Emergency, Crisis, and Risk Management: Current Perspectives on the Development of Joint Risk Mitigation, Preparedness, and Response Efforts

The outbreak of a global pandemic has been identified as a high-risk international crisis scenario for many years. As we have seen, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has yet again presented national and international crisis managers with complex and unique crisis challenges. Despite past outbreak experience, the international community has faced difficulties related to joint strategy development and coordination. Nationally, governments have been criticized for sub-optimal resource allocation, varying communication strategies, and imperfect multiagency collaboration. In contrast with everyday emergencies, crises are more transboundary in nature and seldom confined within set geographical, organizational or administrative boundaries. Managing a crisis is thus often more challenging than managing an everyday emergency, since crisis managers are often faced with more comprehensive life-and-death situations and shorter decision times.

There is an assumption that well-organized crisis management and communication processes reduce vulnerability and help communities cope with hazard-related situations. The problem is that when a crisis occurs, individuals as well as public and non-governmental organizations tend to end up overwhelmed and paralyzed, as they experience difficulties adjusting rapidly enough to new situations. Sources to date conflict on exactly why this is, but possible reasons include problems related to vast bureaucracies and decision hierarchies, insufficient knowledge, and failure to prioritize and develop strategic learning aspects of exercises. As a result, many stakeholders continually struggle to meet societal expectations, develop resilient frameworks, and find more effective, joint solutions to enhance collaborative crisis mitigation, preparedness, and response efforts. Further research is therefore needed to introduce new ideas and approaches that may contribute to the development of crisis management.

This Research Topic aims to address the particular need for research that contributes to developing joint risk mitigation, preparedness and response efforts. Especially welcome are manuscripts that provide critical perspectives on interpersonal and organizational dilemmas, governance, risk identification, communication, media coverage, collaboration, and transfer of knowledge.

Contributors are encouraged to consult the article types accepted into the journal section through which they submit to this Research Topic: Disaster Communications, Organizational Psychology, and Disaster and Emergency Medicine. All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer review process.