Chapter 2.5 Identifying and engaging high-risk groups in disaster research
Chapter 2.5 describes how to identify and support high-risk groups in disaster research by:
- Describing high-risk groups in the community.
- Addressing barriers to inclusion through strategies for sampling, recruitment and data collection.
- Engaging co-researchers or community advisors within the population of interest to ensure inclusive, ethically responsible research processes, and valid findings.
- Identifying high-risk groups and engaging them in Health EDRM research is a challenge.
- Understanding how to identify and support these groups can help researchers to deliver reliable evidence for decision-makers.
What is this chapter about?
Measuring the impacts on human health of disasters and other emergencies is a challenge. Databases and registers can help decision-makers to assess the effects of environmental exposures on human health in the disaster context.
This chapter presents a concise literature review, with information from high-, middle- and low-income countries, to provide guidance for conducting inclusive and ethically responsible research that includes people from high-risk groups. It describes high-risk populations and the common factors that may increase vulnerability. These include age-related factors, gender and sexual identities, and pre-existing chronic conditions.
Case studies presented in the chapter:
- Conducting mixed methods disaster research on adolescent engagement in disaster risk reduction in China and Nepal.
- Assessing the impact of Hurricane Katrina on persons with chronic disease.
- Using the World Trade Center Health Registry to determine longitudinal determinants of depression among World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees up to 15 years after the 9/11 attacks.
Authors: Newnham EA, Ho JY, Chan EYY.
