Importance of Social Capital to Disaster Management

Often heat waves are regarded as long-term overheated weather. Exposure to high temperatures for extended periods of time can cause paralysis, syncope, heat stroke, heat stroke and death (Kilbourne, 1997). In July 1995, a strong heat wave struck Chicago and more than 500 people died (Klinenberg 2003). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between minority groups and heat waves, especially focusing on African American and Hispanic groups. As can be seen from the analysis, natural disasters themselves create considerably different conditions between African Americans and Hispanics.

Despite the increasing number of discussions on disaster social capital over the past few years there are few literature on the impact of disasters on social capital. Most of the research on the relationship between disaster and social capital focused on the influence of social capital on various stages of disasters, especially disaster response and reconstruction. Social capital has been recognized as an important element of mental health in the post-earthquake situation (Wind & Komproe 2012). In addition, people with a lot of social capital have less resources to recover from major events, so a large amount of social capital will have a positive effect on work and group effectiveness. Therefore, social capital is essential for personal preparation, response, and recovery from natural disasters.

The impact of social capital on victims and the community is not part of the project's research task, but this brief explanation shows how social capital is related to disasters. It is also important to emphasize that there are various aspects of the relationship between social capital and disaster. However, while more and more disaster researchers are studying the relevance to social capital disasters, previous studies have focused too much on the potential social impact of disasters. In addition, research on the impact of disasters on social capital has produced various results and discussions. Due to disasters, social capital usually increases and decreases, there is no clear situation and there is no consistent evidence of whether social trust will change after a disaster.