Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Exploratory Study On The Association Between Community Resilience And Disaster Preparedness In The Rio Grande Valley, Dean Kyne

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

(1) Background: Severe weather events have impacted over 100 million Americans in the past two years, highlighting the importance of individual disaster preparedness in building community resilience. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing individuals’ perceived disaster resiliency and preparedness in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

(2) Methods: Data were collected from 846 respondents using the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) Assessment Survey instrument. The study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the association between disaster preparedness and community resilience.

(3) Results: The findings of the study revealed a significant association between disaster preparedness and perceived community resilience. …

Empirical Evaluation Of Disaster Preparedness For Hurricanes In The Rio Grande Valley, Dean Kyne, Leslie Cisneros, Josue Delacruz, Bianca Lopez, Cristina Madrid, Rebecca Moran, Alma Provencio, Felix Ramos, Maria Fernanda Silva

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Individual emergency preparedness is critical to mitigate and minimize the negative impacts from disasters. Preparing for future disasters could enhance capacity to better cope with the external shocks and achieve a faster return to normalcy after the disaster event. This study investigates how individuals living in the Rio Grande Valley prepare themselves for the future hurricane disasters. The study investigates the state of objective and subjective preparedness and any discrepancy between the two types of disaster preparedness. Using collected data from590 respondents via an online survey instrument, the study examines the relationships between the states of individual preparedness and selected …

Who Will Stay, Who Will Leave: Decision-Making Of Residents Living In Potential Hurricane Impact Areas During A Hypothetical Hurricane Event In The Rio Grande Valley, Dean Kyne, Arlett Sophia Lomeli, William Donner, Erika Zuloaga

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) has been impacted by various hurricanes throughout history. While Hurricane evacuation has been studied extensively in other contexts, there is limited systematic research on the warning and response to a large-scale severe weather event in South Texas. This study attempts to understand the evacuation decision-making behavior of Southern residents in the event of a Hurricane making landfall over the Rio Grande Valley. The study uses an online survey questionnaire with 1060 participants: 275 students attending the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and the remaining 785 are members of the community. Throughout the course of the …

Emerging Environmental Justice Issues In Nuclear Power And Radioactive Contamination, Dean Kyne, Bob Bolin

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nuclear hazards, linked to both U.S. weapons programs and civilian nuclear power, pose substantial environment justice issues. Nuclear power plant (NPP) reactors produce low-level ionizing radiation, high level nuclear waste, and are subject to catastrophic contamination events. Justice concerns include plant locations and the large potentially exposed populations, as well as issues in siting, nuclear safety, and barriers to public participation. Other justice issues relate to extensive contamination in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and the mining and processing industries that have supported it. To approach the topic, first we discuss distributional justice issues of NPP sites in the U.S. …

A Longitudinal Study Of Human Exposure To Potential Nuclear Power Plant Risk, Dean Kyne, Jason T. Harris

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study constructs a potential risk index (PRI) for the 65 U.S.-based commercial nuclear power plant (NPP) sites in relation to their surrounding populations. Four risk levels are defined: low risk, moderate risk, high risk, and very high risk. Discrepancies that exist in the sociodemographic characteristics of the host communities’ populations are examined as sorted by risk-level category. It is found that a greater percentage of minority groups are exposed to the highest levels of risk. In addition, percent “Hispanic” and percent “Other,” a grouping that includes multiracial, mixed, interracial, as well as Hispanic and Latino groups (for example, Mexican, …