Straddling the Fields of Disaster Preparedness and Disaster Epidemiology: Lessons Learned from Planning a Study for Implementation Within Weeks of an Unpredictable Natural Disaster

Abstract

Introduction:

Studies on the impact of disasters on communities often occur months to years after the event. Pre- and peri-event details collected from participants may be imprecise or even unobtainable as memory is affected by time. More so, delays in data collection can introduce recall bias when participants with adverse outcomes provide differential responses about exposure. In 2019, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and RTI International designed a study to mitigate these issues by surveying within weeks of a natural disaster to examine associations of preparedness to peri-event exposures, emergency services, and health.

Method:

Given the unpredictability of natural disasters, a significant challenge for the team was to plan a rigorous study design applicable to several types of severe weather events. This presentation will review our forethought, planning, and resulting strategy, including important considerations related to IRB and OMB applications with unspecified disaster/location details. We will share decision-making on sampling, instrumentation, communication materials, and multi-mode data collection procedures. The impact of delays due to COVID-19 and waiting to select a disaster that met a prior disaster inclusion/exclusion criteria will also be presented.

Results:

Results are forthcoming. We will present details on RTI’s 2022 survey implementation in the Fort Myers area of Florida within weeks of Hurricane Ian landfall including information on our final sampling strategy, field period, and outcome rates among key community groups and exposures.

Conclusion:

Conclusions will be presented. Pragmatic lessons learned related to timeline, labor, and other resources will be used to compare our strategy to rapid needs assessment methodology as well as more typical self-report surveys with later post-disaster data collection periods. Researchers working in emergency preparedness/response and disaster epidemiology will have gained a solid understanding of the advantages and disadvantages to planning studies for the immediate aftermath of undefined disasters.