Dear colleague, hands off Puerto Rico
As many of you know, Puerto Rico is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane María and by the discrimination suffered by the islands due to inequities found in the federal response in Puerto Rico in comparison to Florida and Texas (see Willison and colleagues, 2018). The recovery is still slow and painful.
Now, the “resiliency” of our people is being tested by a series of earthquakes that have severely impacted the Southwestern Region of the island where the epicenters are located. At the same time, the people of Puerto Rico, are reporting higher levels of stress and anxiety. There are elderly and frail persons living under camping tents without basic services or in conditions that is bound to deteriorate their health.
On the wake of this disaster, I want to ask all our colleagues who are salivating to submit RAPID grants to hold their fingers.
During Hurricane Maria we heard stories of Engineering Schools arriving to towns even before FEMA had, and this is not “OK”. First and foremost, we need to hold academia to an ethical standard that is superior to others. First, in cases of studies of engineering and other structural topics you are not required to take any course on responsibly dealing with human subjects. Although you claim you will not be dealing with human subjects YOU ARE, you speak with people on the field and you are not recording your interventions with the structure required to social scientists, psychologists, and any other person working who requires a CITI Training. You do not process your projects through an Institutional Review Board, nor you are equipped to deal with persons who express trauma to you.
Similarly, you should stop the practice of moving your research with the money. Puerto Rico is a complex place, with our own history and an unique political relation with the United States. As such, the application and implementations of questionnaires or surveys that are not designed with us in mind is inappropriate.
Even worse is academic colonialism. What is that? I’m glad you asked, there is a practice where the institutions in the mainland get the funds and the institutions in Puerto Rico do the work. This practice perpetuates the inequalities in academic productivity within Puerto Rico and they do little to help us.
There will be time time to study Puerto Rico, but as I write there are earthquakes affecting the island. What’s more, if you have never looked at Puerto Rico before … just turn on the TV and don’t try to $ave us.
If you do have a burning desire to help, reach out to colleagues in Puerto Rico — these are the main institutions:
- University of Puerto Rico (www.upr.edu)
- Universidad Ana G. Mendez (www.uagm.edu)
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico (www.pucpr.edu)
- Universidad Interamericana (www.inter.edu).
- Ponce Health Sciences University (https://www.psm.edu/)
If you want to DO research, I recommend reaching out to the RISE Network (marla@ncseglobal.org) which is spearheaded by Marla and Cecilio (cecilio@ncseglobal.org) to guide post-disaster research or Ciencia Puerto Rico (www.cienciapr.org). They are equipped, know the island, and are open to collaborations.
Please, approach post-disaster research in Puerto Rico with some level of ethics.
Kindly,
Alexis R. Santos
References
Willison, Charley E., Singer, Philip M., Creary, Melissa S. and Greer, Scott L. (2018). Quantifying inequities in US Federal response to Hurricane disaster in Texas and Florida compared with Puerto Rico. BMJ Global Health. https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/1/e001191
