Volcano Hazards Survey

MBVRC subscribers and readers,

Here is a request from Dr. Brittany Brand, a University of Washington professor in the Earth and Space Sciences department. She is asking volcanophiles in the northwest to help her students with a public survey about volcano hazards. Please help out by passing the survey along to a few people among your friends and family.

Hello everyone,

For those of you who do not know me, I am a volcanologist at the University of
Washington.  Last term I initiated a study on the perception of volcanic hazard
and risk in the Cascades in collaboration with colleagues at the Cascade Volcano
Observatory.  While quite a bit of work has been done on this topic in other
volcanically active regions, surprisingly little has been conducted in our own
backyard.

This research was initiated as part of a class project for my Winter 2011 ESS
106, Living with Volcano students last term.  As part of a class project, the
students developed questions for a survey that assessed how communities in the
Cascade region perceive volcanic hazards and risk.  I (the instructor) took the
questions and organized them into a single coherent survey tool.  The students
administered the survey via a catalyst link to at least 5 friends and/or family
in the Cascade region.  We received over 850 completed surveys!  The students
and I analyzed the results in class, and completed a follow-up assignment
suggesting future work both for community assessment and outreach opportunities.

The results of this initial study will be developed into a full scale research
project over the next year or so, and may expand to include other natural
hazards in the Pacific Northwest.  I currently have three UW undergraduate
research students conducting a thorough background literature review and
analyzing the results of the initial survey.  However, we would like to receive
more survey responses before beginning the full analysis.  As we expected, many
of the survey participants were from the Seattle area and between the ages of
18-25.  Our goal is to expand this to include a greater variety of Pacific
Northwest residents over a broader age range.

We ask that you consider encouraging your students (from the 100-level and up)
to distribute this survey to their friends and family in the Cascade region and
beyond.  My research assistants will begin analysis of the results May 3rd, so
any data we could get before then would be invaluable.  This has been approved
by the UW human subjects division for distribution.  Survey participants must be
18 years of age or older. All survey participants will remain anonymous.  The
survey can be found here:

https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/bbrand/126752

Thank you ahead of time for your participation and support.  We recognize that
there is much room for improvement with this initial survey tool and the methods
of distributing it (e.g., fishnet distribution rather than focused communities),
but we feel this is a reasonable first stab at initiating this new line of
research.  Suggestions are welcome.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,
Brittany

—
Brittany D Brand, Ph.D.
Department of Earth and Space Sciences
University of Washington
Johnson Hall Rm-070, Box 351310
4000 15th Avenue NE
Seattle, WA 98195-1310
Office: JHN 434
https://sites.google.com/site/brittanydbrand/

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