After disasters, the people impacted are often called upon to participate in scientific research, but researchers can easily forget that participants are more than study subjects: They are survivors. Disasters are traumatic, and those who have endured them have their own concerns, needs and perspectives that must be met with respect and consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, how can scientific studies avoid exacerbating trauma? How, like medical interventions, can they be designed and conducted to \u201cfirst, do no harm\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enter the SHIFT<\/a> framework co-developed by Bethany Cutts<\/a>, an associate professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at North Carolina State University and a faculty fellow at NC State\u2019s Center for Geospatial Analytics. SHIFT encourages researchers to ethically center the experiences of disaster survivors while collecting scientifically rigorous data, to improve how the scientific process acknowledges and addresses a community\u2019s needs. The framework comprises five elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cutts and her collaborators piloted the SHIFT framework while working with North Carolina residents whose properties were flooded during Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018. As she and her team were conducting disaster recovery interviews, Cutts learned that community leaders were worried floodwaters may have polluted local soils. So she engaged interested residents in soil sample collection to test for fecal coliform bacteria and heavy metals. \u201cIt didn\u2019t seem ethically responsible to continue doing interviews [alone] when the community had concerns about the possibility of toxins being distributed by flooding,\u201d Cutts says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through a combination of interviews and soil sampling, the project yielded a rigorous snapshot of post-flood soil conditions as well as insight into how residents of many different, including intersectional, identities viewed flooding and its impacts as well as flood recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project was successful, Cutts notes, because SHIFT helped her team to be intentional about each component. They considered the power of data, how data could be used or misused, and how researchers\u2019 own identities and perspectives mattered for building relationships and trust. Soil samples were collected from NC State\u2019s campus to provide reference data and avoid stigma, and information gained from the analyses was shared back to participants in ways valuable to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of particular importance was ensuring that residents\u2019 demographics were represented by the people who interviewed them and guided them through sample collection. Cutts hired a group of \u201ccommunity specialists\u201d who \u201chelped us as a team to know the local landscape,\u201d she explains. These specialists were recruited specifically for their \u201cuntraditional but relevant qualifications,\u201d such as experience in trauma counseling, social work, political leadership or housing issues. They understood local conditions and concerns, had existing networks in the area and were well-received when knocking on doors or making phone calls. \u201cHaving local accents, local expertise\u2013\u2013it was huge,\u201d Cutts says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SHIFT framework can be applied \u201cto any infrastructure improvement project,\u201d Cutts explains, helping to ethically center the experience of community members whom researchers, engineers or planners hope to engage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to do things to people and another to do things for or with people,\u201d Cutts says. \u201cThe community has contextual knowledge you need, to do work in service of the public good and have that work be maintained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cutts\u2019 advice for other scientists hoping to implement SHIFT comprises five main themes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBiophysical scientists and engineers need to partner with social scientists\u201d when doing community-engaged research, Cutts says. \u201cOtherwise, they will do bad science without realizing it.\u201d Conducting and analyzing interviews and other input from people requires training and expertise just as rigorous as other areas of science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy treating interactions as social science data,\u201d Cutts says, \u201cwe can evaluate the range of ways that people are relating to nature and discover how to share the results and recommendations back in ways that are relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s human nature to filter the world through our own views and experiences, and researchers need to realize when they\u2019re doing that, Cutts says, to avoid making assumptions or judgements. \u201cUnderstand the social perspectives that researchers themselves bring to a project and how those perspectives might or might not align with the community\u2019s,\u201d she advises. \u201cCommunities have a different idea of how humans and the environment relate, just as scientists from different disciplines have different ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, scientists must \u201cpay attention to the incentive structure of academia and the value of work to communities,\u201d Cutts notes, \u201cbecause they are not well aligned at all.\u201d The findings from her project, for example, were published in a scientific journal four years after samples were collected, because she prioritized getting results back to the community before publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cResearch teams active in disaster recovery are often led by biophysical expertise and must focus on ethics more specifically,\u201d Cutts says. \u201cThe first step is treating disaster survivors as collaborators instead of people the researcher is providing a service to, or people who are providing a service [like collecting publishable data] to the researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What a community needs might not be cutting-edge science, but researchers have an ethical obligation to treat their community partners fairly and ensure mutual benefit. \u201cBe flexible about how you can match what you can do to what the community needs,\u201d Cutts says. For example, her research team didn\u2019t have expertise in the heavy metal analysis her community partners requested, but she was able to secure funding to pay another lab to run the soil samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cListen for and identify ways to fill data gaps and address community needs,\u201d Cutts advises. \u201cA data gap itself is the beginning of a question, not the end of one. It\u2019s not, \u2018we can\u2019t do that because there is no data.