Response to Disaster

This edition of Response to Disaster provides an updated and more thorough version of the well-received 1994 first edition. The author adds new research and expands on areas only briefly developed in the first edition, which disseminated the original research findings from several disaster research studies completed by the author. He provides the reader with a basic understanding of how people and organizations usually respond to a disaster in contrast to how they are usually perceived to respond, as well as a description of how and why the mass media helps provide both accurate and inaccurate information involving disasters. In addition, the author discusses organizational response to disasters and assesses future needs in research to improve the reaction to them so that mitigation, planning, and disaster response activity are more effective. Here, he greatly expands the areas of theory of approaches to disaster.

Henry W. Fischer III is a member of the International Research Committee on Disasters, and is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.