Guest blogger (to Andrew P. Wilson’s Posterous): Tommy Hipper is currently pursuing his Masters degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his proposed thesis is: How social media can be utilized to improve first responder mental health.
The past few years have clearly demonstrated the power and value of social media in crisis situations. The examples range from the 2007 California wildfires to the 2010 H1N1 outbreak to the recent earthquake in Haiti.
The principal focus of social media in this sphere has been the ways in which social media can be used to improve disaster preparedness and response. That said, the broader domain of social media in crisis situations remains an emerging field and there are still areas needing greater understanding. The role of social media in the health of first responders is one of these areas. I have yet to come across much literature connecting social media to mental health preparedness, despite the fact that this area holds great promise.
Ultimately, via my research and thesis, I hope to demonstrate how social media could be an effective tool in reducing the adverse mental health effects suffered by first responders following a disaster. As this topic is inherently a social one, I am turning to the broader community for insight and help on this. I am interested to hear what, if at all, you think about this issue. Any insights, opinions, or resources that you may have that you think I should consider would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to drop a comment, a link to a resource (scholarly or other) or email me at tommyhipper (at) gmail (dot) com if you have any thoughts. Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you!
[Cross-posted by Heather Blanchard from Andrew P. Wilson‘s Posterous article here.
FINALLY!
This is one of the most useful and ultimately productive topics that has come along in a good while.
Understanding how these pressures affect us will have a number of positive impacts:
1. It will help us as individuals be more responsible to the community of peers and help them take up the slack when we need a break.
2. It will help us as a community be more responsible to individual peers who cannot see the negative impact of Trauma-Stress on their own life. (This is a lethal problem, don’t kid around with it)
3. Having mechanisms in place to successfully prevent/recognize/mitigate Responder Stress will ensure the longevity of our community and ensure positive outcomes when the S#!t really hits the fan (again)
4. Besides the fact that Responders have to be ‘able’ to respond, understanding these factors first-hand will give us more empathy for those in Emergent situations -> to help us make better decisions about which projects/features to focus on.
5. As the basis of our work, Critical Stress can be the rallying point to bring different commons groups closer together. e.g. ‘We have these issues in common and must rely upon one another that much more to prevent long term effects.’ <- this can be fun! really!
Comment: Understand that a ~major~ "impact amplifier" for Critical Stress is feeling like the sole responsible party; which can be eased by including collaborative project management and reporting tools** into the foundation of our workflow.
** things like: comment narrative attached to each project with voting, tag system that broadcasts needed skills for each project and matches to user profiles, automatic progress notifications (atomic or milestone level), accountability checklists with simplified handoff ability, 'stress barometer' based upon frequency of catchwords in network chatter …and many other ideas designed to reinforce the concept that we are a community unified in purpose, comfortably capable of ingesting as many new passionate and skilled participants as show up for however long they choose to. ~can you hear the soaring music in the background?~ Seriously though.. "mission first" mentality means we need to be fit and capable.