CHAPTER 2

COVID-19 and Disaster Research: Continuities and Surprises

Kathleen Tierney

No single discipline or field of study can capture all dimensions of the kaleidoscopic catastrophe that was the COVID-19 pandemic, but as researchers have noted, social science research on disasters can shed light on some of its dimensions. At the same time, the pandemic raised questions about the continued applicability of those findings in a polarized and posttruth society.1

US disaster research has roots in preparedness for war involving possible nuclear exchanges and the potential use of chemical and biological weapons. After World War II, the federal government, in particular military institutions, were concerned about how affected populations would react in the event of an attack using weapons of mass destruction. Envisioning disasters as a proxy for such attacks, military and other government agencies funded quick-response and longer-term studies with an eye toward gleaning behavioral insights that could be employed in war planning.2

Social scientific research on disasters has expanded and evolved beyond the wartime focus of those early days, influenced by not only studies of major disasters and other types of emergencies but also theoretical developments and empirical findings in disciplines such as sociology, geography, economics, decision science, psychology, and public health. The field of disaster studies is now global, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary.3

I focus here on three topics that have been major foci for disaster researchers: risk communication and emergency warnings; prosocial behavior, social solidarity, and social conflict; and how the social order structures victimization patterns. While I highlight continuities with earlier research findings, I also emphasize how previous research failed to predict many of the sociobehavioral patterns that emerged during the pandemic.

Warnings, Risk Communication, and Safety Advisories

As a nation facing many hazards, the United States has long focused on disaster warnings and risk communication as ways of avoiding deaths and injuries caused by disasters. Research provides guidance on how to inform at-risk populations so they can take recommended protective action, whether that involves evacuating, sheltering in place, or undertaking some other safety measure.4 Lessons from that extensive literature are that those at risk must first perceive signs of danger or receive a warning or safety advisory information, comprehend and confirm the information, understand that the warning or advisory applies to them personally, develop a sense of personal threat, understand what they need to do to protect themselves and when they should take those actions, have the capacity to actually carry out the recommended actions, and understand when the danger has passed. Another challenge is the need for updating. Disasters are dynamic, and information invariably shifts and changes as threats unfold. The process of perceiving and responding to risk information and guidance is iterative, involving repeated efforts to obtain, confirm, and update information from a range of sources, followed by changes in response behaviors.

As a novel pathogen, COVID-19 presented unusual risk communication challenges. Moving through the warning–protective action sequence posed difficulties for many who were at risk, such as those who lacked the necessary literacy skills or may not have received or understood detailed information on the threat posed by the virus. Research also shows that resources matter when it comes to heeding advisories and warnings—capacities that are unequally distributed within the population. Some individuals and groups may simply be unable to avoid danger. In the case of COVID, many essential workers had no choice but to put themselves, their families, and their other contacts at risk because of pressures to remain on the job and their need for income. They also tended to rely on public transportation, exposing them to additional risk. Low-income persons living in crowded dwellings out of economic necessity could not practice social distancing to the same extent as those who were well-off.

Another lesson is that entities that disseminate warnings must be perceived by at-risk publics as authoritative, credible, objective, trustworthy, and concerned first and foremost with the well-being of the public. They must also acknowledge at the start of a crisis that guidance probably will change as knowledge about the threat evolves—as it did continually during the pandemic. With respect to public health emergencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided extensive risk-communication guidance and emphasized the importance of empathy and compassion in public communications and the need to clearly explain what is known and not known about a particular threat.5 Prior to the pandemic, although not without its critics, the CDC was recognized by the public and its counterparts worldwide for its credibility and ability to put research on crisis communication into practice.

