Joseph E. Trainor
Interim Dean and Professor, Biden School of Public Policy & Administration | University of Delaware
Newark, DE, UNITED STATES
Can discuss behavioral responses to disasters, including household risk management and decision making about warnings and evacuation orders.
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Biography
Joseph E. Trainor serves as interim dean and professor of policy and administration in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. Trainor is also a core faculty member of the Disaster Research Center, where he has built an international reputation in Disaster Science and Emergency Management.
crises and includes basic science and applied research. Recent projects have focused on disaster researcher and practitioner integration; warnings, risk perception, and protective action decision-making for hazards; household insurance and mitigation decisions; willingness to work during pandemics; and multi-organizational response systems. Findings from these efforts have led to two co-edited books, over forty-five peer-reviewed articles, and numerous book chapters and research reports. Many of these works are co-authored with students, and Trainor frequently presents research findings to academic, professional, and public audiences.
He has taught at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels across the Biden School while holding leadership roles in the Disaster Science and Management program. In addition, Trainor continues to chair and serve on numerous theses and dissertation committees at the Biden School.
Trainor’s public service work has included partnerships with numerous agencies related to risk and emergency management, including the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Deleware Emergency Management Agency, and various state and local emergency management agencies.
Trainor holds a bachelor’s degree with a double major in sociology and psychology from Millersville University, a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Delaware, and a doctor of philosophy in sociology from the University of Delaware.
Industry Expertise (1)
Environmental Services
Areas of Expertise (8)
Public and organizational behavior in disasters
Disaster Mitigation
Smart Warning Systems
Mobile Warning Systems
Disaster Warning Systems
Disaster Response
Disaster Research
Disaster housing
Media Appearances (9)
The National Wireless Emergency Alert System Had Prisoners in for a Surprise
Glitter Magazine online
2023-10-12
“With the combination, you’re going to catch a wide swath of people,” explained Joseph Trainor from the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center. Trainor is a key faculty member of the team researching the design and functioning of disaster warning systems, with a specific emphasis on mobile and smart warning systems. He has previously collaborated with both national and foreign government agencies to establish their own emergency warning systems and procedures.
Emergency Alert System test set for 2:20 p.m. ET
WBUR - Boston/NPR radio
2023-10-04
Radio segment interview with Trainor regarding the test.
An emergency alert test sounded today on all U.S. cellphones, TVs and radios. Here's what happened.
CBS News online
2023-10-04
"We know that they are effective systems," Trainor told CBS News. "Like any system, there are strengths and weaknesses. How many characters you can use, how much you can transmit, how fast you can get it out. Every system has limits, and that's why we tell people, when we are giving advice about building warning systems, you don't ever want to rely on just one thing."
Are you ready for the big nationwide EAS test?
KNX News - Los Angeles radio
2023-10-03
Segment of show featured interview with Trainor centering on the (then) upcoming EAS system test.
How to Prepare Your Electronic Devices for a Natural Disaster
Consumer Reports online
2020-08-25
Getting the right weather and public-safety information is crucial to making smart decisions during a disaster, and you have more options than ever, says Joseph Trainor, director of the disaster science program at the University of Delaware.
Is Delaware's enforcement of coronavirus restrictions on out-of-state visitors legal?
The News Journal online
2020-04-03
"The reality is, that for everyday people, their lives don't necessarily work that way," said Joseph E. Trainor, a University of Delaware associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration.
Yes, FEMA has enough money to cover unemployment and disaster relief
CNN online
2019-08-28
“It’s not uncommon for Congress to do that in the event of a major disaster. But it is a little bit like rolling the dice, especially in an election year,” said Joseph Trainor, a faculty member at the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center.
Analysis | Why Trump's tweets about Puerto Rico are obviously untrue
The Washington Post online
2018-09-13
Shortly after the storm struck the island, The Post spoke with University of Delaware professors Joe Trainor and Benigno Aguirre, who work with the school’s Disaster Research Center. We wondered how difficult it would be to determine the actual number of deaths from the storm, and Trainor and Aguirre confirmed that it was far from trivial.
The ‘second disaster’ following hurricanes: Years of stressful recovery
CNBC online
2017-08-31
“After an event like this there is a tough decision households have to make as to whether they are going to stay or go,” said Joe Trainor, Disaster Science and Management program director and an associate professor of public policy and administration at the University of Delaware. Trainor served as one of the faculty members who led the project Greer worked on as a doctoral student at Delaware.
Articles (5)
Mitigation insights from emergency managers on working with stakeholders
Journal of Emergency Management2023 Emergency managers have the important responsibility of planning and implementing mitigation policies and programs to reduce losses to life and property. To accomplish these goals, they must use limited time and resources to ensure the communities they serve have adequately mitigated against potential disasters. As a result, it is common to collaborate and coordinate with a wide variety of partner agencies and community organizations. While it is well established that strengthening relationships and increasing familiarity improve coordination, this article advances that narrative by providing direct insights on the ways a select group of local, state, and federal emergency managers view relationships with other mitigation stakeholders. Using insights from a 1-day workshop hosted at the University of Delaware to gather information from mitigation stakeholders, this article provides a discussion of commonalities and challenges workshop participants identified with other stakeholder groups. These insights can inform other emergency managers about potential collaborators and coordination opportunities with similar stakeholders in their own communities.
