Disaster Management, Disaster Education and Awareness in Disaster Management: American Example

Many of countries are faced with disasters produced by nature. Earthquake, flood, landslide, hurricane, drought, fire etc. events are among the most common natural disasters. On the other hand, there are some disasters which are caused by people. For example, the terrorist attack on twin towers in 2001 in New York, called 9/11, in the United States, has killed thousands of people. Such attacks are disasters created by human beings. Disaster and Emergency Management courses are offered under the Departments of Public Administration at undergraduate and graduate levels in some universities in the United States. Sam Houston State University, for example, has established a Master's program in Public Administration at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Disaster and Emergency Management Program is a sub branch of this program. Under this program, courses such as Global Disaster Policy, Emergency Management, Disaster Resilience, Decision Making Uncertainty and Community Policies are given. In this study, some activities related to disaster management and education in the United States was discussed and they were compared with activities in the same fields done at Turkish universities. Under this investigation, some interviews were done with people of the relevant institutions and organizations both in the USA and in Turkey, and the collected data were analyzed and evaluated using inferential statistical methods. Some suggestions were developed in the light of the obtained findings