This module focuses on broader ethical considerations for research. It describes how researchers can navigate ethical landmines while developing a flexible and robust ethical toolkit for researching hazards and disasters.
Training Modules
Available Modules
The CONVERGE Training Modules incorporate an all-hazards approach grounded in cutting edge research from the social sciences, public health, engineering, and other disciplines. Each training module features learning objectives, lesson plans, written content, and disaster-focused case study vignettes from the U.S. and across the globe. The modules also include a list of publications for further reading as well as access to related standardized scales and measures, online resources, data sets, and other information. Each module is followed by a short multiple choice quiz. Those who receive a score of 80% or higher will receive a CONVERGE Training Module Certificate of Completion and one contact hour of general management training through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) certification program.
Training Module
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Completed Modules
Completed Modules
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Broader Ethical Considerations for Hazards and Disaster Researchers
Release Date: April 2021
Authors: Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Science Foundation
Collecting and Sharing Perishable Data
This module defines perishable data and provides recommendations to address ethical and logistical challenges for collecting and sharing this type of data after disasters.
Release Date: July 2021
Authors: Candace M. Evans, Rachel M. Adams, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Science Foundation
Conducting Emotionally Challenging Research
This module defines emotionally challenging research and highlights the ways that recognizing researchers’ emotions can lead to more ethical and methodologically sound research practices in the context of extreme events.
Release Date: September 2020
Authors: Tracy Fehr, Skye Niles, Bertha Alicia Bermudez Tapia, Candace M. Evans, Rachel M. Adams, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Cultural Competence in Hazards and Disaster Research
This module focuses on culturally competent research and offers guidance on how hazards and disaster researchers can build cultural awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, and competence as a multi-step and ongoing process.
Release Date: March 2020
Authors: Haorui Wu, Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, Melissa Villarreal, Lori Peek, and Irena Papadopoulos
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Disaster Mental Health
This module examines mental health outcomes associated with disasters, with a particular emphasis on risk factors that make certain populations vulnerable to poor disaster mental health outcomes over time.
Release Date: October 2019
Authors: Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Science Foundation
Indigenous Sovereignty in Disasters
This module focuses on Indigenous sovereignty and how it can help build resilience to hazards and disasters.
Release Date: January 2024
Authors: Ciarra S. Greene, Lesley Iaukea, Jasmine Neosh J, Hōkūlani Rivera, Paulette Blanchard, Patrick Freeland, Julie Maldonado, Michelle Montgomery, Candace M. Evans, Rachel M. Adams, Brigid Mark, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Institutional Review Board (IRB) Procedures and Extreme Events Research
This module introduces users to IRB procedures and provides advice regarding how to work with IRBs to ensure ethical approaches to extreme events research.
Release Date: June 2020
Authors: Haorui Wu, Melissa Villarreal, Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Positionality in Hazards and Disaster Research and Practice
This module describes the concept of positionality in the context of hazards and disaster research and practice. It highlights how understanding your own positionality–or how your different identities shape your perceptions, interactions, and experiences–can lead to more ethical and methodologically sound disaster work.
Release Date: March 2023
Authors: Candace M. Evans, Rachel M. Adams, and Lori Peek with Riley Bance, Dominique Comeau, Lin Frazer, Molly McKeown, Bella Runza, and Christine Gibb
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Public Health Implications of Hazards and Disaster Research
This module is designed to help users identify and explain to others how hazards and disaster research can help improve the health of disaster-affected populations.
Release Date: April 2022
Authors: Alexa Hansen, Courtney Welton-Mitchell, Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Science Foundation
Reciprocity in Hazards and Disaster Research
This module focuses on the reciprocal relationship between researchers and disaster-affected people and communities with an emphasis on ensuring that research is beneficial for participants as well as the research community.
Release Date: February 2022
Authors: Jocelyn West, Heather Champeau, Jessica Austin, Candace M. Evans, Rachel M. Adams, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: U.S. Geological Survey and National Science Foundation
Social Vulnerability and Disasters
This module focuses on vulnerability to hazards and disasters, with an emphasis on population groups that have been identified in the literature as especially at risk to the adverse effects of extreme events.
Release Date: July 2019
Authors: Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Science Foundation
Understanding and Ending Gender-Based Violence in Fieldwork
This module examines gender-based violence in field research and provides an in-depth exploration of misconceptions, real life scenarios, and strategies for safer and more gender-just fieldwork practices.
Release Date: March 2021
Authors: Jerika Heinze, Rachel M. Adams, Candace M. Evans, and Lori Peek
Funding Support: National Science Foundation
Assignment Bank
If you are considering requiring or recommending the CONVERGE Training Modules, please see the Assignment Bank for examples of ways that instructors have integrated these materials into various courses.
Annotated Bibliographies
If you are looking for further reading meant to complement the CONVERGE Training Modules, please visit our Annotated Bibliographies page for additional resources.
Continuing Education Credits
Each completed CONVERGE Training Module is worth one contact hour of general management training through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) certification program.
Publications
Please visit this page to access recent scholarly publications produced by the CONVERGE research team and our collaborators, including those related to the CONVERGE Training Modules.
Additional Resources
Here is a list of additional resources meant to complement each of the CONVERGE Training Modules.
CONVERGE is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, Program on Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment (Award #1841338). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.