Griffith University researchers are using creative solutions to address the problems people face in disasters, from improving communication to creating cooler schools to respond to climate change.
Researchers from Griffith University’s Arts, Education and Law Group recently showcased their research projects, with the common theme of solving the problems disasters create for people.
The creativity of the researchers was on show with projects including involving school children in developing solutions to deal with climate change and a theatre production to help flood affected residents’ recovery.
Other projects focused on addressing a range of communication problems that communities have experienced in disasters and crises including the COVID-19 pandemic and preparing communities to deal with future disasters and crises.
The theme underpinning the day was research that can be used, is useable and will be used by government, industry, and communities.
A common feature of the research presented was that the focus on people, with researchers working to solve the social problems that people experience across all phases of disasters.
Our researchers are passionate about ensuring their work has positive outcomes for their research project participants and communities, as well as those who are responsible for managing responses to and recovery from disasters.
Other projects included historical investigations into flooding of the Brisbane River, the need for clearer mobile messaging in disasters and health communication in crisis periods.
The researchers welcome inquiries about their projects from communities, government, industry, and non-government groups.
Presentations included:
Dr Margaret Cook: “River with a City problem”, based on her book which explores the historical flooding of the Brisbane River.
Dr Harry Kanasa: “Citizen Science for Cooler Schools”, a project improving heat resilience in Queensland Schools.
Dr Aimee Riedel: “Mobile disaster and crisis notifications”, improving the wording of mobile messaging in disasters and crises.
Dr Monique Lewis: Health communication in Pandemics, improving public communication of health messages in pandemics.
A/Prof Kerrie Foxwell-Norton, “Overview of Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon’s work”.
Prof Rebecca Wickes “Fire to Flourish”, a project helping fire affected communities prepare for future disasters.
Dr Danielle Heinrichs “Multilingual communication and COVID-19”, developing solutions for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in pandemics.
Dr Linda Hassall, Saffron Benner, Dr Tanja Beer: “The flood project: Community Arts Action Research”, helping the Rocklea community recover from major floods through a community designed theatre production.
Dr Danielle Heinrichs: “Community driven communication and engagement during health crisis periods
Dr Hugh Breakey: “Ethical decision making in disasters”, considering how those managing disasters can ensure the use ethical frameworks to guide the management of and response to disasters.
Prof Jacqui Ewart and Dr Margaret Cook (project lead) “Facebook community emergence in disasters: information seeking, sharing and reliability”, exploring the reasons that people use Facebook community pages in disasters.
