Categorizing and Indexing Community-Based Resources

1. Categorizing and Indexing Community-Based Resources Douglas Troy, Miami University Resource Data Center

2. Emphasis on the local community Governments alone cannot achieve significant, sustainable risk reduction: Greater emphasis must be placed on local approaches (Turoff et al., 2003; Benson et al., 2001).

3. Community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) CBDP = Local capacity building that leverages knowledge and capabilities of local community resources: • Basic needs: Food, clothing, shelter • Health care and equipment • Transportation • Equipment: generators, lighting • Heavy equipment and operators • Animal care • more

4. Community resources: Used by NGOs and gov’t agencies • Successful implementation of CBDP requires understanding of the local communities (Allen, 2006). • Community-based disaster responders including Red Cross and Salvation Army are well equipped to implement CBDP. These workers assess the needs of disaster clients and connect them with needed assistance. • EMAs also need community resources.

5. Mobilizing community resources can be difficult Many emergency response organizations use printed resource directories of community resources: • Out of date when printed. • Cannot be updated in real-time. • Cannot be shared easily with neighboring communities and regional or national emergency workers.

6. Information technology is underutilized • Researchers expect an increasingly important role for IT in information sharing in disaster preparedness and response (Arnold et al, 2004). • Recent study found 42% of local community web sites have no disaster-related content and 2005 hurricane disasters had little effect on municipal website content (Basolo et al., 2006).

7. Critical component: Local resource database A database of community resources is a critical component for CBDP (Turoff et al., 2003): • Documents physical, informational and human resources. • Indexed for easy searching. • Readily available, Internet or off-line.

8. Community DisasterInformation System (CDIS) Miami University and American Red Cross study of a database to support CBDP: • 3 year study funded by NIH/NLM. • 7 Red Cross chapters and an emergency management agency. • Central database, Internet portal, and applications for mobile laptops and PDAs.

9. Project timeline Prototype funded by Microsoft and Miami, supported by Cincy and Dayton Red Cross Greater Cincinnati/ Hamilton EMA May ‘06 2002 2004 Development and testing funded by NIH/NLM, supported by Red Cross national

10. Focus for session: resource categorization and indexing • A comprehensive categorization of resource types is required for database indexing and searching. • NERIN project produced in a taxonomy of disaster services (http://www.211taxonomy.org/publicfiles/view/Disaster_Services.pdf). • NERIN taxonomy is insufficient to support CBDP.

11. AIRS 211 taxonomy used as foundation(http://www.211taxonomy.org) (Licensed from AIRS/211 LA County) • Basic Needs • Consumer Services • Criminal Justice • Education • Environmental Quality • Health Care • Income Support and Employment • Individual and Family Life • Mental Health Care and Counseling • Organizational/Community Services • Target Populations

12. Taxonomy hierarchy example(http://www.211taxonomy.org) • B Basic Needs • BD Food • BD-150 Community Wide Food Storage Facility • BD-180 Emergency Food • BD-180.820 • BD-180.820-18 Drinking Water • BD-180.820-33 Ice • BH Housing/Shelter • BM Material Goods • BR Temporary Financial Assistance • BT Transportation

13. Categories of resources for disaster preparedness Our study identified approximately 800 resource categories (including 700 bottom-level categories) to support community-based disaster preparedness and response. Our pilot database has approximately 6,000 records with 11,000 indices. The following is a high-level overview of the categories identified.

14. Basic Needs • Food (pantries, water, baby, ethnic) • Shelter/Housing (crisis shelters, supportive housing, building materials, utility connection/repair) • Material goods (generators, household goods, personal goods, financial assistance) • Transportation (auto rental, bus service, ferry service, disability and medical transport)

15. Criminal justice / legal • Correctional facilities (county, state, federal) • Law enforcement agencies (state, municipal, sheriff) • Legal services (towed vehicles, immigration)

16. Environmental quality • Communicable disease control • Domestic animal services (animal shelters, veterinary services) • Environmental protection (hazardous materials control) • Municipal services (building codes, port facilities, sanitation, street lighting, emergency street clearance, traffic control, utility line location, waterworks) • Public health (disease control, hazards cleanup, pollution testing, pest control) • Public safety (emergency rescue, fire services, safety advisories, safety equipment)

17. Health care • Emergency medical care (medical transport, emergency care, intensive care, screening, supportive services, mercy flights, pharmacies, vaccine depots) • Mother/infant care • Inpatient facilities (hospitals, nursing facilities) • Medical labs • Outpatient facilities (clinics) • Specialized treatment (burns, dialysis, immunizations) • Specialized (dental, obstetrics) • Substance abuse

18. Income support and employment • Job finding assistance • Volunteer programs • Public assistance (general relief) • Medical public assistance • Nutrition related public assistance (food stamps, WIC)

19. Individual and family life • Death certification / burial arrangements • Day care (adult, child) • Interpretation/translation • Mutual support groups • Protective services • Hotels/motels • Volunteer opportunities (equipment operators, disaster services)

20. Mental health care and counseling • Mental health facilities (inpatient, outpatient) • Outpatient mental health care (crisis intervention, counseling) • Psychiatric/mental health services

21. Organizational/community services (con’t) • Community groups (mental health associations) • Facilities/community centers (civic centers, drop in centers • Travelers assistance • Disaster services (government agencies and offices) • Disaster preparedness (equipment and supplies, kits, information, partnerships, planning and response)

22. Organizational/community services (con’t) • Disaster mitigation (relocation, protective measures, insurance) • Disaster warnings (weather, terrorism, fire, road closures, curfew, etc) • Disaster response services (emergency communications, evacuation centers, emergency medical care, mortality management, search dogs, USaR)

23. Organizational/community services (con’t) • Disaster relief services (critical service information, post disaster food, clothing, shelter, child care, animal services, …) • Disaster recovery services (donation coordination, loans, service centers, housing assistance, …) • Donor services (food, building materials, office equipment, tools…) • Information services • Occupational/professional associations

24. Target populations: indexing resources by group or condition • Active military • Adults • AIDS/HIV • Animal/Pet issues • Bioterrorism issues • Burns • Children • Disaster/Emergency • Hurrican victims • Terrorism issues • more

25. Related concepts: Cross-referenced related categories • Animals • Blindness/Visual impairments • Children and youth • Community care facilities/Arrangements • Death and dying • Disabilities • Disaster services • Emergency services • Older adults • Transportation

26. Demonstration: Searching

27. List of resources in a category

28. Detail resource information

29. CDIS information CDIS home page: http://www.rdcmiami.org/cdis For more information: doug.troy@muohio.edu

30. References Allen, K. M. (2006) Community-based disaster preparedness and climate adaptation: local capacity building in the Philippines: Disasters 30(1): 81-101. Arnold, J. L., B. N. Levin, R. Manmatha, F. Lee, P. Shenoy, M. C. Tsai, T. K. Ibrahim, D. J. O’Brien, D. A. Walsh (2004) Information-Sharing in Out-Of-Hospital Disaster Response: The Future Role of Information Technology, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 19(3): 201-207. Basolo, V., L. Steinberg, S. Gant (2006) E-Government and the Preparation of Citizens for Disasters, Proceedings of the 2006 National Conference on Digital Government Research, San Diego, CA: 255-256. Benson, C., J. Twigg, M. Myers (2001) NGO Initiatives in Risk Reduction: An Overview, Disasters 25(3): 199-215. Turoff, M., M. Chumer, B. Van del Walle, X. Yao (2003) The Design of a Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information System (DERMIS). Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application 5(4): 1-36.