Uneven Growth in Social Capital Organizations After Disasters by Pre-Disaster Conditions in the United States 2000–2014

Abstract

Introduction: Community-level social capital organizations are critical pre-existing resources that can be leveraged in a disaster.

Aim: The study aimed to test the hypothesis that communities with larger pre-disaster stocks of social capital organizations would maintain pre-disaster levels or experience growth.

Methodology: An annual panel dataset of counties in the contiguous United States from 2000 to 2014 totaling 46620 county-years, including longitudinal data on disasters and social capital institutions was used to evaluate the effect of disaster on growth of social capital.

Results: When a county experienced more months of disasters, social capital organizations increased a year later. These findings varied based on the baseline level of social capital organizations. For counties experiencing minor disaster impacts, growth in social capital organizations tends to occur in counties with more social capital organizations in 2000; this effect is a countervailing finding to that of major disasters, and effect sizes are larger.

Conclusion: Given the growing frequency of smaller-scale disasters and the considerable number of communities that experienced these disasters, the findings suggest that small scale events create the most common and potentially broadest impact opportunity for intervention to lessen disparities in organizational growth.