The growing scale and frequency of disasters emphasize not only that these events are probable, but that the resources required for successfully responding and recovering from each disaster will be progressively spread thin. The economics of disaster has become a highly debated policy issue (eg, amendments to the Stafford Act were vigorously argued in Congress in 2011), underscoring the necessity for communities to harness the full range of governmental and nongovernmental (NGO) assets. Every recent emergency or disaster has underscored the vital role of NGO resources in enhancing emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.Reference Moore, Chandra and Feeney1 Investments—of time, effort, and expertise, not just financial resources—are needed. NGOs (nonprofit and for-profit) provide information, supplies, and direct services and have access to diverse populations, which are integral in community rebuilding.
Reflecting this reality, the focus of preparedness policy is broadening to address the role of NGOs. For example, the National Health Security Strategy (NHSS) includes a full range of participants in health security, including federal, state, and local governments; community groups; private businesses; and individuals.2 In spite of the change in policy focus, NGO resources, particularly those of the private sector, are still not well understood or leveraged.Reference Moore, Chandra and Feeney1, Reference Chandra, Acosta and Stern3-Reference Joshi6 The first step in harnessing and making the best use of NGO resources is to develop a common understanding of what the resources are and how they can support disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. The present focus study presents an assets framework that identifies relevant NGO resources for disaster preparedness and response that can, ultimately, be used to assess their availability at the national, state, and local levels.
Methods
The study proceeded in 2 phases. First, we conducted a literature review to identify existing asset frameworks and a literature and policy review to identify roles of NGOs in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. Next, we used a standardized data abstraction form to organize the literature review results by NGO sector.
Literature Review to Identify Asset Frameworks
Database and Article Searches
We conducted a review of peer-reviewed publications and the gray literature to identify literature on asset frameworks using Ebsco Host, which consists of 15 databases including Academic Search Complete, ERIC, and PsychInfo . The search term “asset map*” yielded 78 results. Each abstract was reviewed and 7 full-text articles were downloaded for data abstraction. We also used Google Scholar (search terms: “asset mapping” + “disaster”) to identify additional articles. The first 50 results sorted by relevance were examined, with 2 additional full-text articles selected for further review. To include resources developed for community audiences and other gray literature, we conducted Google searches using the terms “asset mapping” + “disaster” and “asset mapping” + “inventory” to identify articles for further review. The searches yielded 14 articles. In addition, 2 resources well-known to the disaster preparedness community, from the University of California at Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research and the Sahana Foundation were included.
Data Abstraction
We developed a data abstraction form (DAF) to systematically extract information from the articles. The 4 broad categories of information included:
1. Background information: publication title, author, year, and other administrative notes such as filename and which database search it came from
2. Asset definition: definition of asset, the type of organization it was tailored for, and the methodology or theory it was grounded in
3. Asset categorization: whether the article was specific to disaster (preparedness, response, or recovery), the original asset categories listed, and definitions of asset categories including skills or knowledge, money, infrastructure or space, services, relationships, and data
4. Asset assessment: measures and types of questions used to assess the asset categories and whether there was any comparison to government
An “other” category was added as necessary to capture additional details not captured by the abstraction fields. Each full-text article was reviewed using the abstraction form and entered as a record in a spreadsheet (Excel).
Literature and Policy Review to Identify Roles of NGOs in Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
Peer-Reviewed Literature
Articles from 2000 or later were identified using a title search of Medline (PubMed) and PsychInfo. Search terms included: nongovernment* or nonprofit or faith-based or business or community-based AND disaster or resilience or preparedness or emergency or mitigation. The search identified 40 articles. A title and abstract review narrowed the search to 23 articles. Recent reports written by the authors were also included in this literature review.2-Reference Chandra and Acosta4, Reference Chandra, Acosta and Meredith7, Reference Acosta, Chandra and Sleeper8, 11, 12 One review11 included an assessment of 86 articles on community resilience (from 464 initial citations), which resulted in an additional 40 articles with substantive focus on NGOs and disaster.
Review of Policy and Federal Guidance
We also reviewed the following recent policy documents to identify NGO roles as outlined in current policy and federal guidance: National Health Security Strategy,10 the National Security Strategy,13 the National Disaster Recovery Framework,14 Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21,15 Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction,16 All-Hazard Risk Mitigation Plan,17 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Pandemic Influenza Plan,18 and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Whole Community Engagement Strategy.Reference Acosta, Chandra and Feeney9
Review and Abstraction of the Literature, Policy, and Guidance
A DAF facilitated systematic evaluation, capturing from each document several elements regarding content (eg, type of study, data collection method, analytic approach, and a summary of key findings). We used the DAF to catalog the unique capabilities of NGOs referenced in each citation (eg, flexibility), determinants of involvement in disaster operations (eg, financial considerations), services NGOs provided during disaster response and recovery (eg, shelter, food), and how these key services differed for routine and emergency times.
Abstracting Information by Sector
As a final step, we combined the DAFs from these searches into a single database (Excel) and then organized the abstracted information by the 11 sectors designated by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 2012 preparedness capabilities: business; community leadership; cultural and faith-based groups and organizations; emergency management; health care; social services; housing and sheltering; media; mental/behavioral health; state office of aging or its equivalent; education and childcare settings.
Results
The NGO assets were organized into 5 categories: competencies, money, infrastructure or equipment, services, relationships, and data (see Table).
