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Elizabeth A Albright

Elizabeth A Albright

Dan and Bunny Gabel Associate Professor of the Practice of Environmental Ethics and Sustainable Environmental Management
Environmental Social Systems
elizabeth.albright@duke.edu
Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708-0328
4113 Environment Hall, Nicholas School of the Environment, 9 Circuit Drive, Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

Policy entrepreneurs and individuals: Influence and behavior in pandemic response

Journal Article Public Administration Review · September 1, 2023 Policy entrepreneurs have traditionally been recognized for their ability to influence policymakers by framing policy problems and pairing them with preferred solutions. Does their influence extend to the public? We examine this question in the context of ... Full text Cite

Visual policy narrative messaging improves COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Journal Article PNAS nexus · April 2023 In the face of vaccine hesitancy, public health officials are seeking more effective risk communication approaches to increase vaccination rates. We test the influence of visual policy narratives on COVID-19 vaccination behavior through a panel survey expe ... Full text Open Access Cite

Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states.

Journal Article The review of policy research · January 2023 Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, wh ... Full text Cite

Estimating the effect of policy entrepreneurship on individual vaccination behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic

Journal Article European Policy Analysis · January 1, 2023 Most studies of policy entrepreneurship seek to understand how entrepreneurs influence the behavior of policy-makers in the agenda-setting or decision-making phases of the policy process. Recent scholarship has sought to understand what role entrepreneurs ... Full text Cite

Perceptions of Efficacy are Key Determinants of Mask-Wearing Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal Article Natural Hazards Review · August 1, 2021 Public health officials recommend wearing a mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19, yet individual compliance varies. Understanding the full range of determinants of mask-wearing is critical for promoting evidence-based public health solutions to slow the s ... Full text Cite

Capacity Building toward Resilience: How Communities Recover, Learn, and Change in the Aftermath of Extreme Events

Journal Article Policy Studies Journal · February 1, 2021 When faced with natural disasters, communities respond in diverse ways, with processes that reflect the extent of damage experienced by the community, their resource availability, and stakeholder needs. Local-level processes drive decisions about mitigatin ... Full text Cite

The role of coalitions in disaster policymaking.

Journal Article Disasters · January 2021 Disasters have the potential to act as focusing events, which can increase the amount of attention on disaster-related problems and encourage policy action. Understanding of the political characteristics of disaster policymaking is underdeveloped, yet it i ... Full text Cite

Evaluating Stakeholder Participation and Influence on State-Level Rulemaking

Journal Article Policy Studies Journal · November 1, 2020 Despite sustained attention to the role of stakeholders in policymaking—both in legislative and regulatory venues—we lack a systematic understanding of whether and when stakeholders wield influence over decisions. This is particularly true regarding state- ... Full text Cite

Building Resilience during Recovery: Lessons from Colorado's Watershed Resilience Pilot Program.

Journal Article Environmental management · July 2020 As the potential for and scope of some types of disasters increases, so too does the need to build greater disaster resilience across the globe. Communities ideally begin building resilience prior to experiencing a disaster in order to reduce negative impa ... Full text Cite

First, Do No Harm: Evaluating the Vulnerability Reduction of Post-Disaster Home Buyout Programs

Journal Article Natural Hazards Review · February 1, 2020 Post-disaster home buyout programs are intended to reduce hazard vulnerability by facilitating the permanent relocation of people and property away from known hazardous areas. However, the effectiveness of home buyouts in reducing vulnerability has not bee ... Full text Cite

Disaster-driven discussion

Journal Article Nature Climate Change · January 1, 2020 Full text Cite

Beliefs about climate change in the aftermath of extreme flooding

Journal Article Climatic Change · July 15, 2019 When faced with natural disasters, communities respond in diverse ways, with processes that reflect their cultures, needs, and the extent of damage incurred by the community. Because of their potentially recurring nature, floods offer an opportunity for co ... Full text Cite

Stakeholder Participation and Strategy in Rulemaking: A Comparative Analysis

Journal Article State Politics and Policy Quarterly · June 1, 2019 Integrating a diversity of stakeholder voices in policymaking processes can lead to more legitimate and widely supported laws and rules. While most attention to stakeholder participation in public decision processes has focused on legislative policymaking ... Full text Cite