However, the risk communication challenges that emerged during the pandemic were different from those researchers had studied previously and arguably different from what risk communicators expected. COVID-19 represented a perfect storm in which societal forces combined to undermine even the most strenuous public health communication efforts. Many characteristics of the virus were poorly understood at the outset of the pandemic—and indeed remain so today. There was initial confusion about the severity of the disease caused by the virus, how the virus was transmitted, the effectiveness of self-protective measures such as the use of masks and social distancing, and which groups were most at risk, to name just a few issues. Owing to a range of factors, including political polarization, the politicization of the pandemic itself, the growth in distrust in institutions, and misinformation and disinformation that spread through social media and some mainstream media outlets, large swaths of the public resisted COVID guidance, sometimes violently. Good risk communication practice requires experts and political officials to provide consistent warnings and guidance to the public. However, in a series of media appearances in 2020, then-president and now recently reelected president Donald Trump lied repeatedly about the pandemic, used his position to undermine experts, and touted fake cures for the disease. Many other right-wing political figures followed Trump’s lead and his demands to end lockdowns and “open up” US society. Under such conditions, it is not surprising that risk communication and protective efforts were seriously undermined, with many Trump supporters refusing to wear masks or get vaccinated. Subsequent research conducted in Ohio and Florida has shown that being a registered Republican voter was associated with excess deaths after the vaccine became available.6

Social Disorganization versus Social Solidarity

As early as the 1950s, social science disaster research contradicted assumptions about widespread social breakdown held by US war planners. The incidence of panic during crises is one example. Panic is extremely rare, and despite being under stress, victims maintain their connections with others during disasters and are capable of reasoned, cooperative action.7 In numerous studies, researchers have repeatedly documented that behavior in disasters is overwhelmingly prosocial. Most of the lifesaving that takes place in disasters is carried out not by official responders but instead by community residents themselves. Volunteering and donations increase dramatically in crisis situations. New groups form spontaneously to meet the needs of disaster victims, and existing groups that previously had no disaster-related responsibilities shift their focus. Civil society groups and institutions mobilize rapidly at local, regional, and national levels.

The pandemic saw the emergence of prosocial behavior on a massive scale. Community members reached out to assist those in need. Factories retooled to produce items needed for coronavirus testing. Breweries produced hand sanitizers. Donations poured into beleaguered food banks as demand soared. Customers found ways to keep their favorite restaurants and other businesses afloat. Funds were donated for health-related causes.

Yet other forms of social behavior can exist alongside solidaristic ones during disasters. One such pattern is characterized by what sociologist William Freudenburg termed “recreancy.”8 The concept refers to public perceptions regarding “the failure of experts or specialized organizations to execute properly responsibilities to the broader collectivity with which they have been explicitly or implicitly entrusted.”9 Perceptions of recreancy can give rise to protests and lawsuits as well as heightened psychological stress, community conflicts, and loss of trust in institutions charged with keeping the public safe.10

Recreancy was a key element in the public’s response to COVID. As new information about the virus came to light and guidance about self-protective measures, school closures, and other recommended containment efforts shifted accordingly, members of the public were confused and often doubtful about how to remain safe. Spurred on by leaders such as Trump, it wasn’t long before many began blaming agencies such as the CDC for failing to provide clearer guidance. Public trust in the CDC dropped during the pandemic, and by the summer of 2021 only 32 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll agreed that the CDC had communicated a clear plan.11 Trust in institutions such as local and state public health agencies and the National Institutes of Health also suffered, with distrust among Republicans much higher than among Democrats.12

Public responses can also involve the scapegoating of “othered” groups thought to be implicated in a particular crisis or disaster. With COVID, violence against people of Asian ancestry increased,13 particularly targeting people of Chinese descent, Chinese-owned businesses, Chinatowns across the country, and the Chinese government itself. As the pandemic progressed, others such as National Institutes of Health researcher Anthony Fauci, who became the de facto spokesperson for COVID guidance, as well as Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and CDC director Robert Redfield were targeted, as were governors who called for strict lockdowns and mask requirements. In the fall of 2020, thirteen members of a right-wing militia group were arrested for plotting to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, largely because they were incensed about her stance on COVID precautions. Resisting COVID safety directives subsequently became a litmus test for loyalty to Trump and raised the profiles of political figures such as Florida governor and 2024 failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

Difficulties with risk communication and recreant and scapegoating behavior in the pandemic were amplified by a toxic societal, media, and social media environment that public health authorities did not understand and were unable to mitigate. Notably, the prominence of media outlets such as Fox News and the rise of social media coincided with the expansion of the posttruth social order and reinforced that expansion.14 The dismissal and distortion of facts, the deliberate spreading of falsehoods, and the demonization of public figures have taken place in other crisis situations. What was new in the case of COVID was the scope, scale, and reach of misinformation and disinformation activities.

