#3 COVIDCalls 3.18.2020 – Evacuation & Shelter Decision-Making & Coping with Pets

What are the psychological factors behind how individuals and organizations make evacuation/sheltering decisions during disasters? How are pets a source of comfort and resilience? Dr. Sarah DeYoung, an expert on applied social and community psychology and core faculty member at the Disaster Research Center at University of Delaware, discusses the connections between evacuations/shelter in place orders, decision making, and various types of vulnerability. Dr. DeYoung stresses the importance of agreement among public officials for building trust in authority during a disaster and the damage open disagreement among authorities can do to public confidence. DeYoung delves into the factors, like neoliberalism and privatization, that have eroded the capacity of and public trust in the American government disaster response. Dr. DeYoung also shares insights from her research on how pet ownership affects how people respond to disasters and her worries about a possible increase of animal surrenders during the pandemic. For Further Reading: “The Pets of Hurricane Matthew: Evacuation and Sheltering with Companion Animals” “The Effect of Mass Evacuation on Infant Feeding: The Case of the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire” Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging “The Popular Culture of Disaster: Exploring a New Dimension of Disaster Research” “Loneliness as a public health issue: the impact of loneliness on health care utilization among older adults”