A course in disaster mitigation

While endeavors are underway within the emergency management discipline to develop a unique body of foundational knowledge, widespread acknowledgement and agreement within the emergency management scholarly community of the existence of theoretical foundations and the consistent incorporation of these elements into emergency management research and teaching are still lacking. This article offers an outline of a US-based undergraduate course in mitigation theory and practice that is based on a synthesis of the academic literature related to disaster mitigation as a means to advance the discourse on foundational knowledge and curriculum development. The course outline proposes a set of concepts, theories, propositions, and empirical data that would arguably be fundamental for students in gaining a comprehensive understanding of mitigation in the United States and suggests how that information can be organized and presented in a meaningful way.