State-level Citizen Response to COVID-19 Containment Measures in Brazil and Mexico

In Brazil and Mexico, presidents failed to take swift, national action to stop the spread of COVID-19. Instead, the burden of imposing and enforcing public health measures has largely fallen to subnational leaders, resulting in varied approaches within each country and conflicting messaging from elites. We likewise see variation in compliance with social distancing across subnational units. To explain this variation, we contend that citizen responses are driven both by the comprehensiveness of state policies and whether they take cues from national or subnational elites. We hypothesize that support for national and subnational elites, and the nature of the state-level policy response, affect citizen compliance with public health guidelines. In both countries, we find that support for the governor has an interactive relationship with policy response. In Brazil, support for the president is associated with lower compliance. In Mexico, this effect is not present. We argue that these distinct relationships are due to the different cues emerging from each leader.

Electricity Consumption of Singaporean Households Reveals Proactive Citizen Response to COVID-19 Progression

Understanding how populations’ daily behaviors change during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to evaluating and adapting public health interventions. Here, we use residential electricity consumption data to unravel behavioral changes within citizens’ homes in this period. Based on smart energy meter data from 10,246 households in Singapore, we find strong correlations between the pandemic progression in the city-state and the residential electricity consumption. In particular, we find that the daily new COVID-19 cases constitute the most dominant influencing factor on the electricity demand in the early stages of the pandemic, before a lockdown. However, this influence wanes once the lockdown is implemented, signifying the arrival of a ‘new normal’ in the residents’ lifestyles. These observations point to a proactive response from Singaporean residents---who increasingly stayed at home during evenings despite not being forced by the government to do so using a lockdown---a finding that surprisingly extends across all demographics. Overall, our study enables policymakers to close the loop by utilizing residential electricity usage as a measure of community response during unprecedented and disruptive events such as a pandemic.

Severe Weather Forecasts and Public Perceptions: An Analysis of the 2011 Super Outbreak in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

This paper uses the “Super Outbreak” of 2011 as a case study to examine the potential gaps between the dissemination of severe weather warnings and the public’s behavioral response to this information. This study focuses on a single tornado track that passed through Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The tornado caused massive damage and destruction and led to a total of 62 fatalities. The threat of severe storms was known days in advance, and forecasts were disseminated to the public. Questions were raised about the forecasts, warning lead times, and the perception of the warnings among residents. This paper examines the potential gaps that exist between the dissemination of tornadic warning information and citizen response. The analysis of data collected through a mixed-method approach suggests that, regardless of weather forecast accuracy, a significant chasm exists between the dissemination of warnings and the personalizing of risks, which results in limited use of protective measures in the face of severe weather threats.

Analysis of Climate Change Education (CCE) Programs: Focusing on Cultivating Citizen Activists to Respond to Climate Change

Climate change education (CCE) programs should foster citizen response to climate change by integrating knowledge/skill development with reflection on the need for actively changing current social systems and personal actions. An analytical framework was developed to examine 16 Korean and international CCE programs to identify (1) structure and content and (2) to categorize action-emphasized climate change education (AECCE) programs. Results show most CCE programs are for elementary levels and place emphasis on knowledge/skill development, but not on action. AECCE categorized programs were less structured, included more reflexive activities, and promoted more action. Korean AECCE programs offered online content and promoted action at the personal level. International AECCE programs balanced online/real-life content and promoted more action at the socio-political level. AECCE programs need to foster values/attitudes and to promote participation and action at all grade levels, should balance potential and practical components, and target both personal and socio-political levels of action.

For a short time, we were the best version of ourselves: Hurricane Harvey and the ideal of community

