Ma, Chenyi
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Publication Home Recovery In New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina(2018-01-01) Ma, ChenyiHurricane Katrina, the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, hit the New Orleans metropolitan area in 2005. Many studies have examined differences in both damage and recovery with respect to more socially vulnerable groups, and have identified lack of access to financial assistance as a key explanatory factor. But studies to date have focused only on differences at the community level and have concentrated exclusively on Orleans Parish. This dissertation investigates recovery prevalence and speed at the individual homeowner level and to broadens to the New Orleans metropolitan area. I focus on three research questions. First, among socially vulnerable demographic groups identified in the literature (including Black, Hispanic, female heads of household, people ≥ age 65), which were most likely to suffer housing damage at the homeowner level? Second, among those suffering the most housing damage, how did their access to financial assistance differ from other homeowners? Finally, what role did these differences play in relative prevalence and speed of recovery for those suffering the most housing damage? Data from the 2004 and 2009 American Housing Surveys in the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area are used to model home damage by a series of nested logistic regressions, and to model home recovery by both logistic and Cox regressions. Analyses suggest the following. First, among the socially vulnerable groups, Black homeowners were most vulnerable to housing damage. Vulnerability was partially due to their older homes, which was strongly associated with damage from Katrina. Second, Black homeowners were less likely than others to receive private financial assistance and more likely to receive public financial assistance. They were also more likely to perceive financial gaps impeding their recovery process. Third, private financial assistance positively contributed to prevalence and speed of recovery whereas reliance on public financial assistance slowed speed of recovery. While prevalence of home recovery was similar between Black and non-Blacks, Black homeowners took much longer to start and complete recovery than non-Black homeowners. Delays were partially due to Blacks’ relative lower incomes, higher number of replacements/additions, lack of private financial assistance, and financial gaps they perceived after the disaster.Publication Understanding the Dynamic Process of Older Adult Behavior Changes for Disaster Preparedness: An Application of the Integrated Transtheoretical Model with Social Cognitive Theory and Protection Motivation Theory(2024-09-30) Ma, Chenyi; Culhane, Dennis; Bachman, Sara S.Integrating the Transtheoretical Model with Social Cognitive Theory and Protection Motivation Theory, we propose a new model to study the progress of behavior changes towards disaster preparedness along three developmental stages: from “not prepared” (NP), to “intention to prepare” (IP), to “already prepared” (AP). Using the 2021 National Household Survey data (FEMA, N = 6,180), we tested this model by employing a series of nested weighted generalized ordered logistic regressions. We found that, although Hispanics have a larger prevalence of IP than their non-Hispanic white counterparts, they are less likely to move to the AP stage. The observed ethnicdisparity is largely due to the disparities in actual behavioral capabilities in essential knowledge and access to resources between the two groups. Personal disaster experience, social/observational learning, self-efficacy, and risk perception each facilitate behavior changes from the NP to IP or AP stage (i.e., departure from NP stage) and from NP or IP stage to AP stage (i.e., arrival at AP stage). Although income does not necessarily influence one’s decision to depart from the NP stage, it determines one’s arrival at the AP stage. Increasing one’s income further boosts the realization of AP for people with high-risk perceptions. However, for people with moderate or low levels of risk perceptions, increased income did not lead to arrival at the AP stage. Additional research is needed to more fully apply this processoriented approach with new measurement introduced in this paper to study the behavior changes among subpopulations in exposure to specific hazards.