An interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, computer scientists, medical doctors, and technology specialists proposes to create a socio-technical model of information systems used in disaster management. This model will be constructed from interviews, first-person observations, public reports, and other sources of data on actual emergencies in the Detroit/Windsor international metropolitan area over the past five years. The model will focus on the information systems that public and private agencies in the United States and Canada use to coordinate their preparation and response. The model will be used (a) to evaluate specific hypotheses regarding the effective integration of socio-technical issues into the design of disaster management systems, and (b) to provide guidance for the effective design and use of emergency management IT.
The proposed model will be a hybrid of functional and agent-based models: In preparation for, response to, and consequence management of disasters, functional imperatives and self-organizing dynamics play differing roles. The model will incorporate representations of the cultures of the different groups, public authorities, medical professionals, first responders, families, communities, and even the media, insofar as these cultural differences have consequences for communication and the use of information.
The research proposed here builds on a unique collaboration among multiple disciplines and capabilities at Wayne State University, and an international partnership with the Police, Fire, EMS, and other practitioners. This partnership has identified a critical issue in our Nations ability to respond to future threats: the coordination of multiple agencies in a jurisdictionally complex environment, and the development of systems appropriate to that complexity.
