Director's Corner

Over the past 25 years, I’ve witnessed the hazards and disaster community grow larger and substantially more diverse. Our numbers make us stronger, but diversity is our superpower. It allows us to see challenges from many angles and develop comprehensive programs and policies to address seemingly intractable problems. Put simply, our distinct perspectives help us to help more people.

This stance obviously runs counter to recent efforts to dismiss the very notion of diversity. That’s why it feels important to discuss the terminology and emphasize some of the ways it matters in the hazards and disaster field.

When it comes to diversity, I’m referencing two distinct but intertwined concepts—demographic diversity and functional diversity.

Demographic diversity typically refers to aspects of a person’s identity such as gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, disability, religion, and geographic origin, to name a few. These categories are socially meaningful and help explain, in part, people’s different lived experiences and worldviews. For instance, my upbringing on a farm in Kansas has made me attuned to issues that disproportionately affect rural Americans, such as the lack of reliable internet and sparse access to health care.

Functional diversity is associated with acquired attributes such as skill sets or informational backgrounds. This form of diversity is cultivated through the schools we attend and the disciplines we pursue, as well as the organizations we work for. Such diversity becomes apparent when we collaborate in large teams, and it often requires us to slow down so we can better understand one another’s expertise. In today’s complex, interconnected world, such boundary-spanning approaches have become a prerequisite for many initiatives aimed at reducing natural hazard losses.

When defined in these ways, it’s clear that diversity encompasses much more than a single attribute. Diversity, when approached holistically, can reveal the beautiful multitudes within each of us. It can also, hopefully, prompt us to remain mindful of the different perspectives that people have to offer. This, in turn, can help develop multifaceted solutions to the mounting problems we face.

Studies show we’re strongest when working in demographically and functionally diverse teams. This holds true in research, as well as in applied disaster management fields.

Consider, for example, the remarkable reductions in earthquake fatalities in developed countries such as the United States, Chile, and Japan. Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, attributes these declines in hazard-related mortality to functional diversity. Specifically, she states that such advancements could not have been possible without the collaboration of physical scientists, engineers, architects, social scientists, educators, and public policy experts. These professionals now regularly coordinate across disciplines to design stronger buildings, issue more effective early warnings, and train generations of people on how to take lifesaving protective action.

Demographic diversity matters, too. Several years ago, I worked with a team of researchers and practitioners to assess the state of disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities in seven countries, including Bhutan, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Peru, Turkey, and the United States. Our core team partnered with dozens of local collaborators who helped us to navigate widely varying risk contexts and cultural landscapes. Most of our partners were proficient in two or more languages. They all helped us to understand ethnic and religious customs and other circumstances that shaped the DRR environment. I shudder to think about the missteps we could have made and the key data that would have been missed without our partners’ input.

Here’s another case in point. After Hurricane Katrina displaced more than a million people from the Gulf Coast, my colleague and I launched a longitudinal study of children’s recovery. In my efforts to locate and interview Katrina survivors in Colorado, I hired a teenager named Mekana, whose family had relocated to Denver after the storm, to be a co-researcher. Mekana was a similar age and from the same racial background and geographic and cultural milieu as most of the other young people in the project. She knew other displaced “Katrina kids” and was a trusted insider, which allowed her to mobilize her networks to recruit additional young people from New Orleans into the study. Her status as a fellow Katrina survivor added an extra layer of sensitivity to all our activities.

What these and countless other examples from our community underscore is this: When teams reflect those we study or try to serve, our work is more ethically grounded and comprehensive. It can require significant investments of time and resources to build such collaborations, but if we want to reduce disaster-related disparities, we can’t give up on diversity.

Diversity doesn’t diminish us. It unlocks our understanding of and empathy for others. Now, as our disaster workforce faces unparalleled demands, it is vital that we uphold diversity and continue to cultivate it. Our community is stronger for it. And in the face of more severe disasters, it may represent our best chance to support people living at risk and save lives.