How Valid Are Social Vulnerability Models?

Samuel Rufat, Eric Tate, Christopher T. Emrich and Federico Antolini

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2019, vol. 109, issue 4, 1131-1153

Abstract: Social vulnerability models are becoming increasingly important for hazard mitigation and recovery planning, but it remains unclear how well they explain disaster outcomes. Most studies using indicators and indexes employ them to either describe vulnerability patterns or compare newly devised measures to existing ones. The focus of this article is construct validation, in which we investigate the empirical validity of a range of models of social vulnerability using outcomes from Hurricane Sandy. Using spatial regression, relative measures of assistance applicants, affected renters, housing damage, and property loss were regressed on four social vulnerability models and their constituent pillars while controlling for flood exposure. The indexes best explained housing assistance applicants, whereas they poorly explained property loss. At the pillar level, themes related to access and functional needs, age, transportation, and housing were the most explanatory. Overall, social vulnerability models with weighted and profile configurations demonstrated higher construct validity than the prevailing social vulnerability indexes. The findings highlight the need to expand the number and breadth of empirical validation studies to better understand relationships among social vulnerability models and disaster outcomes.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2018.1535887 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:109:y:2019:i:4:p:1131-1153

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/raag21

DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2018.1535887

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of the American Association of Geographers is currently edited by Jennifer Cassidento

More articles in Annals of the American Association of Geographers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().