HORIZON EUROPE: Better understanding of citizens’ behavioural and psychological reactions in the event of a disaster or crisis situation

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Qualitative and quantitative analyses on the behaviour of diverse society groups affected by a natural and man-made disaster or crisis situation, during and after an even occurs, based on real cases and testimonies, lessons learned from past disasters or crisis and recommendations from citizens and local authorities. Examine how this analysis could be integrated into preparedness plans and processes to include cultural, historical, and ethical perspectives on what defines disasters and how they are responded to.
• Analyses of human behaviour as triggering or cascading factors of disasters or crisis situations, and transformation of qualitative data into quantitative information to improve vulnerability and exposure analyses.
• Development of community-centred (vis-à-vis victim- or patient-centred) approaches and corresponding preparedness plans: in view of limited emergency response capacities and threat of systems collapses (e.g. health system, food distribution, supply chains) in large-scale disaster scenarios, analyse what community practices and communication strategies can help mitigate the latter and enable the public to be a capable partner in emergency planning and response.
• Specific measures to better address the needs and requirements of most vulnerable groups (chronic suffers, persons with disabilities, children, elderly persons, economically and socially deprived persons, refugees and irregular migrants in emergency planning and recovery measures.
• Analyses of the nature and scope of mental health issues of the affected populations and of first-responders arising during and following natural or man-made disasters or crisis situations and their implications for response and recovery, and options to address these issues, including through social and health services such as emergency psycho-social support.
• Analyses of mechanisms and factors that can lead to false alarms and misdirected actions, and of the direct consequences on both population and decision-makers.

Scope

Human actions and behaviour may strongly influence the effects and dynamics of a disaster or crisis situation and on the response, potentially modifying the vulnerability of the population. For example, inadequate design of technological systems may favour cascading consequences due to limited consideration of human performance, and insufficient planning. Linked to this, due to extreme time pressure, crisis managers are often forced to make decisions on the basis of inadequate information. The behaviour of the general public, mostly influenced by demographic factors (e.g. gender, age, income, education, risk-tolerance, social connectivity etc.) and the perception of risks, depends on the availability, form and access to information about the crisis and management of trade-offs (e.g. efficiency and thoroughness trade-offs). Social media play an important role here being a means of disinformation and misinformation.

Recent disasters related either to natural causes (including climate-related and geological hazards), man-made causes (including industrial accidents or terrorist attacks) or the COVID-19 pandemic crisis have shown the lack of sufficient knowledge in the way citizens react in case of disasters or crisis situations, with implications on policy design and implementation for example in the form of preparedness plans. In this respect, taking into account the knowledge gathered by projects funded in Horizon 2020 and ensuring complementarity, behavioural and psychological research on how citizens behave in the event of a disaster or crisis situation is needed to better understand how to best raise awareness in the population and develop tools to facilitate this.

It is hence necessary to better investigate how historical, cultural and emotional factors (e.g. anxiety, panic etc.) during a disaster or a crisis influence rational actions, evaluations of options and information seeking. In addition, the impact of disasters on health also requires looking into the short and long-term consequences of exposure to high stress/threat levels bears, in particular for mental health.

Where possible and relevant, synergy-building and clustering initiatives with successful proposals in the same area should be considered, including the organisation of international conferences in close coordination with the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) activities and/or other international events.

Deadline

23 November 2022

For further information: Funding & tenders