Crisis informatics, a new branch of disaster research that began developing in the early 2000s, provides analytic strategies that shed light on the use of information and communication technologies in disasters of all types. Beginning with the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, crisis informatics researchers have studied online behavior in a variety of disasters and crises, focusing on information sharing, volunteer mobilization, donations management, the spread of rumors online, and the use of social media by emergency management agencies.15 More recently, some crisis informatics scholars have begun to study the development and spread of online disinformation campaigns and have established research centers such as the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington.16 Other internet researchers have begun to develop strategies for countering the spread of disinformation.17

However, while researchers study disinformation and propose ways to counter it, they are now facing a posttruth mindset, or how large sectors of the public have begun to embrace only those “facts” that resonate with them emotionally and are consistent with their preexisting views and political stances, regardless of evidence, along with how social media is able to bring together like-minded users.18 Also new is the proliferation of global and national disinformation campaigns, using both conventional and social media.19 It was within this media landscape that the pandemic unfolded, with devastating consequences: COVID mortality was significantly higher in the United States than among its G7 counterpart nations.20

Disasters and the Social Order

A key tenet of social science disaster research is that disasters reveal and amplify both a society’s preexisting capacities and its vulnerabilities. Disaster experiences and recovery trajectories are shaped by predisaster conditions and broader social contexts. In the United States, research on disasters has increasingly focused on how the interrelated forces of social class, race, gender, and other axes of inequality and difference shape how diverse groups experience disasters and struggle to recover.21

Socioeconomic and other socially structured disparities manifested themselves in the US COVID pandemic in ways that disaster researchers would have predicted. Discussing all the social disparities that have contributed to testing positive for the virus, being hospitalized or admitted to an intensive care unit, dying, and experiencing longer-term negative outcomes from COVID is beyond the scope of this chapter—or any book or collection of books—but it is clear that many of the same factors that are associated with victimization in disasters help to account for negative COVID outcomes. Certain sociodemographic groups, such as elderly persons, African Americans, Native Americans, and the Latinx population, have disproportionately borne the brunt of COVID.22 A number of preexisting conditions are also predictors of poor COVID outcomes, and many comorbidities are also associated with age, minority group membership, and lower social class status. Not being vaccinated was a significant risk factor; in most cases, this was because of distrust of vaccines in general and COVID vaccines specifically. However, some individuals were not vaccinated because of difficulty getting access to vaccines. Those individuals tended to be nonwhite, unmarried, disabled, less educated, and economically disadvantaged.23 The capacity to cope with the COVID-19 risk—for example, by social distancing—was a direct result of social inequities: those privileged enough to work from home versus those who did not get paid unless they physically showed up at work, those who were securely housed versus those living in overcrowded conditions or unhoused, and those fortunate enough not to be imprisoned during the pandemic.

Research has long shown that disasters spur improvisation and creativity, and here again the same was the case in the pandemic. Households formed “pods” with other households, yoga instructors and fitness trainers taught on Zoom, artists provided online performances, restaurants improvised outdoor seating arrangements, and the list goes on. The crisis also required governmental agencies to improvise the provision of aid on a wide scale. Focusing here only on the US federal fiscal response, the five emergency relief bills passed in 2020 and the American Rescue Plan of 2021 expended over five trillion dollars in diverse efforts to overcome the negative impacts of the pandemic and the recession it caused. Among many positive impacts, a good deal of that assistance helped to reduce preexisting inequities, lowering poverty, notably among children; expanded health care coverage; expanded low-income housing vouchers and instituted a moratorium on evictions; increased food assistance for low-income households; increased unemployment benefits; provided direct cash payments to individuals and households, including those whose incomes fell below the requirement to file income tax returns; and provided funds to states to develop their own assistance programs.24 Pandemic aid programs demonstrated what government can do for low-income groups when the political will exists, but unfortunately, aid programs have gradually expired, and pandemic-fueled inflationary conditions are making life harder for those groups.

In contrast, while necessary, another aspect of pandemic aid, the Paycheck Protection Program, worked to the advantage of those who were already doing well financially. This program, in which aid was distributed in the form of loans that were later mostly forgiven, provided hundreds of billions in aid to small businesses and other organizations. The program undoubtedly did help workers but at a cost that greatly exceeded workers’ actual wages. Excess funds went to business owners, suppliers, and creditors, and nearly 75 percent of the assistance provided went to individuals and households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution.25 Another example is the US airline industry’s use (or misuse) of Paycheck Protection Program loans, which was accompanied by considerable staff downsizing.26 Such patterns resemble what is typically seen with household disaster assistance programs, in which aid is skewed toward better-off households.

