Suchergebnisse

Differences in population-level climate change beliefs have been identified, which are often attributable to coastline proximity, urban–rural classifications, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, gender, education, socioeconomic status, and age. This study assessed the impact of spatial, experiential, and demographic-related characteristics on climate change beliefs among a population of Hurricane Katrina survivors. Participants from the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study who answered climate change belief questions were included in this analysis. Race was found to be the most critical contributor to climate change belief, where the adjusted odds of white individuals believing in climate change were 0.2 times the odds of Black individuals believing in climate change (confidence interval: 0.1–0.4). Other sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender, income, and education, were not found to be significant. Several theoretical perspectives were considered to explain the variation in climate change beliefs, including social vulnerability, environmental deprivation, and political ideology. Future research as to why these racial differences exist should be conducted. By doing so, climate change communication, education, and mitigation and adaptation strategies may be improved.

In December 2011, researchers from Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) interviewed key officials and community leaders in Joplin, Missouri in order to document the major themes of the recovery effort approximately six months after the May 22 tornado. Researchers interviewed individuals in Joplin, Missouri to document recovery efforts six months after the tornado that displaced one third of the city's population. They observed a favorable foundation for recovery, including limited physical damage to critical infrastructure or the city government's fiscal base, minimal political conflict over the direction and control of recovery, a history of prior collaborative efforts across diverse sectors, and a highly involved and visible governor. The study documents several quick critical decisions that set a positive recovery trajectory and a FEMA-supported long-term recovery planning process. It notes that six months after the tornado, Joplin's leadership faced hard decisions about how to apply federal and state redevelopment support and private philanthropic donations, deal with long-term community mental health issues, maintain a high level of citizen involvement, and sustain the cooperative atmosphere that had defined the first six months of recovery.

Pandemic influenza and other large scale communicable disease outbreaks pose a unique public safety concern in respect to transit and emergency planning. While local transit agencies, supported by federal funds, have identified disaster planning and response as critical to maintaining continuity of service and quality of life, most plans contend solely with event-based scenarios such as responding to natural hazards and manmade disasters. A pandemic is particularly challenging, given no discrete event but a slow accumulation of organizational and social disruption. Contending with second order consequences and of the long-term effects of an influenza pandemic is of equal importance in city planning and operations. A major objective for City of New York and the Metropolitan Transit Authority will be to mitigate the effects of second order consequences. Pre-planning and connecting the public and employees to those plans will serve to minimize concerns and aid in the continuity of transit usage, service delivery and potentially minimize negative economic, social and political impacts.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES AND TABLES -- FOREWORD -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- 1. The Youngest Survivors -- 2. Children, Youth, and Disaster -- I. DECLINING TRAJECTORY -- 3. Daniel: Cumulative Vulnerability and Continuing Crises -- 4. Mekana: Disaster as Catalyst -- II. FINDING-EQUILIBRIUM TRAJECTORY -- 5. Isabel and Zachary: Resource Depth and Long-Term Stability -- 6. Cierra: Mobilizing Resources -- III. FLUCTUATING TRAJECTORY -- 7. Jerron: Misaligned Spheres -- 8. Clinton: Rapid Movement -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. Who Counts as a Child? -- Appendix B. Studying Children and Youth in Disaster: A Note on Methods -- Appendix C. Recommendations for Improved Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Efforts for Children and Youth -- NOTES -- ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND SERIES EDITOR -- INDEX

Among the four phases along the hazard continuum -- preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation -- the sub‐field of long‐term recovery has long been an outlier, an "orphan" when it comes to concerted policy attention and pre‐disaster planning. It's not that community residents or municipal and state government officials are unaware of the potential long‐term residual consequences of natural disasters. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to upgrade and enhance the country's ability to detect and respond to major catastrophic events, whether man‐made or natural in origin. The country experienced catastrophic wildfires in 2003, 2007‐2008, and 2011, a regional electrical blackout affecting 9 states and part of Canada in 2003, major Midwest flooding in 2008 and again this year, Category 3 or greater hurricanes in 2004, 2005, and 2008, and significant tornado clusters in 2011 that claimed 529 lives and caused over $17 billion in damages. These hazards have struck virtually every region of the country, and the consequences are readily evident to emergency managers and local city and county. Although the ratio of uncovered to covered losses has declined over this three‐decade timeframe, from approximately 8:1 to 4:1, absolute dollar losses have escalated tremendously. This may represent gains in mitigation efforts to insure against losses in high‐risk areas, but the size and growth of uncovered losses suggest a growing recovery challenge. This difference between covered and uncovered losses reflects the absolute minimum investment required for affected areas to return to pre‐event conditions, much less build back to a better or higher standard. Furthermore, what this trend line cannot capture are those disaster consequences not so easily monetized -- diminished physical and mental health among an affected citizenry, loss of a sense of community and attachment to place, or large scale social disruptions or population displacements. Given the magnitude of the social investment needed to pursue long‐term recovery after a disaster, and the attention that other phases in the hazard continuum have experienced, why is recovery still a policy orphan, and what are the local implications for pre‐disaster planning for long‐term recovery?

This article uses longitudinal data from the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study to examine the impact of residential mobility on the long-term mental health trajectories of individuals displaced or severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Analyses begin with a descriptive understanding of residential mobility post-Katrina, including an explanation of who moved and how often in the 13 years after the storm, and determine which social groups were more likely to experience residential mobility than others. Secondly, it builds on these descriptive results by examining how residential mobility can influence the mental health of disaster survivors over time. Lastly, analyses determine how residential mobility rates differ depending on various social characteristics, and how such relationships influence mental health recovery. Results demonstrate that there is a statistically significant relationship between high rates of residential mobility and mental health recovery, and that particular social characteristics increase the risk for high residential mobility.