Modeling Evacuees’ Intended Responses to a Phased Hurricane Evacuation Order
Applied Sciences2023 Phased evacuation is an under-studied strategy, and relatively little is known about compliance with the phased process. This study modelled households’ responses to a phased evacuation order based on a household behavioral intention survey. About 66% of the evacuees reported that they would comply with a phased evacuation order. A latent class logit model sorted evacuees into two classes (“evacuation reluctant” and “evacuation keen”) by their stakeholder perceptions (i.e., whether government agencies have responsibility for the safety of individuals) and evacuation perceptions (i.e., whether evacuation is an effective protective action), while risk perception becomes non-significant in interpreting their compliance behavior to a phased evacuation order. Those that evacuate to the home of friends/relatives and/or bring more vehicles during evacuation are less likely to follow phased evacuation orders. “Evacuation reluctant” individuals with a longer housing tenure are more likely to follow phased evacuation orders. “Evacuation keen” individuals with a longer travel delay expectation are more likely to comply with phased evacuation orders. This study not only unveiled the impacts of incorporating three psychological perceptions (i.e., risk, stakeholder, and evacuation perceptions) in modeling compliance behavior (e.g., parameter sign/significance shift) but also provides insights of evacuees’ compliance behavior to phased evacuation orders.
Dynamic modeling of public and private decision‐making for hurricane risk management including insurance, acquisition, and mitigation policy
Risk Management and Insurance Review2022 We develop a computational framework for the stochastic and dynamic modeling of regional natural catastrophe losses with an insurance industry to support government decision-making for hurricane risk management. The analysis captures the temporal changes in the building inventory due to the acquisition (buyouts) of high-risk properties and the vulnerability of the building stock due to retrofit mitigation decisions. The system is comprised of a set of interacting models to (1) simulate hazard events; (2) estimate regional hurricane-induced losses from each hazard event based on an evolving building inventory; (3) capture acquisition offer acceptance, retrofit implementation, and insurance purchase behaviors of homeowners; and (4) represent an insurance market sensitive to demand with strategically interrelated primary insurers. This framework is linked to a simulation-optimization model to optimize decision-making by a government entity whose objective is to minimize region-wide hurricane losses. We examine the effect of different policies on homeowner mitigation, insurance take-up rate, insurer profit, and solvency in a case study using data for eastern North Carolina. Our findings indicate that an approach that coordinates insurance, retrofits, and acquisition of high-risk properties effectively reduces total (uninsured and insured) losses.
Regional county-level housing inventory predictions and the effects on hurricane risk
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences2022 Regional hurricane risk is often assessed assuming a static housing inventory, yet a region's housing inventory changes continually. Failing to include changes in the built environment in hurricane risk modeling can substantially underestimate expected losses. This study uses publicly available data and a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network model to forecast the annual number of housing units for each of 1000 individual counties in the southeastern United States over the next 20 years. When evaluated using testing data, the estimated number of housing units was almost always (97.3 % of the time), no more than 1 percentage point different than the observed number, predictive errors that are acceptable for most practical purposes. Comparisons suggest the LSTM outperforms the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and simpler linear trend models. The housing unit projections can help facilitate a quantification of changes in future expected losses and other impacts caused by hurricanes. For example, this study finds that if a hurricane with characteristics similar to Hurricane Harvey were to impact southeastern Texas in 20 years, the residential property and flood losses would be nearly USD 4 billion (38 %) greater due to the expected increase of 1.3 million new housing units (41 %) in the region.
‘Inspired to Action’: Immigrants’ Faith-Based Organizations’ Responses across Two Pandemics
Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies2022 Sources of disaster resilience represent important (but understudied) dimensions of the interplay between immigrants and disasters, as do immigrants’ disaster response activities. Using key informant interviews, we examine immigrant faith-based organizations’ (FBO) responses to two contemporary pandemics. Additionally, we assess for the presence of disaster-relevant social capital in immigrant FBOs. FBOs were found to possess key components of social capital and to actively engage in pandemic response activities, including provision of health risk communication, education, leadership, infection control measures, cash and in-kind contributions, advocacy, and psychosocial support. For immigrant communities, FBO-based social capital contributes to effective disaster and pandemic responses.
Education (2)
University of Delaware: PhD, Sociology 2009
University of Delaware: MA, Sociology 2004
Links (3)
Languages (1)
- English
Event Appearances (5)
Bridging Research and Practice
(2019) Natural Hazards Workshop Broomfield, CO
Uncertainty from a Sociological Perspective
(2019) American Meteorological Society Annual Meetings Phoenix, AZ
Converging Research and Practice
(2019) Natural Hazards Workshop Broomfield, CO
Living Labs as a Method to Foster Practice-Relevant Research
(2018) New Directions in Academic-Practitioner Research Collaborations Meeting Barcelona, Spain
Onwards: Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Action
(2018) Natural Hazards Workshop Broomfield, CO
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