Conclusion

The COVID threat is still very much with us, and social scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface when it comes to understanding the societal dimensions and consequences of the pandemic. Disaster warnings and risk communication processes, social solidarity and conflict, and the relationship between social inequality and negative experiences in disasters are among the most important topics addressed in the field of disaster research that are relevant to the pandemic. In these three areas, many sociobehavioral phenomena observed in the pandemic were consistent with what disaster researchers would have predicted. The public response was altruistic and supportive, and compliance with safety advisories was widespread even though variations in compliance developed along political lines. At the same time, many in the public became critical of and disillusioned over the government’s handling of the pandemic, and feelings of recreancy took hold. This, again, is no surprise; those affected by crises become indignant when they feel, even incorrectly, that institutions with a fiduciary responsibility for protecting them fail to do so.

Data regarding the relationship between various aspects of social inequality and the pandemic’s disparate effects are also consistent with findings in the disaster research field. Causal paths are complex, and there are many variables that need to be taken into account, but it is nonetheless clear that the pandemic’s burdens fell most heavily on the same minoritized and marginalized groups that suffer the most in disasters. It is notable that much of the aid provided in the pandemic to the most vulnerable actually reduced inequities, which is not the case with respect to disaster assistance.27

Based on a large volume of research on disasters and other threats to health and safety, researchers and practitioners have identified principles and best practices for risk communication and disaster warnings. However, challenges to apply those strategies successfully remain daunting. The pandemic multiplied those challenges, raising questions about whether communication strategies that worked in the past will still apply in a social context that is rich in technological affordances but characterized by seemingly irreconcilable ideological conflicts and individuals and organizations bent on fanning the flames of those conflicts. Disseminating accurate, evidence-based information on any topic in a divided society in which different groups adhere to different “facts” is becoming increasingly difficult, especially when epistemic fracturing benefits actors seeking power and profit.

Members of the public need to have access to the best available science on hazards of all types in order to make choices that will make them safer. However, scientific expertise no longer engenders the respect it once did. In a society in which members of the public can encounter all manner of myths, conspiracies, misinformation, and disinformation in their media diets, it is no wonder that gaining access to accurate scientific findings and guidance is difficult.

This aspect of the pandemic raises a number of questions for future research. Researchers should continue to study the COVID case in depth to better understand the factors that contributed to risk communication failures. I have discussed some of those factors here, but no doubt there are many more. For example, what are the characteristics of threats that are more likely to attract conspiracy theorists, go viral, and rise to the level of “meme wars”?28 What types of individuals and groups are susceptible to disinformation and why? What strategies are most effective in countering the spread of misinformation and disinformation? How can the public become engaged in such strategies? The list of potential research questions is a long one, and the time for exploring such questions is now.

