to reinforce our claim, however, that warnings are effective in attenuating tornado morbidity: an important finding is that tornados that occurred without warning and outside of tornado seasons were significantly more likely to cause death and/or injury. This clearly indicates that both warnings and education must be continued throughout the year, further strengthening our argument that the effectiveness of warnings can be augmented through social factors. This also reinforces our initial model (POET), through which we suggested that disaster morbidity could be better understood: Technology (warnings) may interact simultaneously with organizational factors (education) to produce more effective reductions of death and/or injury in the event of a major catastrophe.
We were surprised to discover that Hispanic populations appeared to be significantly more resilient to tornado events than other populations. Hispanics, a minority group, have been shown with research to be more vulnerable to disasters. We reasoned that this anomaly was due to Proportion of Hispanics’ interaction with another variable, Median Age. After creating an interactive term between Proportion of Hispanics and Median Age and including it within the final model, we discovered that Proportion of Hispanics’ initial Wald value dropped to non-significance. Although it is beyond the scope of this research, future studies should address the possible interaction of ethnicity and age when exploring disaster morbidity.
The significance of percent change in population cannot be overlooked, for it may indicate that large migratory trends increase the vulnerability of populations due to immigrating populations’ unfamiliarity with disasters common to their new residence. According to some scholars, there exists within regions an embedded disaster culture that helps local residents protect and mitigate against disasters common to their areas. When populations unfamiliar with a particular...