Some U.S. communities, such as low-income or minority communities, are disproportionately affected by natural disasters. This report presents an initial methodology for how the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program can assess its social equity performance in its activities aimed at reducing damage and easing recovery with predisaster actions.

How Do We Know Whether Federal Disaster Programs Are Equitable?

An Initial Methodology for Evaluating Social Equity Performance of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Mitigation Grant Program

Melissa L. Finucane, Noreen Clancy, Andrew M. Parker, Jessica Welburn Paige, Karishma V. Patel, Devin Tierney, Michael T. Wilson, Peggy Wilcox, Tucker Reese, Jhacova Williams, et al.

ResearchPublished Jul 25, 2023

Some communities, such as low-income or minority communities, are disproportionately affected by the impact of disasters, in part because they have fewer financial resources available to prepare for or recover from damages to property or livelihoods. The federal government has established several grant programs — such as the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) hazard mitigation grant program — that provide funding to support mitigation before a disaster and recovery after a disaster hits. However, distribution of both mitigation and recovery funding has not been equitably applied to all communities, with underserved communities receiving less of both. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) engaged the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC), a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) operated by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to help explore how the BRIC hazard mitigation grant program is addressing social equity considerations. This report provides an initial methodology for how BRIC can assess the program's social equity performance. It also identifies community characteristics and natural hazard risks related to participation and success of subapplications in the first year of the BRIC grant cycle (fiscal year 2020).

Key Findings

  • Existing equity-related data and tools may provide useful resources to the BRIC grant program, but none addresses all of BRIC's equity evaluation needs.
  • Project- versus program-level evaluation methods and motivations likely differ, and the motivations and needs at the project level need further investigation, especially to avoid additional burden on implementing communities.
  • There is no readily available dataset combining information about risk, sociodemographics, and BRIC subapplications.
  • The research identified the following characteristics related to participation in the BRIC program: Participation is greater among communities at risk for some hazards (wildfire, ice storm, hurricane, and riverine flooding) but lower for other hazards (drought); participation is lower for communities with lower incomes and greater proportions of older adults or children but greater for communities with higher proportions of minorities or people without vehicles.
  • Applying to BRIC is more difficult for communities with limited staff, time, expertise, or comparative perspective.

Recommendations

  • Disadvantaged communities require more assistance to alleviate procedural burdens and barriers moving forward.
  • The equity action-logic model (EALM) could be used by BRIC to communicate how it plans to progress toward more socially equitable performance.
  • In the near term, officials should refine the draft EALM as knowledge and data evolve; refine the outcome indicators and metrics and also define the most-relevant target groups to BRIC equity considerations; establish community needs and resources for project-level equity evaluation; and increase community assistance; among other possible actions.
  • In the long term, officials should communicate updates about BRIC's equity evaluation methods and findings widely; examine whether findings about BRIC equity impacts differ with alternative approaches to defining underserved groups; evaluate the effectiveness of approaches designed to support communities with resource constraints; continue to track and refine measures of social vulnerability; develop a comprehensive subapplication assistance; and expand the definition of disadvantage; and other potential actions.
  • Officials should add more years of BRIC data, once available, to improve the ability of the models to detect effects and help the BRIC program adjust priorities and criteria to achieve its stated equity goals.

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RAND Style Manual

Finucane, Melissa L., Noreen Clancy, Andrew M. Parker, Jessica Welburn Paige, Karishma V. Patel, Devin Tierney, Michael T. Wilson, Peggy Wilcox, Tucker Reese, Jhacova Williams, Jordan R. Reimer, Thomas Goode, Sam Morales, and Alyson B. Harding, How Do We Know Whether Federal Disaster Programs Are Equitable? An Initial Methodology for Evaluating Social Equity Performance of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Mitigation Grant Program, Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, RR-A2145-2, 2023. As of April 30, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2145-2.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Finucane, Melissa L., Noreen Clancy, Andrew M. Parker, Jessica Welburn Paige, Karishma V. Patel, Devin Tierney, Michael T. Wilson, Peggy Wilcox, Tucker Reese, Jhacova Williams, Jordan R. Reimer, Thomas Goode, Sam Morales, and Alyson B. Harding, How Do We Know Whether Federal Disaster Programs Are Equitable? An Initial Methodology for Evaluating Social Equity Performance of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Mitigation Grant Program. Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2145-2.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and conducted by the Disaster Research and Analysis Program within the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center.

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