Problems of Field Research: Techniques and Procedures of the Disaster Research Center in the 1960s

In August of 1963, we established the Disaster Research Center at Ohio State University. The basic purpose of the Center is to conduct research into disasters. We are not interested in the physical features of disasters, but primarily in their human and social aspects. We have several contracts: one with the Office of Civil Defense, which supports most of our field work, and another with the Office of Scientific Research of the Air force, which supports what we call the laboratory part of our research. Those were our initial contracts and are still our two basic contracts as of today. Essentially, they call for us to study organizational functioning under stress. That is, were are not interested in victims themselves; rather, our basic objective is to study organizations and their personnel, particularly those that get involved in solving the community problems engendered by disaster. This would include such groups as police and fire departments, civil defense, mass media, hospital, etc. We are not confined to them alone, although they were our initial focus and are still the major point of interest in our research