Christopher B. Mayhorn - US grants

NSF PROJECT ABSTRACT

Older Adult Decision Making during Hurricane Hazard Preparation:
To Evacuate or Shelter-in-Place

Principle Investigator: Christopher B. Mayhorn, North Carolina State University

Population estimates indicate that by 2025, more than 82 million people in the United States will be over the age of 60. There is a critical need for research that investigates the needs of older adults in preparing for natural hazards such as hurricanes. The events of the present hurricane season, where multiple storms (i.e., Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne) have threatened the state of Florida within a one-month time frame, illustrate the need to better understand how recent previous experience with a particular hazard influences decision making in young and older adults. The proposed Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) will utilize multiple approaches to answer the following research questions of interest: (1) How do older adults (aged 65+) differ from younger adults in how they make decisions regarding hurricane hazard preparation? (2) Do age-related factors (i.e., cognitive, social, physical) interact to limit hazard preparation and potentially hinder warning compliance with protective action recommendations (PARs)? (3) Does frequent, repeated exposure to previous hurricanes influence risk perception, which in turn may determine how factors are weighted during subsequent decision making? Methodological approaches include the use of structured interviews and drop off surveys that will quantify age-differences in the process of decision making when people are faced with the decision to either evacuate or shelter-in-place.

The proposed research is significant for a number of reasons. First, the theoretical contributions that will result from a synthesis of the cognitive aging and disaster warning literatures promises to significantly increase understanding for age-related vulnerability during natural disasters. Second, the information gleaned from this research will be informative in updating current hazard warning and communication systems that are not designed with older adults in mind and may pose a systematic risk to this traditionally under-represented population. Third, this SGER project will contribute to the education of future generations of hazard researchers because it promotes teaching, training, and learning among graduate and undergraduate students who will be trained to apply their knowledge of cognitive psychology and aging to this new domain. In summary, the proposed research is both theoretically and practically interesting because it addresses a critical need by investigating the safety of a growing segment of the American public in the context of a frequent, naturally occurring hazard that is annually responsible for numerous deaths, injuries, and property damage.

Publicly owned microtransit has recently emerged as a promising solution for connecting suburban and rural transportation disadvantaged populations to employment and other important destinations. As a public transportation service, microtransit typically provides low, fixed trip rates, and does not rely on pricing mechanisms such as dynamic pricing to balance supply and demand. Although avoiding high rates and dynamic pricing is particularly appropriate for low-income, vulnerable population groups, it can lead to significant delays during the morning and afternoon peak with important consequences on the users, such as missed medical appointments and wages. Work and medical trips have time constraints, but other trips may be more flexible and could happen in off-peak periods to reduce service delays and missed critical trips. Fulfilling a Smart & Connected Communities (S&CC) vision, this planning grant focuses on technologically enabled and community-supported solutions for distributing travel demand over time for on-demand public transportation services in an equitable manner, without the exclusive or even primary use of traditional pricing incentives. An interdisciplinary team of faculty members and researchers will engage with communities in North Carolina that have piloted microtransit systems to advance this research and gain a better understanding of the community needs, preferences, and capacities. This grant has the potential to lead to an enhanced public microtransit paradigm, with fewer missed or delayed critical trips and quality-of-life improvements for the transportation disadvantaged.

This research will advance our understanding of the feasibility of, and tradeoffs involved in enabling and incentivizing prosocial behavior in public microtransit, including volunteering to shift one’s trip time to accommodate others, share a ride, cooperate with other users to improve outcomes for the user community, and prioritize a transportation disadvantaged user or a critical trip. It will investigate how artificial intelligence can be applied in facilitating prosocial behavior in a trip scheduling environment by reducing the cognitive burden placed on users. During the planning grant period, the team will organize a workshop to gather knowledge from various stakeholders, including planning and transportation agencies and community-based organizations. Focus groups with community members will be assembled to conduct semi-structured interviews and collect information on willingness to share rides and information with other users, flexibility of schedule throughout the day, and the type of information about other users that would evoke empathy and prosocial behavior.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.