Notes

1. 1.  Liesel Ritchie and Duane Gill, “Considering COVID-19 Through the Lens of Hazard and Disaster Research,” Social Sciences 10, no. 7 (2021): 248, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10070248.
2. 2.  Enrico L. Quarantelli, “Disaster Studies: An Analysis of the Social Historical Factors Influencing the Development of Research in the Area,” International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 5, no. 3 (1987): 285–310, https://doi.org/10.1177/028072708700500306.
3. 3.  Lori Peek et al., “What Methods Do Social Scientists Use to Study Disasters? An Analysis of the Social Science Extreme Events Research Network,” American Behavioral Scientist 64, no. 8 (2020): 1066–94, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220938105.
4. 4.  For discussions on this topic, see Michael K. Lindell, “Communicating Imminent Risk,” in Handbook of Disaster Research, 2nd ed., ed. Havidan Rodríguez, William Donner, and Joseph E. Trainor (Springer, 2018); and Kathleen Tierney, Disasters: A Sociological Approach, 2nd ed. (Polity, 2025).
5. 5.  See, for example, CDC, “Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication (CERC),” July 28, 2025, https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/resources/index.asp.
6. 6.  Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Jason L. Schwartz, “Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” JAMA Internal Medicine 183, no. 9 (2023): 916–23, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1154.
7. 7.  Tierney, Disasters.
8. 8.  William Freudenburg, “Risk and Recreancy: Weber, the Division of Labor, and the Rationality of Risk Perceptions,” Social Forces 71, no. 4 (June 1993): 909–32, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/71.4.909.
9. 9.  William Freudenburg, “The ‘Risk Society’ Reconsidered: Recreancy, the Division of Labor, and Risks to the Social Fabric,” in Risk in the Modern Age: Social Theory, Science and Environmental Decision Making, ed. Maurie J. Cohen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 116.
10. 10.  Liesel Ritchie, Duane A. Gill, and Courtney N. Farnham, “Recreancy Revisited: Beliefs about Institutional Failure Following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” Society and Natural Resources 26, no. 6 (2013): 655–71, https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2012.690066.
11. 11.  Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans’ Ratings of CDC Communication Turn Negative,” Gallup News, September 7, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/354566/americans-ratings-cdc-communication-turn-negative.aspx#:~:text=Americans’%20agreement%20or%20disagreement%20that,%25%20agreed%20and%2041%25%20disagreed.
12. 12.  T. H. Chan School of Public Health, The Public’s Perspective on the US Public Health System (T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2021).
13. 13.  Karen R. King and Christopher M. Kwok, eds., A Rising Tide of Hate and Violence Against Asian Americans During COVID-19: Impact, Causes, Solutions (Asian American Bar Association of New York and Paul, Weiss, 2021); and Mary Findling et al., “COVID-19 Has Driven Racism and Violence Against Asian Americans: Perspectives from Twelve National Polls,” Health Affairs Forefront, April 12, 2022, https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220411.655787.
14. 14.  Gabriele Cosentino, Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order: The Global Dynamics of Misinformation (Palgrave, 2020).
15. 15.  For an overview of this research, see Leysia Palen et al., “Crisis Informatics: Human-Centered Research on Tech & Crises; A Guided Bibliography Developed by Crisis Informatics Researchers,” last updated August 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/crisisinformatics.
16. 16.  Ryan Calo et al., “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Misinformation?,” Science Advances 7, no. 50 (December 2021), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn0481.
17. 17.  Joan Donovan et al., Mitigating Medical Disinformation: A Whole-of-Society Approach to Countering Spam, Scams, and Hoaxes (Shorenstein Center, Harvard University, 2021).
18. 18.  Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth (MIT Press, 2018).
19. 19.  Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, and Brian Frieberg, Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America (Bloomsbury, 2022).
20. 20.  Janice Hopkins Tanne, “Report Highlights ‘Devastating Impacts’ of Trump on Every Aspect of US Health,” BMJ 372 (2021): n439, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n439.
21. 21.  Deborah S. K. Thomas et al., eds., Social Vulnerability to Disasters, 2nd ed. (CRC Press, 2013); Tierney, Disasters; and Kathleen Tierney, “Social Vulnerability and Resilience to Environmental Hazards,” in Routledge Handbook of Environmental Hazards and Society, ed. Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Pennig-Rowsell (Routledge, 2022).
22. 22.  Shruti Magesh et al., “Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes by Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 11 (2022): e2134147, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.34147.
23. 23.  Lindsay M. Monte, “Who Are the Adults Not Vaccinated Against COVID?,” America Counts (blog), US Census Bureau, December 28, 2021, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/who-are-the-adults-not-vaccinated-against-covid.html.
24. 24.  Sharon Parrott, “Robust COVID Relief Achieved Historic Gains Against Poverty and Hardship, Bolstered Economy,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 14, 2022, https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/robust-covid-relief-achieved-historic-gains-against-poverty-and-0.
25. 25.  William R. Emmons and Drew Dahl, “Was the Paycheck Protection Program Effective?,” Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, July 6, 2022, https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2022/jul/was-paycheck-protection-program-effective.
26. 26.  Veronique de Rugy and Gary D. Leff, “The 2020 Bailouts Left Airlines, the Economy, and the Federal Budget in Worse Shape Than Before,” Policy brief, Mercatus Center, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, 2022.
27. 27.  Junia Howell and James R. Elliott, “As Disaster Costs Rise, So Does Inequality,” Socius 4 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118816795.
28. 28.  Donovan et al., Meme Wars.