Developing a Profile-based Website for Disaster Communities
This study will build capacity in the delivery of information about oil spills, tailored to the needs of disaster communities in the Gulf region.Background

Photo by devrim_pinar/Fotolia
Creating a State-of-the-Art Website that Feels Personal
Thousands of people visit websites like Amazon.com each day, and each is welcomed into the site by a uniquely customized homepage. Why? The content is personalized so that visitors feel like the page is speaking directly to them. The Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities (CRGC) is using state-of-the-art techniques to design a website that is personalized for people interested in learning more about how to build community resilience in the face of a major oil spill. The result should be a website that is more relevant, more engaging, and ultimately more useful for diverse end users.What is web content personalization?
Instead of trying to appeal to a wide range of visitors with one generic home page, we can target different content to different types or groups of visitors. One visitor may be a community health professional who wants to learn more about health impacts of oil spills; they might be most interested in the findings of recent studies on depression or stress. A business owner, on the other hand, may be more concerned about government support during a disaster. A government employee responsible for hazard management planning might want to review community action plans from similar areas. Rather than requiring each visitor to take multiple steps to find the information they want, we can tailor information to meet their needs. Importantly, the tailoring can be done without fundamentally limiting the information that any user has access to.How does content personalization work?
We can map website content to individual visitors using data available to us about the visitor in two steps:Step One: Characterizing

Step Two: Recommending

What are the benefits of content personalization?
- Fast response: Visitors can find the information and tools they need quickly.
- Uniquely informative: Visitors will be more highly engaged and more likely to come back to the website and recommend it to others.
- Less distraction: Visitors won’t be frustrated with content that seems to have nothing to do with their interests.
Learn more
Web Content Personalization: A State-of-the-Art Review (See Full Report)Related News
Study Improves Disaster Resilience Training for Community Health Workers
To improve disaster resilience in targeted communities that were especially hard-hit by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, CRGC worked with its partners from the University of South Alabama’s Coastal Resource and Resiliency Center (CRRC) to train and deploy seven lay Community Health Workers (CHWs) in community-based organizations and community health clinics in Bayou La Batre, AL, Galliano, LA, and Port Sulphur, LA. CRGC researchers, Keith Nicholls, PhD, Steven J. Picou, PhD, and Selena C. McCord recently published findings on how to better prepare CHWs, who take active roles in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery, in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice: Training Community Health Workers to Enhance Disaster Resilience. Read more »
CRGC Hosts Student Webinar, The Benefits and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research, Featuring Drs. Ramchand and Blum On Jan 25th
CRGC’s upcoming GoMRI student webinar,The Benefits and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research, will feature Rajeev Ramchand, Ph.D., a Senior Behavioral Scientist with RAND Corporation, and Michael Blum, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxvile. In this conversation, moderated by CRGC’s Director, Melissa Finucane, Ph.D., a Senior Social and Behavioral Scientist with RAND Corporation, speakers will engage in an interactive discussion to share their experiences working with people in other disciplines on research within and outside their traditional areas of expertise. The webinar will take place on Thursday, January 25, 2018 from 2pm – 3pm CST. All students working across GoMRI-funded consortia are invited to join! To register and learn more about the webinar »
Louisiana Says Thousands Should Move From Vulnerable Coast, But Can’t Pay Them
With foresight gleaned from its Coastal Master Plan—developed in partnership with RAND—Louisiana understands the need to protect residents who are most vulnerable to flooding. NPR reports that the state has devised a plan to buy their homes, but there isn't money available to pay. Learn more »
Tulane’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy Hosts: Leadership in Peacetime and Crisis
Major General Michael Regner (Image provided by DRLA)[/caption] On Saturday, December 2nd, Tulane’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA) will welcome Major General Michael Regner, who will present Leadership in Peacetime and Crisis. Major General Regner will discuss topics including: (1) Resiliency in Peacetime and Crisis; (2) Crisis Communication; (3) Casualties – Civilians and Military Members; (4) Humanitarian Assistance and Cultural Awareness; and (5) Designing Your Leadership Philosophy. Learn more»
How to Rebuild After This Year’s Hurricane Season? Invest in Resilience!
Check out the latest commentary on The RAND Blog! Director of CRGC, Melissa L. Finucane (@MelissaFinucane), who is a Senior Social and Behavioral Scientist at RAND, discusses the extremely active 2017 Atlantic hurricane season- as well as the range of risks posed by future disasters- and implications on community and infrastructure resilience in the Gulf of Mexico. Learn more»
CRGC’s Drs. Finucane and Nicholls Contribute to National Academies Workshop on Preparing for a Rapid Response to Major Marine Oil Spills: Protecting and Assessing the Health and Well-Being of Communities
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released
Proceedings of the Workshop— in Brief, chronicling the presentations and discussions from Preparing for a Rapid Response to Major Offshore Oil Spills: A Workshop on Research Needs to Protect the Health and Well-Being of Communities. The two-day workshop, which Drs. Finucane and Nicholls participated in Aug 2-3 in Washington D.C., was organized by an ad hoc committee to facilitate cross-sector, transdiciplinary discussions around research needs and other opportunities for improving public health preparedness, response, and protection related to oil spills. Learn more»
CRGC Hosts Student Webinar Featuring GoMRI Student Panelists On Oct 26th
CRGC’s upcoming GoMRI student webinar, Managing the Grad School Process, will feature Jacqueline Fiore— a Ph.D. candidate in Tulane University’s Economic Analysis and Policy program and a member of CRGC’s Economics subteam— and Vanessa Parks— a Ph.D. candidate at Louisiana State University and a member of CRGC’s Health subteam. The webinar will take place on Thursday, October 26 from 1pm – 2pm CDT. The conversation is designed to provide current graduate students with helpful tips and strategies on navigating the graduate school process. Fiore and Parkes will discuss an array of interesting topics, including interacting with advisors, publishing articles, the necessity of internships, and other practical bits of advice for students. All students working across GoMRI-funded consortia are invited to join! To register and learn more about the webinar »
CRGC Director, Dr. Melissa Finucane, Shares Updates on Consortium’s Work & Research Findings
At this year’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference, The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) interviewed Dr. Melissa Finucane– Senior Social and Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation and Director of The Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities- about CRGC’s latest research findings and progress assessing and addressing the impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the health, social, and economic wellbeing of people in the Gulf Coast region. Finucane speaks to CRGC’s research, outreach, and education initiatives, which are aimed at helping communities across the Gulf Coast to more effectively understand, withstand, and overcome the multiple stressors brought on by such disasters. Learn more>>
Reliable Data: The Most Empowering Tool for Hurricane Recovery
Accessibility to transparent, up to date data has proven to play a critical role in both individual- and community-level capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disaster events, such as a hurricanes— Something that was especially evident following Hurricane Katrina. Denice W. Ross, a Public Interest Technology Fellow at New America and a co-founder of the Obama administration’s Police Data Initiative, spent more than a decade in New Orleans building community capacity to use government data and is continuing to broaden her work in the “open data” space by aggregating high-value data sets that can aid communities impacted by disaster. Learn more>>
CRGC Hosts Student Webinar Featuring GoMRI Chief Scientific Officer, Chuck Wilson On Sept 28th
CRGC’s upcoming GoMRI student webinar, A Career in Research, will feature Dr. Charles “Chuck” A. Wilson, who serves as the GoMRI Chief Scientific Officer.
The webinar will take place on Thursday, September 28 from 1PM – 2 PM CDT.
Dr. Wilson will discuss his career trajectory and his time spent managing the GoMRI research board during this interactive session. All students working across GoMRI-funded consortia are invited to join!