Abstract This national mixed-methods exploratory study examines emergency management (EM) professionals’ familiarity, attitudes, and readiness regarding formal professionalization structures such as licensure, accreditation, standardized curricula, and national oversight. Amid increasing disaster frequency, escalating workforce turnover, and growing expectations for technical and ethical competence, the need for a formalized and coherent professional structure in emergency management has never been more urgent. Quantitative data were collected from 190 respondents through a national survey, and qualitative insights were generated through two follow-up focus groups. Results indicate that years of EM experience – not age, gender, or degree level – are significantly associated with greater familiarity with professionalization concepts. Broad support for licensure, accreditation, and unified oversight emerged across demographic groups, though participants expressed concerns about readiness, pathway clarity, authority, and uneven organizational capacity. Qualitative findings contextualized these trends by illustrating persistent fragmentation, inconsistent expectations, and the need for clearer structures to support a mature profession. Implications for policy development, accreditation efforts, and strategic planning are discussed. Given increasing disaster frequency and workforce instability, these findings provide timely guidance for shaping the national trajectory of emergency management professionalization.
Abstract Investigating tier-specific public compliance with COVID-19 containment measures is essential for developing effective post-pandemic strategies. This study examines compliance behaviors across first-, second-, and third-tier cities in three northern provinces of China, utilizing survey data from 985 respondents. The Kruskal–Wallis test, supplemented by a post-hoc Dunn’s test, identifies significant differences in compliance levels, with third-tier cities exhibiting notably higher compliance than first-tier cities. Grouped nested regression models reveal distinct drivers of compliance across urban tiers. In first-tier cities, psychological factors – such as risk perception and trust in government – play a more salient role, whereas in third-tier cities socially embedded influences, including community norms and peer behavior, are more prominent. In second-tier cities, police effectiveness exerts only a marginal influence, suggesting that more diffuse and complex factors are at play. These findings highlight the importance of tailoring strategies to the unique psychological and social dynamics of each urban tier, providing valuable insights for managing future public health crises.
Disasters that directly affect human health negatively affect the supply chain. The construction of emergency centres is critical so that aid can quickly reach people in the region where disasters occur. By choosing the most appropriate location, transportation and logistics costs can be effectively reduced, emergency aid can be delivered faster, and the negative effects of disasters can be minimised. Thus, location selection research is popular in many different fields. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods are widely used in location selection problems. This study aims to determine the best distribution centre for emergency logistics (EL) using hybrid MCDM methods. The study used seven criteria and 11 alternative locations in Kahramanmara & scedil; province of Turkey. In the research, the criteria used to determine the potential locations of distribution centres were weighted with the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The alternative locations were ranked using weighted criteria using the fuzzy Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method. The research emphasises the importance of considering different criteria and using MCDM methods for the location selection of distribution centres. The research results help disaster managers and policymakers decide to place humanitarian logistics distribution centres strategically.
Since all disasters are local, the role of local leaders, elected and appointed, is critical in emergency management. Locally elected and appointed officials play critical role in decision making, fund allocation, and policy development, all of which define preparedness and response at the local level. The current study collected data from locally elected and appointed officials who were participating in classes on emergency management. Constructs included perceived threats, preparedness needs, and priorities. Findings suggest key differences between urban, suburban, and rural settings. Implications are relevant for emergency managers, government officials, decision-makers, and researchers.
This paper examines whether continuous detection-and-reporting should be mandated on smartphones for the purposes of social safety and homeland security. It identifies the single greatest obstacle not in the technology itself-on-device speech recognition and always-listening microphones already exist-but in the absence of a privacy-preserving trust infrastructure. As a promising candidate to fill this gap, the paper proposes the Verifiable Record of AI Output (VRAIO), which concentrates governance on outputs: only those aligned with socially authorized purposes are externally released, non-emergency data are deleted on-device, only confirmed emergencies are reported to authorities, and the entire process is recorded in a tamper-resistant manner for independent third-party auditing. Once such an infrastructure secures genuine privacy protection, a limited and conditional mandate for continuous smartphone-based detection and reporting becomes realistic-contributing decisively to social safety while protecting, rather than exposing, device owners. Imagine a society in which every smartphone carries such a capability as a duty, yet the privacy of its owner is fully preserved. The converse is equally instructive: a society that declines to confront this question seriously is left to suffer the unchecked proliferation of covert microphone exploitation. The question, therefore, is not whether to surveil, but under what stringent output-governance conditions, and in what narrowly defined form of obligation, social acceptance can be achieved.
