases the
likelihood of human impact. Another example of a way that we humans are increasing our risk
by increasing our exposure to hazards is the proliferation of toxic chemicals that are produced,
transported and stored, sometimes in perpetuity, in communities all around the world.
Hazards create a greater risk for those people who are the most vulnerable to them. While
perhaps not complete parallels, I think the difference between the human infrastructure that
exists on Key West and that of a slum (for example in Monrovia, Liberia) is a good example of
how differences in populations and infrastructure determine a community’s level of vulnerability.
In Florida, the buildings, roads, bridges, etc. are built to standards that, while not infallible,
sufficiently decreased the population’s (real and perceived) vulnerability to the local hazards
enough for the developers, residents, insurers, etc. to decide that it is a safe investment. In
Monrovia, however, in a community like West Point, which was built on a tiny strip of land
sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean and is home to some of poorest people in one of the poorest
countries in the world, it is quite possible that the buildings and roads do not meet any
construction standards, at all. Their structures offer very little protection against storms and
floods and the people who live there lack the resources and power to do anything to improve
their situation.

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