Emergency management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing, supporting, and rebuilding society when natural or human-made disasters occur. Similar, it is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid, or better the impact of disasters resulting from the various hazards. In fact, “emergency management is a relatively new field but one that can call upon an 88-year tradition of scholarship and research” (Alexnder, 2008).
In “emergency management and homeland security curricula: contexts, cultures, and constraints,” professors Thomas E. Drabek and John Evans discuss the evolution of emergency management (Drabek & Evans, 2007, pg. 1). Drabek & Evans (2007) believe the academic side of “emergency management has become more professionalized” (Drabek & Evans, 2007, pg. 3). Professors Drabek and Evans describe how programs have been developed in high education to provide students with the basic knowledge and skills required of emergency manager.
With that said, emergency management has taken an enormous transformation since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States. Professors Drabek and Evans point out three key factors such as governmental influence, the development of the Department of Homeland Security, and other governmental agencies that has brought a “bureaucratic buffet” to emergency management planners (Drabek & Evans, 2007, pg. 5).
On the other hand, the relevance of academic knowledge to the practice of emergency management is more evident with the emerging new role of emergency managers (Woodbury, 2005, p. 82). Leaders in the field of emergency management need to know the science behind the threats, the potential, and operational consequences when hazards manifest themselves. Emergency managers “must have the tools and education to argue for preventive policies regardless of the near-term political, economic, and physical barriers that challenge their implementation” (Woodbury, 2005, pg. 2). Currently, emergencies and disasters are characterized with terror bombs, and threats like a nuclear attack by North Korea.
Therefore, emergency managers need to have the necessary knowledge that will equip them to deal with these incidents. For this reason, “emergency manager or homeland security officer [are] is encouraged to become skilled” (Drabek & Evans, 2007, pg. 16). All things considered, emergency management is a new field of study; there remains a debate like efining what a “disaster” to how the curriculum is taught. Finally, professors Drabek and Evans points out how the emergency management profession is evolving and how we as students can play a role in future strategies. In “Social problems perspectives, disaster research and emergency management: Intellectual contexts, theoretical extensions, and policy implications,” professors Drabek, and Evans discuss how important it is to study social problems in today’s disasters.
According to Drabek & Evans (2006) “disasters are nonroutine social problems. At least that is one way of viewing conjunctions of historical conditions and social definitions of physical harm and social disruption. ” Professors Drabek and Evans goes on to explain how class, status, power, ethnicity, and gender must be defined in order to understand how they relate to one another in mainstream social problems.
The process demands attention to social context and change, as well as historical and comparative research (Drabek & Evans, 2006). Next, Drabek and Evans write that once there is a connection established between the perspectives of social problems, they will then show how disasters can be perceived as a type of social problem. Drabek and Evans conclude their work by showing that research in social science has been overlooked by emergency management policymakers since the 9/11 attacks.
The effects of the implementations of these policy shifts have pushed the emergency management profession towards an ineffectiveness and inefficiency (Drabek & Evans, 2006). For the most part, both articles “emergency management and homeland security curricula: contexts, cultures, and constraints” and “Social problems perspectives, disaster research and emergency management: Intellectual contexts, theoretical extensions, and policy implications” discuss the importance of research, skills, and knowledge in the realm of emergency management (Drabek & Evans, 2006).
As can bee seen, professors Drabek and Evans touch on various social facts that are current in modern day policies regarding Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “Like war in earlier analyses, terrorism is now commonly accepted as a social problem” (Drabek & Evans, 2006, pg. 22).