Phenomena such as climate change, COVID-19, long-term environmental pollutants, and urbanization increase the probability of hazards occurring simultaneously or sequentially - creating a compound hazard. How governments plan for compound hazards needs to differ from how they plan for independent hazards, but there is little research on whether or how this is done. This study examines the depth of formal and informal state planning for compound hazards across the United States. State emergency management plans were evaluated based on whether and how they address simultaneous hazards, cascading hazards, and environmental justice. Results indicate that 45 of 51 state and territorial disaster plans mention compound hazards in some capacity in at least one sentence of their plan. Only 22 discuss the implications of compound hazards or establish a plan to address them, and only 7 include more than one sentence of actionable procedures. The study concludes with a recommendation that future plans not only acknowledge the possibility of compound hazards but recognize the common occurrence of such events; identify the variety of interactions that are possible between hazards; plan for how to prioritize resources and personnel that will inevitably be in short supply; and ensure consistency by aligning potentially contradictory response plans.
Inherent to disasters is destruction and disruption within the impacted communities, especially in the context of public health. The lack of attention to diverse factors in understanding the health repercussions of disasters induced by natural hazards hinders the ability to grasp the full extent of these consequences. Thus, a thorough examination of public health indicators is essential for a nuanced understanding, enabling tailored interventions and proactive measures to address the specific needs and vulnerabilities of disaster-affected populations. Hence, this study conducts a systematic literature review to identify indicators that gauge a community's resilience to the health-related consequences of disasters triggered by natural hazards. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, 60 published articles were obtained as candidates for the review, yielding 42 unique indicators through content analysis. From these indicators, 12 overarching themes were extracted using an established framework from a prior study. Examining these indicators in relation to the themes revealed specific associations, highlighting crucial connections and emphasizing their importance in the context of the themes. The findings of this review could facilitate a more nuanced approach to the different dimensions of disaster-related health impacts, support the formulation of proactive strategies to mitigate risks, and guide the efficient allocation of resources to areas with the most urgent needs. The identified themes and their corresponding indicators may be applied in hotspot identification, benchmarking best practices, and informing the development of analytical models to assess the overall health resilience of communities to disaster-related impacts. Some limitations of the findings are likewise discussed.
Incorporating the perspectives of volunteers who undertake various roles in disaster situations is crucial for developing effective response strategies and mitigating future disasters, ultimately contributing to creating disaster-resilient societies. This study examines the experiences of individuals who voluntarily participated in intervention activities during the acute phase of the 2023 earthquakes in T & uuml;rkiye and explores how their experiences influence disaster preparedness behaviors. The research was conducted using an in-depth interview methodology, with twelve volunteers selected through purposeful sampling. Both face-to-face and virtual interviews were conducted, and the collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The study identified five key themes - motivation, environmental conditions, experience, capacity, and reaction - that shape the post-disaster gains of volunteers. These findings provide valuable insights into the role of spontaneous volunteers in disaster management and their contributions to enhancing community resilience.
Critical services, also known as community lifeline services, are necessary for individual well-being and community stability at the local level, and security at the national level. Variations of this concept are now firmly embedded in several fields, ranging from disaster recovery and electric grid planning to domestic economic development and international disaster relief. There is recognition that time plays an important role in how severely people are affected by the service disruption, and it is speculated that the impacts are non-linear in time. However, there has not been, to date, a study that has attempted to collect the time frames at which loss of services significantly affects human well-being. In this paper we synthesize findings from a meta-analysis of literature that address the temporal dimension of critical or lifeline service criticality and identify critical gaps in our cumulative understanding of the urgency of lifeline criticality. The findings can be used to inform further empirical data collection and subsequent refinement of resilience planning tools and multi-disciplinary emergency response and preparedness efforts.
