We are the leaders of academic hazards and disaster research institutes, centers, and laboratories located across North America. We study hazards and disasters for a living, and we have dedicated our professional lives to reducing the harm and suffering from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, technological disasters, terrorism, pandemics, and myriad other extreme events.
We have mobilized as an academic research community in response to many other large-scale disasters in the past. As that work continues, we have also turned our focus to the global COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives while disproportionately affecting the very old, the medically fragile, the poor, and communities of color. Now, following several high profile killings of unarmed Black citizens, the United States has been convulsed by a wave of mass protests, rioting, state sanctioned violence, and civil unrest. The country is being forced to confront the slowest and perhaps most deadly disaster of all, that of deeply embedded, systemic racism.
The North American Alliance of Hazards and Disaster Research Institutes stands together in our condemnation of violence and systemic racism, as we also commit to the following:
We will bring available resources to bear to ensure that our Black students and colleagues, as well as our team members from other marginalized groups, receive the support and care that they need during this time of national and global trauma.
We will not tolerate racism, discrimination, harassment, or bias in our institutes, centers, or labs. We will act fairly, swiftly, and with moral courage in the face of any such incidents, as we also strive to root out insidious forms of structural inequality.
We will work to ensure that our institutes, centers, and labs are reflective of the communities that we study and serve. We commit to recruiting and retaining a demographically and functionally diverse workforce and encouraging the participation of historically underrepresented groups. Research shows that diverse teams function more effectively. This is also the right thing to do.
We will conduct and share rigorous research that carefully considers the historical legacies and contemporary effects of systemic racism, economic and gender inequality, and other forms of oppression and injustice. Slavery, genocide, colonialism, and laws that have enforced racial segregation have systematically disadvantaged entire groups of people throughout North America, leaving communities of color at risk to hazards and with fewer resources available to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. We commit to ensuring that our research accounts for these historical legacies and the contemporary effects of ongoing social and economic inequalities. We will learn from, fund, and otherwise advance the efforts of a racially diverse cadre of scholars in this field to ensure that a wide range of perspectives are supported.
We will promote evidence-informed policies and practices that ameliorate pre-existing inequalities rather than amplify them. Research has shown that color-blind mitigation and recovery policies may leave African American, Latino, Indigenous, Asian, and other communities of color more at risk and with fewer resources available to defend against future disasters. We will strive to ensure that policy makers, practitioners, planners, students, journalists, and others are aware of this research so that we can help educate, inform, and ultimately improve the status of our society.
We realize that we alone cannot create systemic change; it requires collective commitment. But we also recognize that as the leaders of academic research units, we have a scientific and moral obligation to do all we can with what we have during this historic moment of upheaval and global catastrophe. We hope you will join us in this commitment to advancing justice and equity for all people during this time of planetary peril.
Signed,
Lori Peek, Director, Natural Hazards Center and Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder
Jennifer Tobin, Deputy Administrator, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder
John van de Lindt. Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University and Co-Director, Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning
Richard Olson, Director, Extreme Events Institute and International Hurricane Research Center, Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University
David P. Eisenman, Director, UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters, Professor-in-Residence, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA/UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health.
Karl Kim, Executive Director, National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Paul Kovacs, Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Western University
Jamie Brown Kruse, Director, Center for Natural Hazards Research and Distinguished Professor of Economics, East Carolina University
Selwyn E. Mahon, Medical Director, Caribbean Center for Disaster Medicine, AUC, Director, International EMS Fellowship, BIDMC Disaster Medicine Fellowship
Melanie Gall, Co-Director, Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security and Research Professor, School of Community Resources and Development, Watts College of Public Service and Community, Arizona State University
Kristina J Peterson, and Board of the Lowlander Center