Citation

Ji H, Lee D. Disasters 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Public Administration Program, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12424

PMID

31782547

Abstract

In the 20^th century, disasters triggered by natural hazards have led to an accumulative economic loss of roughly seven trillion USD and have resulted in eight million deaths worldwide. Given the escalating risk of natural hazards for communities, scholars and practitioners are emphasizing the importance of disaster risk mitigation as a strategy for enhancing community resilience. However, little is known about the extent to which governments' disaster risk reduction efforts have enhanced community resilience outcomes. We bridge this gap by examining the effects of the U.S. Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), which was designed to improve disaster resilience at the community level. We analyzed natural hazard loss data pertaining to the U.S. counties that received HMGP funds in the wake of presidentially-declared disasters between 2010 and 2015.

FINDINGS suggest that counties that received HMGP funds were likely to experience less property damage from future natural hazards compared to other counties. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

2019.

Language: en

Keywords

community resilience; disaster risk mitigation; hazard mitigation grant program; policy effectiveness; property damage