Purpose The authors use a co-auto-ethnographic study of Hurricane Harvey where both authors were citizen responders and disaster researchers. In practice, large-scale disaster helps temporarily foster an ideal of community which is then appropriated by emergency management institutions. The advancement of disaster research must look to more radical perspectives on human response in disaster and what this means for the formation of communities and society itself. It is the collective task as those invested in the management of crises defer to the potentials of publics, rather than disdain and appropriate them. The authors present this work in the advancement of more empirically informed mitigation of societal ills that produce major causes of disaster. The authors’ work presents a departure from the more traditional disaster work into a critical and theoretical realm using novel research methods. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper produces a co-auto-ethnographic study of Hurricane Harvey where both authors were citizen responders and disaster researchers. Findings The authors provide a critical, theoretical argument that citizen-based response fosters an ephemeral utopia not usually experienced in everyday life. Disasters present the possibility of an ideal of community. These phenomena, in part, allow us to live our better selves in the case of citizen response and provide a direct contrast to the modern experience. Modernity is a mostly fabricated, if not almost eradicated sense of community. Modern institutions, serve as sources of domination built on the backs of technology, continuity of infrastructures and self-sufficiency when disasters handicap society, unpredictability breaks illusions of modernity. There arises a need to re-engage with those around us in meaningful and exciting ways. Research limitations/implications This work produces theory rather than engage in testing theory. It is subject to all the limitations of interpretive work that focuses on meaning and critique rather than advancing associations or causality. Practical implications The authors suggest large-scale disasters will persist to overwhelm management institutions no matter how much preparedness and planning occurs. The authors also offer an alternative suggestion to the institutional status quo system based on the research; let the citizenry do what they already do, whereas institutions focus more on mitigate of social ills that lead to disaster. This is particularly urgent given increasing risk of events exacerbated by anthropogenic causes. Social implications The advancement of disaster research must look to more radical perspectives on human response in disaster and what this means for the formation of communities and society itself. It is the collective task as those invested in the management of crises to defer to the potentials of publics, rather than disdain and appropriate them. The authors also suggest that meaningful mitigation of social ills that recognize and emphasize difference will be the only way to manage future large-scale events. Originality/value The authors’ work presents a departure from the more practical utility of disaster work into a critical and highly theoretical realm using novel research methods.

Rapid migrations and dynamics of citizen response

One of the pressing social concerns of our time is the need for meaningful responses to migrants and refugees fleeing conflict and environmental catastrophe. We develop a computational model to model the influx of migrants into a city, varying the rates of entry, and find a nonlinear inverse relationship between the fraction of resident population whose tolerance levels are breached due to migrant entry and the average time to such tolerance breach. Essentially, beyond a certain rate of migrant entry, there is a rapid rise in the fraction of residents whose tolerances are breached, even as the average time to breach decreases. We also model an analytical approximation of the computational model and find qualitative correspondence in the observed phenomenology, with caveats. The sharp increase in the fraction of residents with tolerance breach could potentially underpin the intensity of resident responses to bursts of migrant entry into their cities. Given this nonlinear relationship, it is perhaps essential that responses to refugee situations are multi-country or global efforts so that sharp spikes of refugee migrations are equitably distributed among nations, potentially enabling all participating countries to avoid impacting resident tolerances beyond limits that are socially sustainable.

Citizen Perspectives on the Customization/Privacy Paradox Related to Smart Meter Implementation

This paper employs the framework of contextual integrity related to privacy developed by as a tool to understand citizen response to implementation of residential smart metering technology. To identify and understand specific changes in information practices brought about by the introduction of smart meters, citizens were interviewed, read a description of planned smart grid/meter implementation, and were asked to reflect on changes in the key actors involved, information attributes, and principles of transmission. Areas where new practices emerge with the introduction of the smart grid were then highlighted as potential problems (privacy violations). Issues identified in this study included concern about unauthorized use and sharing of personal data, data leaks or spoofing via hacking, the blurring distinction between the home and public space, and inferences made from new data types aggregated with other personal data that could be used to unjustly discriminate against individuals or groups.

Options for improving evacuation: Investigating an unconventional strategy and expanding route options using TRansportation ANalysis and SIMulation System

Various agencies including state departments of transportation, emergency management offices, a municipal works agency, or a highway patrol agency may prepare evacuation plans. Storm strength and landfall predictions determine procedures and strategies. Studies have been conducted that examined various methods considering evacuees’ behaviors, traffic control, safety, and preferential routing. The occasions when a hurricane is imminent require residents to make a choice between sheltering-in-place or evacuating. Tremendous growth is anticipated in many US coastal communities and that will place greater pressure on evacuation strategies in future years. Given the inevitability of future hurricane evacuations and the intensive growth projections for US coastal areas, this research examines evacuation options with a focus on the Houston-Galveston region. The research examines two scenarios using the TRansportation ANalysis and SIMulation System simulation model which relies on a GIS base. Study results showed that both scenarios perform well as alternative options for inclusion in regional planning. It is recommended that these two scenarios be included in the array of responses available for decision makers depending on the myriad of variables—citizen response, congestion levels on the roadways and location, and prediction of an impending storm. The options may be applied independently or in concert with other strategies.