Securing the cyberspace is a newer domain for national security with threats against intelligence and military targets increasing yearly. There exists, however, a serious challenge to homeland security and the United States' competitiveness in a new cyber world in which biological information is becoming intellectual property that is a risk for theft and ransom. Cyberbiosecurity is the emerging answer to the biobased cybersecurity vulnerabilities that exist within the United States and that have long-term impacts on the overall bioeconomy which is responsible for 25 % of the United States GDP. The field is beginning to emerge with important meetings, public discussion, testimony to Congress, and publications making importance stances, there does not exist a current systematized structure which can address the needs of the novel cyberbiosecurity space. Cyberbiosecurity needs to be the on-going focus of the government and private companies as a hybridized disciple which is the interface of cybersecurity, cyber-physical security, and biosecurity.
This article aims to define novel non-kinetic threats (NKTs) to homeland security and to develop an analytical framework for understanding these threats in a homeland security context. NKTs result from a convergence of emerging technologies that have enabled the merger of the physical, biological, and digital realms, which is the foundation of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is argued that NKTs are the center of a new mode of global conflict that plays out between societies as much as it plays out within societies. Everybody can be both a participant or target in non-kinetic warfare. Given the wide range of different non-kinetic actions that can be employed by an adversary for achieving desirable effects on targets and the challenge that many of these non-kinetic actions are difficult to detect since they may have ambiguous, temporary, or not visible effects, there are huge challenges for the homeland security sector to fully understand and appropriately respond to these threats. One example that is discussed to illustrate the general challenges related to NKTs is Havana Syndrome, which falls into the sub-category of neuro-cognitive warfare. It is argued that a new homeland security paradigm and new analytical tools are needed.
Second responders, defined as comprising trained municipal employees, government organizations, the military, construction workers, nonprofits, and untrained volunteers, play vital roles in disaster response. They assist by distributing supplies, clearing debris, providing shelter, and offering medical and psychological support. While first responders have been widely studied and celebrated as heroes, second responders have received limited scholarly attention despite their significant contributions. This article employs emergent norm theory and the altruistic community model to examine how second responders participate in emergency management. It examines three purposely selected major disasters - the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy - to illustrate the roles and importance of second responders. Findings reveal that, although negative behaviors such as role abandonment and looting can occur, disaster situations often foster emergent norms that create altruistic communities, motivating volunteerism among second responders. The study emphasizes that emergency management agencies should cultivate a culture of volunteering and educate communities about the value of sharing their human capital and committing to doing so well in advance of disasters striking. By doing so, communities can strengthen their resilience and ensure effective collaboration between first and second responders during crises.
This study examines the integration of data utilization and Business Process Management (BPM) within risk governance frameworks for disaster management. Addressing bureaucratic constraints in traditional systems, we propose a Data-Driven Disaster Management Process (DMP) framework and identify critical success factors through an integrative literature review and illustrative case analysis. Four critical elements - operations (governance and institutions), personnel (organizational capacity), finance (budget and infrastructure), and collaboration (interagency cooperation and resource allocation) - must function integratively to enable effective risk governance. Case analyses illustrate that integrating data and process perspectives improves decision-making speed, optimizes resource allocation, and strengthens interagency collaboration. This study proposes a novel risk governance paradigm, underscoring the potential of BPM and data-driven approaches to enhance the effectiveness of disaster management.
This study examines how public perceptions of homeland security risks shift after major events. Using 2016 Amazon Mechanical Turk surveys, it assesses concern for ten hazards, including terrorism, natural hazards, and cyber threats. Data were analyzed using t -tests of both absolute and relative risk and of effects before and after events. Findings show that terrorist attacks like the Orlando shooting significantly heightened concern, while natural hazards had a lesser impact. Perceptions were shaped by recent events, personal experience, and geography. The research underscores the role of emotional and psychological factors in risk perception and highlights the need to integrate public concern into homeland security policies to strengthen societal resilience.
