The disastrous flash flooding in the Texas Hill County over the July 4 holiday weekend is a tragic reminder of how volatile and disaster-prone weather in the United States can be. A recent study by Dr. Christine Crudo Blackburn from Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health and other healthy policy and disaster preparedness authorities shine a light on the factors associated with disaster readiness across the country.
“In 2023 alone, the United States experienced 28 natural disasters that resulted in nearly $93 billion in damage,” said Dr. Christine Crudo Blackburn, a faculty member in the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. “In addition, the extreme weather events that caused them — floods, tropical cyclones, tornados, a winter storm, a wildfire and a drought with heat wave — are projected to become even more frequent and severe in future years.”
Blackburn notes the study is important because preparedness saves lives. Experts state most disaster-related fatalities and injuries could be preventable by taking the right preparedness actions. The national Healthy People 2030 program includes objectives for increasing the proportion of adults who have an emergency and disaster plan – and know how to evacuate when disaster strikes.
“Prior to our study, however, there was little data on the measures that could address these objectives,” Blackburn said.
The cause for the insufficient data is most individual preparedness research was completed prior to 2020. That’s long before today’s financial instability, food insecurity, and related factors were considered. The data that exists also falls before the COVID-19 pandemic, which added a political dimension to disaster response, said Blackburn.
To replenish the data, the researchers conducted a cross-sectional survey in English and Spanish of 2,989 adults in the United States from April to June 2024. This new survey was published in Public Health Reports and was supported by a Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) Seedling Grant.
Participants answered whether they had an emergency kit and evacuation plan, as well as if they knew where they could find emergency information and supplies in the event of a natural disaster. They also responded with how well they could rely on community members, the national guard and local government for disaster readiness and planning.
The survey sample represented the United States population in several metrics: age, race/ethnicity, gender, and Census region, according to Blackburn.
The study participants most often identified as female, non-Hispanic white, 34 years old or younger and living in the South. They had a high school diploma or less, had full- or part-time employment with an annual household income of less than $25,000, and identified as Democrat.
The study, like previous studies, found that those more likely to have an evacuation plan and emergency kit and to trust disaster assistance had one or more of these characteristics:
- They were men
- They had previous disaster experience
- They worked part-time or full-time
Three areas stood out in particular: age, race, and political affiliation.
They study also found that individuals aged 55 or older were more likely to say they knew how and where to access emergency information, knew how to stay safe during a natural disaster and trusted the assistance offered by local governments and the National Guard.
“While this result is not aligned with the findings of previous studies regarding preparedness, it does reflect research that showed that adults 55 years old and older have more trust in evacuation orders issued by the government than younger adults,” Blackburn said.
Additionally, in contrast to previous findings, the study identified no meaningful relationships between disaster preparedness and race or political affiliation.
“For the latter, however, we also found that Democrats felt more confident than Republicans in their ability to access emergency information,” Blackburn said. “This raises questions about whether this finding relates more to a lack of knowledge or to a lack of trust in information sources, and we encourage future research on this given its implications for messaging in disaster preparedness and response efforts.”
The findings of this study could be the difference between saving lives and a mishandled catastrophe by public health officials.
In addition to Blackburn, others involved with the study were Dr. Matthew R. Boyce and Dr. Tiffany Radcliff all with the Department of Health Policy and Management. Blackburn and Boyce also are faculty affiliates with the USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness. Others were center director Dr. Jason Moats center program coordinator Mayra Rico, graduate student Kirk Niekamp and undergraduate student Elizabeth Thomas.
Statistics and information on the study by Ann Kellett, Texas A&M University School of Public Health
