Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Evacuation before a disaster is critical for saving lives, particularly for vulnerable populations such as older individuals, low-income households, and single-parent households with small children. Older or low-income populations are more susceptible to injury during disaster, and they have fewer financial and other resources for recovery. Vulnerable populations often live in geographical areas more likely to experience a severe disaster. However, vulnerable populations are less likely to evacuate because of lack of resources and information. This study examines organizational characteristics and network characteristics which facilitate evacuation services for vulnerable populations. Using a phone survey, 70 organizations were identified as providing disaster services to people in a gulf-coast metropolitan area. Of these organizations, 67 responded to a mail questionnaire, representing a 95% response rate. From questionnaire responses, evacuation capacity is measured by summing the ability of the organization to receive referrals for client evacuation (no referrals = 0, referrals = 5), and the transportation capacity for special populations (values range from 0 = no capacity, to 9 = full capacity). This summative variable ranges from 0 to 14. Organizational type is either social services (SS = 1), health or hospitals (HH = 2), or emergency management (EM = 3). Organizational representatives were asked to select reasons the organization was located where it is now located. From among 11 total choices, organizations could select required to locate in a governmental complex or proximity to volunteers. The service delivery scale consists of six items which respondents rated from a 0 (no capacity) to a 9 (full capacity). The items in this scale are case management, outreach, case finding, information/referral, helping clients apply for services, and case advocacy. Values for this summative scale range from 0 to 45. The network variable is range-of-type, which is the number of different types of organizations which the subject organization cooperates with during disasters. Each organization named between 2 and 12 other organizations which it considers important to work with in disasters, and also selected an organizational type which describes the responding organization. In a regression, the independent variables explain almost half of the variance in organizational capacity (R2 = .45) When entered simultaneously into the regression all five independent variables, except for organizational type, have significant standardized betas with evacuation as the dependent variable. The standardized betas for each variable with evacuation capacity are as follows: proximity to volunteers (.20), organizational type (.18), location in a governmental complex (.31), service delivery capacity (.34), and range-of type (.30). A path model with the above causal order of variables has a high goodness of fit, and accurately reproduces the original correlation matrix. These results suggest evacuation plans and policies which locate organizations in governmental complexes or proximate to volunteers, which increase organizational capacity for case-centered methods of service delivery, and which increase the number of different types of organizations which each organization cooperates with in disasters. These policy implications are shown to be highly relevant to populations impacted by Hurricane Katrina, or at-risk for future disasters.