\u2019 The absence of the data itself might be the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ethically engaging communities includes being mindful about how to collect information and how to return results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAsk people to participate in a way that\u2019s useful and relevant to them,\u201d Cutts says. In her study, residents collected soil samples themselves, as community specialists walked them through the protocol, and personal results were returned and explained in person. Community specialists showed residents how the samples from their own yards compared to community values and samples taken on the NC State campus, and anonymized results were shared back at higher community levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often, residents asked about other local projects or disaster recovery programs, so Cutts ensured they were provided with contact information and additional resources for getting answers to their questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cScientists get nervous about sharing info\u201d that doesn\u2019t directly relate to their own project, Cutts says, but providing this information\u2013\u2013and in the right way\u2013\u2013helps address important needs. \u201cAccess to information about your environment is very sparse in low-income, rural communities, and it\u2019s often left to the individual to find information,\u201d Cutts says. When sharing back answers to specific questions asked by only one or two people, \u201cit\u2019s less stigmatizing or obvious to give the same information to everyone on the same sheet,\u201d she suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn disaster research, the idea of political neutrality is oppressive,\u201d Cutts says. Researchers\u2019 attempts to be objective can leave them insensitive to disaster survivors\u2019 trauma, exacerbating harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cScientists want to have boundaries,\u201d Cutts says, \u201cbut they can permeate the boundary of outside objectivity with compassion, and it\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider whether barriers or decisions are \u201can actual restriction or just a conventional one,\u201d Cutts says. Self-reflection and compassion can improve both the process and outcomes of community-engaged research.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n After disasters, the people impacted are often called upon to participate in scientific research, but researchers can easily forget that participants are more than study subjects: They are survivors. Disasters are traumatic, and those who have endured them have their own concerns, needs and perspectives that must be met with respect and consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, how can scientific studies avoid exacerbating trauma? How, like medical interventions, can they be designed and conducted to \u201cfirst, do no harm\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enter the SHIFT<\/a> framework co-developed by Bethany Cutts<\/a>, an associate professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at North Carolina State University and a faculty fellow at NC State\u2019s Center for Geospatial Analytics. SHIFT encourages researchers to ethically center the experiences of disaster survivors while collecting scientifically rigorous data, to improve how the scientific process acknowledges and addresses a community\u2019s needs. The framework comprises five elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cutts and her collaborators piloted the SHIFT framework while working with North Carolina residents whose properties were flooded during Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018. As she and her team were conducting disaster recovery interviews, Cutts learned that community leaders were worried floodwaters may have polluted local soils. So she engaged interested residents in soil sample collection to test for fecal coliform bacteria and heavy metals. \u201cIt didn\u2019t seem ethically responsible to continue doing interviews [alone] when the community had concerns about the possibility of toxins being distributed by flooding,\u201d Cutts says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through a combination of interviews and soil sampling, the project yielded a rigorous snapshot of post-flood soil conditions as well as insight into how residents of many different, including intersectional, identities viewed flooding and its impacts as well as flood recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project was successful, Cutts notes, because SHIFT helped her team to be intentional about each component. They considered the power of data, how data could be used or misused, and how researchers\u2019 own identities and perspectives mattered for building relationships and trust. Soil samples were collected from NC State\u2019s campus to provide reference data and avoid stigma, and information gained from the analyses was shared back to participants in ways valuable to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of particular importance was ensuring that residents\u2019 demographics were represented by the people who interviewed them and guided them through sample collection. Cutts hired a group of \u201ccommunity specialists\u201d who \u201chelped us as a team to know the local landscape,\u201d she explains. These specialists were recruited specifically for their \u201cuntraditional but relevant qualifications,\u201d such as experience in trauma counseling, social work, political leadership or housing issues. They understood local conditions and concerns, had existing networks in the area and were well-received when knocking on doors or making phone calls. \u201cHaving local accents, local expertise\u2013\u2013it was huge,\u201d Cutts says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SHIFT framework can be applied \u201cto any infrastructure improvement project,\u201d Cutts explains, helping to ethically center the experience of community members whom researchers, engineers or planners hope to engage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to do things to people and another to do things for or with people,\u201d Cutts says. \u201cThe community has contextual knowledge you need, to do work in service of the public good and have that work be maintained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cutts\u2019 advice for other scientists hoping to implement SHIFT comprises five main themes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBiophysical scientists and engineers need to partner with social scientists\u201d when doing community-engaged research, Cutts says. \u201cOtherwise, they will do bad science without realizing it.