For approximately the last 50 years, scientists from numerous academic fields have converged to develop a body of scholarship termed disaster research. Scholarship in this area includes, but is not limited to, the study of disaster mitigation and preparation, disaster vulnerability, community and infrastructure resilience, recovery efforts, psychological consequences of disaster, crisis communication, the intercultural impact of disasters, and economic recovery. Disaster research has drawn the interest of scholars from fields as diverse as sociology, psychology, public health, communication science, civil engineering, economics, and public policy. This research is conducted with the end goal of improving public policy and emergency planning, and minimizing the harm caused by future disasters.

As a field, disaster research has its roots in the founding of the Disaster Research Center (DRC), ...