Multiple simultaneous disasters (MSD), namely the occurrence of more than one disaster at the same time, have imposed complex challenges to incident management teams (IMTs) operating at different government levels. While IMTs’ challenges and efforts in a single disaster have been extensively reported in the literature, there is limited knowledge regarding functioning of IMTs during MSDs. To fill this knowledge gap, the current study aims to further examine definitions of MSDs and identify challenges and efforts of IMTs during MSDs. An interpretative phenomenological analysis method was used to analyze transcripts of semi-structured online interviews of nine highly experienced professionals who responded to MSDs in the US over the past three decades. Findings are presented in line with three pillars of the US National Incident Management System–resource management, command and coordination, and information and communication. During MSDs, IMTs experienced lack of human and technical resources, difficulty allocating resources, lack of unified command, poor integration of Incident Command System, incompatible rules and procedures between jurisdictions, inconsistent terminologies, and information hoarding. Regarding efforts to overcome these challenges, IMTs took advantage of mutual aid, civilian-provided resources, flexibility of incident command, advanced information technologies, team meetings, and liaison officers. Considering growing risks of MSDs, more attention needs to be paid to current and future issues the IMTs face and more supports need to be provided for IMTs to foster their capabilities of managing complex demands from MSDs.
This paper presents a comprehensive examination of the development of a prioritization methodology designed for hazard mitigation projects within the framework of the 2023 Illinois Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (INHMP). This INHMP update was meticulously crafted to align with the accreditation standards set by the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) and meet federal and state requirements. This paper explores the dynamic historical evolution of hazard mitigation policy, highlighting the imperative for a robust methodology to effectively prioritize funding for projects free from bias. The methodology innovatively addresses the limitations of the previous approaches used by integrating a quantitative Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) process, enabling a nuanced evaluation of project outcomes based on 11 primary objectives collaboratively identified by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and stakeholders. Quantification ensures a more objective assessment, overcoming the inherent limitations of subjective decision making. This paper further introduces an optimization formula to operationalize the prioritization methodology, accounting for varying project funding sources. This article concludes by offering recommendations for ongoing refinement and validation of the methodology, in addition to adaptation recommendations for the methodology to remain a dynamic and effective decision-making tool in mitigating hazards in the face of future evolving policies.
Agro-terrorism is not a new threat among terrorist activities but one which was not stressed adequately in many countries. Agro terrorism is an assault-type used in WW-I, which is, in its true meaning, to infect the animals and crops intentionally with disease aiming to interrupt economic stability, causing panic and fear in the public. For this purpose, it is necessary to increase safety precautions, define critical situations for agro assaults, apply risk reduction strategies, and increase inter-organization cooperation. It is also essential to show a proactive approach in police activities, establish first responder teams for the high-risk zones, and include agriculture engineers, veterinarians, police force, and crime scene investigators. In short, agro assaults are real and can show themselves abruptly. The important thing here is to transfer this reality into an acceptable risk by protective measurements, inter-organization cooperation, and technical intelligence.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, Sweden experienced the rise of a doctrine advocating perpetual peace. This led to significant reductions in the country’s military defense capabilities and the complete dismantling of its civil defense infrastructure. However, events such as the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 prompted Sweden to reassess its security situation in 2015. Consequently, Sweden initiated the process of rebuilding what is referred to as total defense, which involves close collaboration between civilian and military defense entities. A crucial component of this rebuilding effort has been the conduct of various exercises aimed at fostering cooperation between these two sectors. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of these exercises in promoting team learning, thereby enhancing the capacity for effective civil–military collaboration. Data for this research was gathered through participant observation during seven exercises, and was subsequently analyzed using the Edmondson team learning model. The findings indicate that the team learning model demonstrates effectiveness. However, notable deficiencies were observed in terms of context support and the prevalence of defensive routines, highlighting areas for improvement in civil–military collaboration.