\u201d Conducting and analyzing interviews and other input from people requires training and expertise just as rigorous as other areas of science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy treating interactions as social science data,\u201d Cutts says, \u201cwe can evaluate the range of ways that people are relating to nature and discover how to share the results and recommendations back in ways that are relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s human nature to filter the world through our own views and experiences, and researchers need to realize when they\u2019re doing that, Cutts says, to avoid making assumptions or judgements. \u201cUnderstand the social perspectives that researchers themselves bring to a project and how those perspectives might or might not align with the community\u2019s,\u201d she advises. \u201cCommunities have a different idea of how humans and the environment relate, just as scientists from different disciplines have different ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, scientists must \u201cpay attention to the incentive structure of academia and the value of work to communities,\u201d Cutts notes, \u201cbecause they are not well aligned at all.\u201d The findings from her project, for example, were published in a scientific journal four years after samples were collected, because she prioritized getting results back to the community before publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cResearch teams active in disaster recovery are often led by biophysical expertise and must focus on ethics more specifically,\u201d Cutts says. \u201cThe first step is treating disaster survivors as collaborators instead of people the researcher is providing a service to, or people who are providing a service [like collecting publishable data] to the researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What a community needs might not be cutting-edge science, but researchers have an ethical obligation to treat their community partners fairly and ensure mutual benefit. \u201cBe flexible about how you can match what you can do to what the community needs,\u201d Cutts says. For example, her research team didn\u2019t have expertise in the heavy metal analysis her community partners requested, but she was able to secure funding to pay another lab to run the soil samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cListen for and identify ways to fill data gaps and address community needs,\u201d Cutts advises. \u201cA data gap itself is the beginning of a question, not the end of one. It\u2019s not, \u2018we can\u2019t do that because there is no data.\u2019 The absence of the data itself might be the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ethically engaging communities includes being mindful about how to collect information and how to return results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAsk people to participate in a way that\u2019s useful and relevant to them,\u201d Cutts says. In her study, residents collected soil samples themselves, as community specialists walked them through the protocol, and personal results were returned and explained in person. Community specialists showed residents how the samples from their own yards compared to community values and samples taken on the NC State campus, and anonymized results were shared back at higher community levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often, residents asked about other local projects or disaster recovery programs, so Cutts ensured they were provided with contact information and additional resources for getting answers to their questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cScientists get nervous about sharing info\u201d that doesn\u2019t directly relate to their own project, Cutts says, but providing this information\u2013\u2013and in the right way\u2013\u2013helps address important needs. \u201cAccess to information about your environment is very sparse in low-income, rural communities, and it\u2019s often left to the individual to find information,\u201d Cutts says. When sharing back answers to specific questions asked by only one or two people, \u201cit\u2019s less stigmatizing or obvious to give the same information to everyone on the same sheet,\u201d she suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn disaster research, the idea of political neutrality is oppressive,\u201d Cutts says. Researchers\u2019 attempts to be objective can leave them insensitive to disaster survivors\u2019 trauma, exacerbating harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cScientists want to have boundaries,\u201d Cutts says, \u201cbut they can permeate the boundary of outside objectivity with compassion, and it\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider whether barriers or decisions are \u201can actual restriction or just a conventional one,\u201d Cutts says. Self-reflection and compassion can improve both the process and outcomes of community-engaged research.<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How can scientific studies avoid exacerbating trauma? How, like medical interventions, can they be designed and conducted to \u201cfirst, do no harm\u201d? Enter the SHIFT framework co-developed by faculty fellow Bethany Cutts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"caption\":\"Figure 1 from Cutts et al. 2023: Social-ecological Hazard Information that is Fair and Transdisciplinary (SHIFT) framework for implementing post-disaster studies in residential areas.\",\"displayCategoryID\":10,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,8,13,44,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","category-new-publications","category-new-research","category-newswire","category-spotlight"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":10,"name":"Spotlight","slug":"spotlight","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":10,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":88,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20972"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22153,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20972\/revisions\/22153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnr.ncsu.edu\/geospatial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The importance of reflection and representation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Guidance for other researchers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Partner with social scientists.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Be reflexive.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Be responsive.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Critically consider how to engage and share back.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t be afraid to be human.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
The importance of reflection and representation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Guidance for other researchers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Partner with social scientists.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Be reflexive.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Be responsive.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Critically consider how to engage and share back.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t be afraid to be human.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n