Abstract
We examine social aspects of risk perception in seven sites among communities affected by a flood in Mexico (one site), as well by volcanic eruptions in Mexico (one site) and Ecuador (five sites). We conducted over 450 interviews with questions about the danger people feel at the time (after the disaster) about what happened in the past, their current concerns, and their expectations about the future. We explored how aspects of the context in which people live have an effect on the relationship between risk perception and social network factors. Levels of risk perception for past, present, and future aspects of a specific hazard were similar across these two countries and seven sites. However, specific network factors varied from site to site across the countries, thus there was little overlap between sites in the variables that predicted the past, present, or future aspects of risk perception in each site.
Dr. Eric C. Jones, Assistant Professor, University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston. Email: eric.c.jones@uth.tmc.edu
Dr. A. J. Faas, Assistant Professor, San Jose State University. Email: aj.faas@sjsu.edu
Dr. Arthur Murphy, Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Email: admurphy@uncg.edu
Dr. Graham A. Tobin, Professor, University of South Florida. Email: gtobin@usf.edu
Dr. Linda M. Whiteford, Professor, University of South Florida. Email: lwhiteford@usf.edu
Dr. Christopher McCarty, Department Chair, Associate Professor, Center Director, University of Florida. Email: ufchris@ufl.edu
This previously published paper was abridged and edited to focus on social network factors, and is reproduced here with permission of Springer Science+Business Media and the editors of the journal Human Nature. The citation for the previously published paper is as follows: Jones, E.C., A.J. Faas, A.D. Murphy, G.A. Tobin, L.M. Whiteford, C. McCarty. 2013. Cross-Cultural and Site-Based Influences on which Demographic, Individual Well-being, and Social Network Factors Predict Risk Perception in Hazard and Disaster Settings. Human Nature 24(1):5–32.
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Notes
- 1.
Data collection and management for this project were supported by US National Science Foundation grants BCS-CMMI 0751264/0751265 and BCS 0620213/0620264. Special thanks to Brittany Burke and Olivia Pettigrew for editorial support in preparation of this manuscript; to Fabiola Juárez Guevara, Isabel Pérez Vargas, Brittany Burke, and Audrey Schuyler for their considerable efforts in the field helping collect data; to Jason Simms for feedback on analytical procedures; and to research partners at the University of Puebla’s disaster centre (BUAP-CUPREDER) in Puebla, Mexico and at the National Polytechnic University’s Geophysical Institute (EPN-IG) in Quito, Ecuador. Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by a School for Advanced Research Team Seminar in 2012.
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Jones, E.C., Faas, A.J., Murphy, A., Tobin, G.A., Whiteford, L.M., McCarty, C. (2018). Social Networks and Disaster Risk Perception in Mexico and Ecuador. In: Marván, M., López-Vázquez, E. (eds) Preventing Health and Environmental Risks in Latin America. The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73799-7_11
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