Abstract
Catastrophic disasters disrupt the structural and social aspects of housing, which can lead to varying lengths of displacement and housing instability for affected residents. Stable housing is a critical aspect of postdisaster recovery, which makes it important to understand how much time passes before displaced residents are able to find stable housing. Using the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study, a longitudinal cohort of Mississippi and Louisiana residents exposed to Hurricane Katrina (n = 1079), we describe patterns of stable housing by identifying protective and prohibitive factors that affect time to stable housing in the 13 years following the storm. Survival analyses reveal that median time to stable housing was 1082 days—over 3 years after Katrina. Age, housing tenure, marital status, income, and social support each independently affected time to stable housing. Findings suggest that postdisaster housing instability is similar to other forms of housing instability, including eviction, frequent moves, and homelessness.

Significance Statement
Climate change is expected to increase gradual-onset events like sea level rise, as well as the frequency and intensity of acute disasters like hurricanes. Such events when coupled with population growth, coastline development, and increasing inequality will lead to high levels of displacement and housing instability. Using longitudinal data, we wanted to understand how much time passed until residents who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina were able to find permanent and stable housing and identify factors that either prolonged or accelerated respondents' time to stable housing. Addressing this gap can help to improve resident recovery and create targeted postdisaster housing policy, especially as displacement from disasters becomes increasingly common among those living in regions susceptible to the effects of climate change.

Since 2002, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and The Children's Health Fund (CHF), have conducted annual surveys of public attitudes and personal preparedness in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Produced in collaboration with the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO), each is a random-dial telephone survey of approximately 1,300 - 1,500 adults stratified according to US Census 2000 data. Current and trend data from these surveys reveal a disjuncture between Americans' awareness and sensitivity to possible natural and man-made threats and their consistently low levels of personal preparedness. Each survey, including the current, have included trended questions as well as "one-off" questions appropriate to the given time period. Trended questions ask about confidence in government; willingness and ability to evacuate; personal and family preparedness plans; personal sacrifice; community preparedness; and perceptions and engagement of all-hazard preparedness. All questions are cross-tabulated with a variety of demographic characteristics including race, age, gender, income, and region, size of community, political affiliation, and education. Further, select questions establishing a division of respondent (e.g. those having personal and family preparedness plans vs. those who do not) are cross-tabulated with other selected questions to observe correlations (e.g. awareness of community preparedness plans). The surveys are developed by NCDP and CHF investigators in conjunction with MIPO, who administers the survey, codes the data, and produces the frequency tables.

Since 2002, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and The Children's Health Fund (CHF), have conducted annual surveys of public attitudes and personal preparedness in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Produced in collaboration with the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO), each is a random-dial telephone survey of a representative random sample of the US population (selected consistent with demographic characteristics of the most recent available update of the 2000 census). Each survey, including the current, has included a set of questions repeated every year, which generate trend data, as well as questions specific to events current to each study period. Repeated questions ask about confidence in government; willingness and ability to evacuate; extent of personal and family preparedness; and perceptions of community preparedness. All questions are compared across a variety of demographic characteristics including race, age, gender, income, and region, size of community, political affiliation, and education. Further, the responses to select questions, such as awareness of community preparedness plans, are compared across certain groups of respondents (e.g. those having personal and family preparedness plans vs. those who do not). The surveys are developed by NCDP and CHF investigators in conjunction with MIPO, who administers the survey, codes the data, and produces the frequency tables.

Hurricane Katrina is America's most recent encounter with a megadisaster. But what made it a megadisaster instead of just another category 3 hurricane of the type that seasonally exists in the Gulf of Mexico? Katrina was not the largest or strongest hurricane to strike the United States mainland in the recent past, but its effects were devastating and wide reaching beyond our wildest nightmares, far beyond those of Hurricane Andrew (1992), a category 5 hurricane that scoured much of Florida and the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina's track directly targeted gaping vulnerabilities in infrastructure and society, and set in motion a series of events that culminated in the deaths of nearly 2000 people, resulted in hundreds of missing individuals, and caused a potential economic impact of up to $150 billion. The disruption of people's lives was immeasurable, as was the impact on the long-term physical and mental health of the victims, which continues today. Katrina also led to a substantial decline in the confidence that the public has in its government to provide essential services during a disaster. Children are among the most susceptible members of a community when catastrophes such as these strike because of their dependent nature as well as their physiologic and psychological vulnerability. Children affected by Katrina were no exception. Persistent critical gaps exist in the ability to prepare for and respond to the needs of the youngest victims. These were clearly exposed as children endured an at times ineffectual disaster response followed by a stressful recovery that is still ongoing. An analysis of the issues that faced children during this event and some others from the recent past may help society reduce the impact of such disasters on children in the future. This article focuses on a few of the major shortfalls in the care of children that have become especially apparent in the last few years: Facilitating evacuation; Providing shelter; Caring for those with special medical needs; Addressing mental health needs.

A number of governmental agencies have called for enhancing citizen's resilience as a means of preparing populations in advance of disasters, and as a counter-balance to social and individual vulnerabilities. This increasing scholarly, policy and programmatic interest in promoting individual and communal resilience presents a challenge to the research and practice communities: to develop a translational framework that can accommodate multi-disciplinary scientific perspectives into a single, applied model. The Resilience Activation Framework provides a basis for testing how access to social resources, such as formal and informal social support and help, promotes positive adaptation or reduced psychopathology among individuals and communities exposed to the acute collective stressors associated with disasters, whether manmade, natural, or technological in origin. Articulating the mechanisms by which access to social resources activate and sustain resilience capacities for optimal mental health outcomes post-disaster can lead to the development of effective preventive and early intervention programs.