Nongovernmental Resources by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Partnership Sector
Abbreviations: ACF, Administration for Children and Families; DFS, Department of Family Services; DHS, Department of Homeland Security; DOE, Department of Education; FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency; HHS OFBNP, Health and Human Services, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; HUD, Housing and Urban Development; HPP, Hospital Preparedness Program; ICS, Incident Command System; SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Competencies
The category called competencies includes the knowledge, skills, and expertise of each sector.17-Reference Tan23 These competencies varied widely by sector from expertise in financial and organizational management and local supply chains (business sectorReference Watkins, Cooke, Donovan, MacIntyre, Itzwerth and Plant24) to expertise in child development (education and childcare settingsReference Hutchins and Speevak-Sladowski25). For example, the United Parcel Service of America used its expertise to establish the International Transportation Program, which offers discounted supply-chain management and logistics support to NGOs delivering aid across the globe.26 This system was used to ship radiation detectors to Japan after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster.27 Some sectors offered disaster-specific competencies such as knowledge of ICS and disaster financing, and skills in emergency planning (emergency management); while others offered specialized knowledge used in both routine times and times of disaster, such as how to treat and care for those with physical illness or psychological problems (health care and behavioral/mental health, respectively28).
Services
The services or help/aid supplied by sectors followed closely with their competencies.29-Reference Goldman and Schmalz31 For example, in 1998 after a major flood (ie, covering up to 68% of the country's total land area for 10 weeks) struck Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee diverted staff and resources from normal operations to assist with disaster recovery efforts. Applying their expertise in long-term development projects, the staff was able to respond to the housing and economic consequences of the flood by assisting people in returning to their homes and to their regular income-generating activities as quickly as possible.Reference Garnett and Moore32
Money
NGOs also provide financial or economic assets that may benefit a community before, during, or after a disaster.Reference Pyles33-Reference Dedrick, Mitchell, Miyagawa and Roberts37 These include nonprofit and philanthropic dollars funneled through community funds or foundations (community leadership and cultural and faith-based groups), as well as private investors or customer/organizational donations (business). After Hurricane Katrina, the Target Corporation donated $1.5 million to the American Red Cross and authorized stores in the affected areas to provide in-kind product donations and grants to local NGOs. Sara Lee Corporation set up a disaster relief fund and matched employees’ contributions 2:1.
Infrastructure or Equipment
NGO assets also included physical assets and built facilities such as gyms and kitchens that can be used for sheltering, distribution of goods, emergency operations, exercises, and other preparedness and response activities.22, Reference Kretzmann and McKnight38-Reference Allen40 For example, Target Brands, Inc offered company teams to provide volunteer support and real estate in Louisiana to the Red Cross to establish a command center supporting the most heavily affected areas of the storm.41 Locations and addresses of physical infrastructure were available across all the sectors and could be mapped through existing mapping programs, such as Sahana,42 Ushahidi, or HHS's MedMap.
Relationships
NGOs can also serve as important connectors based on their social or professional ties. These relationships can be leveraged for communication and information dissemination, as well as for additional resources and support.43, Reference Allen, Cordes and Hart44 In advance of Hurricane Michelle in 2001, neighborhood representatives from the Federation of Cuban Women monitored their vulnerable population while the community physicians surveyed patients in the neighborhood to see if anyone needed to be moved to the hospital before the storm hit.Reference Moore, Chandra and Feeney1
Data
Given their range of services, NGOs collect information that may be useful for emergency planning. This information includes the location and prevalence of vulnerable populations, as well as the availability of the assets described. Previous efforts to track resource flows have been hampered because of limited capacity for data sharing and analysis. For example, Tulane's Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy was unable to track resource flows for humanitarian and recovery assistance after the earthquakes in Haiti and recommended targeted capacity building to allow public and private institutions to better share and analyze data needed for targeting recovery resources.45 Recognizing this limitation, RAND researchers recently convened a panel of community-level disaster resilience members. This analysis, which is forthcoming, illustrated the unique data contributions of NGOs, including volunteer and organizational capacity information.
Discussion
The analysis presented in this brief report underscores the value of NGOs in providing resources for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery, and it also highlights the relatively limited use of available data on these resources for informing emergency planning. Currently, national policy calls for greater engagement of NGO assets; however, no framework exists to categorize and assess the quality of these contributions. The development of an assets framework described in this report represents a critical step toward that goal.
Given the challenge in tracking the flow of resources after disasters,45 strengthening the capacity of each sector is needed to capture data on each asset type in ways that can be merged for just-in-time analysis of where additional relief is needed. Developing an assets inventory and an ongoing system to track assets could help improve awareness of where resources can be leveraged to meet community needs before, after, and during a disaster.
Conclusion
The assets framework described herein is a step toward generating a standardized inventory of NGO assets for disaster response and recovery. An assets inventory is valuable because it provides a standardized way to identify potential contributions of NGOs, including both resources and relationships. To harness NGO assets, a common understanding of what the resources are and how they uniquely contribute to disaster efforts is needed. Although the assets framework needs be applied and tested in future community planning and disaster response, it serves as more specific guidance for public health agencies struggling to adapt to the demands of a new national preparedness and recovery policy. It also provides some structure to future community planning, resource allocation, and metrics on which to evaluate NGO disaster involvement.
Acknowledgment
Christina Huang, MPH, assisted with the literature search for this brief report.
Funding and Support
Support was provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (Contract No. HHSP233200800565G). The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
