USF Researcher’s Disaster Preparedness App Wins Funding

July 19, 2024 | Sarasota

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County has awarded the University of South Florida Foundation a $7,500 grant to support a USF researcher’s development of a disaster preparedness app to help older Floridians and their caregivers better prepare for hurricanes and other potential disasters.

Lindsay Peterson, a research assistant professor in the School of Aging Studies, began her work on how older residents prepare for disasters after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017. She will use the Community Foundation grant to work with older adult residents and their caregivers on disaster preparedness and development of the app in Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.

“Hurricane Ian, in 2022, was more devastating than Hurricane Irma for older adults in southwest Florida, and it showed there is an urgent need to increase the level of disaster preparedness for older adults, particularly those with dementia and other chronic condition,” Peterson wrote in her application for the Community Foundation grant.

“I learned from my earlier research that family caregivers of older adults know disaster preparedness is essential, but many do not prepare because their caregiving responsibilities use so much of their time and energy. However, many are open to using a computer-based tool,” Peterson added.

As an example, Peterson said the app will provide information about the risk of storm surge or flooding that caregivers can use to tailor an evacuation or shelter-in-place plan for themselves and/or the person in their care. Storm surge and flooding often claim the most lives during a hurricane or tropical storm.

The grant award is part of a larger effort to obtain needed funding for further development of the app, which will be available on computers and smartphones. Other grants awarded earlier by the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences and the Southern Gerontological Society, were used to develop the pilot version of the app.

“I am very thankful to the Community Foundation of Sarasota for its generous support,” Peterson said. “The grant will help us design what I hope will be an essential resource for residents and their families and other caregivers. As we have seen with recent hurricanes that made landfall in southwest Florida, it is critical that residents, especially older Floridians with special needs, have all the relevant information they need to prepare for and respond to a potential disaster.”