Citation

Beggs JJ, Haines V, Hurlbert JS. Int. J. Mass Emerg. Disasters 1996; 14(1): 57-78.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, International Sociological Association, International Research Committee on Disasters)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Studies of the response of individuals to disasters have relied primarily on individual factors for explanation. Using data collected in telephone interviews with 594 residents of southwestern Louisiana, we examine the effects of local community and personal network contexts, as well as individual factors on individuals' use of aid from formal organizations. We find our measures of personal network context affect five of our seven measures of the utilization of formal aid, and that network form effects these outcomes more consistently than network composition does. These effects are generally consistent with our predictions. We also find significant effects of our measure of community context, the level of owner-occupancy in an area. Living in areas with higher rates of owner-occupancy has a positive effect on three of our measures of formal aid. Based upon these findings we conclude that contextual factors exert important effects on individuals' use of formal aid. We suggest that studies of the provision of aid to individuals by organizations should be supplemented with more detailed studies of the effects of personal network and local community contexts on individuals' receipt of specific sources of aid from formal organizations.