An official website of the United States government
In emergency events, first responders often have to build an accurate spatial working memory of unfamiliar spaces in a short time period. This study investigates the impact of information format on first responders’ short-term spatial memory of large-scale spaces via a human-subject experiment (n=63). A virtual model was created to simulate a real building on Texas A&M University campus. A total of 28 building components were modified in the virtual model. Participants were asked to review the virtual model with one of the three methods: 2D drawing, 3D model, and VR model. After the review session, the participants were sent to the real building to identify the discrepancies, and accuracy was documented as the performance measure. The results reveal that the 3D and VR groups both significantly outperformed the 2D group in spatial working memory. This study sets the foundation to further understand how instructional information affects the performance of first responders in emergency response.
more »
« less
Addressing Complex Health Challenges through Community-Based and Community-Engaged Work
Background: Across the country, cities increasingly rely on Fire Departments and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to respond to community members experiencing behavioral health crises, addiction, and homelessness. This increasing scope of work can be hard for first responders, who experience a high rate of burnout and turnover. Methods: Through a four-year civic-partnered participatory action research study, we explored the diverse perspectives of people serving on emergency and street-based response teams in an urban setting in northern California. After formative focus groups, we developed and piloted a slate of interventions to strengthen response programs and prevent moral injury and burnout among first responders. Results: First responders identified a wide range of interventions, ranging from structural systems improvement (e.g. expanded shelter hours, more treatment facilities, access to city-wide data systems) to workplace modifications (e.g. no mandatory overtime, increased casual team-building time, complex call debriefs) that would enhance their ability to serve their communities while preventing burnout and moral injury. We collaboratively and iteratively piloted several interventions and evaluated them using a mixed-methods approach. Through these efforts, we developed a model for how moral injury and burnout arise among first responders using an ecosocial approach. Conclusion: Through this partnered participatory action research study, we found moral injury is a salient concern and that modifiable structural and workplace factors are important drivers of risk. There were also challenges to using participatory methods in the context of a hierarchically structured organization designed for emergency response. We discuss lessons learned through navigating these challenges.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2322023
- PAR ID:
- 10616394
- Publisher / Repository:
- APHA
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Minneapolis, MN
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Emergency Management (EM) strategies often overlook the communication challenges faced by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community, limiting their involvement in disaster preparedness and response. This paper introduces SafeSigns, a geospatially enabled toolkit designed to bridge this gap by facilitating hazard reporting and communication by and for DHH individuals. By integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with user-centered design, SafeSigns empowers users to report incidents, identify hazards, and coordinate with Public Safety (PS) officials. Unlike traditional EM technologies, which rarely prioritize accessibility, SafeSigns leverages ArcGIS Pro, React Vite, and TypeScript to ensure usability, efficiency, and accessibility. This research represents one of the first ISCRAM-related efforts to explicitly include DHH communities in EM. Findings support a more inclusive and participatory approach, demonstrating the significance of geospatial solutions in enhancing community resilience. Future work will refine SafeSigns through real-world testing and explore applicability to other vulnerable populations in disaster response.more » « less
-
Boersma, Kees; Tomaszeski, Brian (Ed.)A primary component of disaster response is training. These educational exercises provide responders with the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared when disasters happen. However, traditional training methods, such as high-fidelity simulations (e.g., real-life drills) and classroom courses, may fall short of providing effective and cost-efficient training that is needed for today's challenges. Advances in technology open a wide range of opportunities for training using computer-mediated simulations and exercises. These exercises include the use of mixed reality games and wearable computers. Existing studies report on the usefulness of these technologies for training purposes. This review paper synthesizes prior research and development of disaster response simulations and identifies challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned. Through this review, we provide researchers and designers with an overview of current practices in designing training simulations and contribute practical insights into the design of future disaster response training.more » « less
-
Emergency Response Management (ERM) is a critical problem faced by communities across the globe. Despite this, it is common for ERM systems to follow myopic decision policies in the real world. Principled approaches to aid ERM decision-making under uncertainty have been explored but have failed to be accepted into real systems. We identify a key issue impeding their adoption — algorithmic approaches to emergency response focus on reactive, post-incident dispatching actions, i.e. optimally dispatching a responder after incidents occur. However, the critical nature of emergency response dictates that when an incident occurs, first responders always dispatch the closest available responder to the incident. We argue that the crucial period of planning for ERM systems is not post-incident, but between incidents. This is not a trivial planning problem — a major challenge with dynamically balancing the spatial distribution of responders is the complexity of the problem. An orthogonal problem in ERM systems is planning under limited communication, which is particularly important in disaster scenarios that affect communication networks. We address both problems by proposing two partially decentralized multi-agent planning algorithms that utilize heuristics and exploit the structure of the dispatch problem. We evaluate our proposed approach using real-world data, and find that in several contexts, dynamic re-balancing the spatial distribution of emergency responders reduces both the average response time as well as its variance.more » « less
-
Emergency Response Management (ERM) is a critical problem faced by communities across the globe. Despite this, it is common for ERM systems to follow myopic decision policies in the real world. Principled approaches to aid ERM decision-making under uncertainty have been explored but have failed to be accepted into real systems. We identify a key issue impeding their adoption --- algorithmic approaches to emergency response focus on reactive, post-incident dispatching actions, i.e. optimally dispatching a responder after incidents occur. However, the critical nature of emergency response dictates that when an incident occurs, first responders always dispatch the closest available responder to the incident. We argue that the crucial period of planning for ERM systems is not post-incident, but between incidents. This is not a trivial planning problem --- a major challenge with dynamically balancing the spatial distribution of responders is the complexity of the problem. An orthogonal problem in ERM systems is planning under limited communication, which is particularly important in disaster scenarios that affect communication networks. We address both problems by proposing two partially decentralized multi-agent planning algorithms that utilize heuristics and exploit the structure of the dispatch problem. We evaluate our proposed approach using real-world data, and find that in several contexts, dynamic re-balancing the spatial distribution of emergency responders reduces both the average response time as well as its variance.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
