The Effect of Disaster-induced Displacement on Social Behaviour: The Case of Hurricane Harvey – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

The Effect of Disaster-induced Displacement on Social Behaviour: The Case of Hurricane Harvey

Stella Shi

UROP Logo

Pronouns: she/her

Research Mentor(s): Christopher Fariss, Assistant Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 4 (2pm-2:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 19
Presenter: 3

Event Link

Abstract

Natural disasters have deleterious effects on public health and individual behaviors and are not uniform between different groups of individuals. Hurricane Harvey, which brought unprecedented levels of flooding, property damage, and displacement to the greater Houston area in late summer 2017, allows us to study pre- and post disaster behaviors of affected individuals. Specifically, we use tweeting patterns as a measure to see how people react to the disaster. In order to compare pre- and post-displacement behavior, we use a variety of measures to capture social and political engagement, starting with tweeting frequency. We expect that individuals subject to physical displacement will demonstrate abnormalities in their tweeting behavior, and that these effects differ across ethnic groups, with visible minorities most substantially affected.

Authors: Christopher Fariss, Stella Shi
Research Method: Computer Programming

lsa logoum logo