Intergovernmental relationships after disaster: state and local government learning during flood recovery in Colorado

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning · January 1, 2019 When communities experience disaster, emergency response and recovery are led internally, based on local-level policy decisions and priorities. Decisions about how or whether to rebuild are made by local governments. Higher governmental authorities such as ... Full text Cite

Pathways to coastal resiliency: The Adaptive Gradients Framework

Journal Article Sustainability (Switzerland) · July 26, 2018 Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional "hard" or "grey" engineering ... Full text Open Access Cite

Do Disasters Lead to Learning? Financial Policy Change in Local Government

Journal Article Review of Policy Research · July 1, 2018 Natural disasters may be windows of opportunity for policy change and learning by local governments, which are the entities primarily responsible for the recovery and rebuilding process after a disaster strikes in the United States. During disaster recover ... Full text Cite

Evaluating Informational Inputs in Rulemaking Processes: A Cross-Case Analysis

Journal Article Administration and Society · October 1, 2017 As legislative venues are increasingly stymied by gridlock, much policymaking responsibility has devolved to the U.S. states. This article analyzes informational inputs and participation by actors within the rulemaking context, focusing on the level of sta ... Full text Cite

Quantity of flowback and produced waters from unconventional oil and gas exploration.

Journal Article The Science of the total environment · January 2017 The management and disposal of flowback and produced waters (FP water) is one of the greatest challenges associated with unconventional oil and gas development. The development and production of unconventional natural gas and oil is projected to increase i ... Full text Cite

Environmental rulemaking across states: Process, procedural access, and regulatory influence

Journal Article Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy · November 1, 2016 Rulemaking is central to policymaking in the United States. Additionally, regulatory authority is devolved to the states in many instances. However, our knowledge of state-level rulemaking is not as advanced as that related to federal rulemaking. To advanc ... Full text Cite

Parental dietary seleno-L-methionine exposure and resultant offspring developmental toxicity.

Journal Article Aquatic toxicology (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · January 2016 Selenium (Se) leaches into water from agricultural soils and from storage sites for coal fly ash. Se toxicity causes population and community level effects in fishes and birds. We used the laboratory aquarium model fish, Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes), ... Full text Open Access Cite

Public Information and Regulatory Processes: What the Public Knows and Regulators Decide

Journal Article Review of Policy Research · January 1, 2016 Because bureaucratic agencies may be less transparent in their decision processes than legislatures, most states have developed processes to incorporate input from regulated communities and other parties potentially affected by regulations. Administrative ... Full text Cite

Learning processes, public and stakeholder engagement: Analyzing responses to Colorado's extreme flood events of 2013

Journal Article Urban Climate · December 1, 2015 In early fall of 2013 in the Front Range of Colorado, several communities experienced intense rainfall over a three-day period, exceeding annual average precipitation rates. Extensive damage occurred to roads, infrastructure, parks, river corridors, homes ... Full text Cite

Learning in the Aftermath of Extreme Floods: Community Damage and Stakeholder Perceptions of Future Risk

Journal Article Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy · September 1, 2015 Policy learning in the aftermath of extreme events can happen as a result of changes in beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of stakeholders acting in a coordinated manner. Understanding the factors that impact these beliefs may prove critical in ... Full text Cite

A study of anthropogenic and climatic disturbance of the New River Estuary using a Bayesian belief network.

Journal Article Marine pollution bulletin · June 2014 The present paper utilizes a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) approach to intuitively present and quantify our current understanding of the complex physical, chemical, and biological processes that lead to eutrophication in an estuarine ecosystem (New River E ... Full text Cite

Policy change and learning in response to extreme flood events in Hungary: An advocacy coalition approach

Journal Article Policy Studies Journal · August 1, 2011 In an analysis of the 200-year history of flood management in Hungary, I use the advocacy coalition framework and the focusing event literature to examine what policy change occurs and what is learned as a result of experiencing extreme and damaging flood ... Full text Cite

Can behavioral decision theory explain risk-averse fire management decisions?

Journal Article Forest Ecology and Management · 2005 Organizations managing forest land often make fire management decisions that seem overly risk-averse in relation to their stated goals for ecosystem restoration, protection of sensitive species and habitats, and protection of water and timber resources. Re ... Full text Open Access Cite