scholarly journals Flood exposure and social vulnerability in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tate ◽  
Md Asif Rahman ◽  
Christopher T. Emrich ◽  
Christopher C. Sampson

AbstractHuman exposure to floods continues to increase, driven by changes in hydrology and land use. Adverse impacts amplify for socially vulnerable populations, who disproportionately inhabit flood-prone areas. This study explores the geography of flood exposure and social vulnerability in the conterminous United States based on spatial analysis of fluvial and pluvial flood extent, land cover, and social vulnerability. Using bivariate Local Indicators of Spatial Association, we map hotspots where high flood exposure and high social vulnerability converge and identify dominant indicators of social vulnerability within these places. The hotspots, home to approximately 19 million people, occur predominantly in rural areas and across the US South. Mobile homes and racial minorities are most overrepresented in hotspots compared to elsewhere. The results identify priority locations where interventions can mitigate both physical and social aspects of flood vulnerability. The variables that most distinguish the clusters are used to develop an indicator set of social vulnerability to flood exposure. Understanding who is most exposed to floods and where, can be used to tailor mitigation strategies to target those most in need.

Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 4137-4137
Author(s):  
Syed M. Qasim Hussaini ◽  
Arjun Gupta

Abstract Background: more than 60,000 people die annually from hematologic malignancies in the united states (us). Patients with hematologic malignancies more frequently receive aggressive care toward the end-of-life and are more likely to die in a hospital compared to those with a solid tumor. Appropriate care of such patients is very dependent on an existing healthcare infrastructure. There are notable challenges to rural healthcare in the united states which contains less than 1/5th of all hospices in the us. In this study, we sought to investigate rural-urban disparities in place of death the us in individuals that died from hematologic malignancies. Methods: we utilized the us centers for disease control and prevention wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research database to analyze all deaths from hematologic malignancies in the us from 2003 to 2019. A population classification utilizing the 2013 us census was made using the national center for health statistics urban-rural classification scheme. These classifications included: large metropolitan area (1 million), small- or medium-sized metropolitan area (50 000-999 999), and rural area (<50 000). We estimated deaths in a medical facility, hospice, home, or nursing care facility. We stratified the results by age, sex, and race/ethnicity. The annual percentage change (apc) in deaths was estimated. All data was publicly available and de-identified. Findings: from 2003-2019, there were a total 1,088,589 deaths form hematologic malignancies in the united states, predominantly in large metropolitan areas (50.2%), followed by small or medium sized metropolitan areas (31.7%) and rural areas (18.2%). All regions noted decreases in medical facility and nursing facility related deaths, and increase in hospice and home deaths. While rural areas demonstrated the quickest uptake of hospice care (apc 61.5), they had the lowest overall presence of hospice care (8.3% of all rural deaths in 2019 vs. 14.9% for small or medium metropolitan vs. 12% for large metropolitan) and larger share of nursing facility related deaths (15.8% of all rural deaths in 2019 vs 12.3% for small or medium metropolitan vs 10.6% for large metropolitan). Discussion: we demonstrate end-of-life disparities in hematologic malignancies based on where an individual resides in the us with rural areas having notably lower share of deaths in hospice facilities. Older infrastructure, inadequate access to care, and financial barriers add to the medical complexity of care for all patients, and especially hematologic patients with high needs and complex treatment planning. These have been aggravated by rural hospital closures in the previous 18 months. The us senate is currently debating a bipartisan infrastructure that may add billions in building rural healthcare infrastructure to state budgets. Our findings are timely in helping inform congressional policy. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yalidy Matos

“A Legacy of Exclusion” briefly traces the historical migration of Latinas/os to the US South, countering the myth that the migration of Latinas/os to the region is new. Additionally, the piece argues that the exclusion Latinas/os face in the region is a continuation of racist policies and unequal power dynamics in the South that link Latina/o presence to a longer historical past and legacy. Through an examination of Alabama’s anti-immigration legislation, HB 56, I make two interrelated arguments. First, I argue that although there is nothing new about Latina/o migration to the region, what is new is the geopolitics of immigration — specifically, the proliferation of immigration enforcement within the interior of the United States. Second, these kinds of racist exclusionary projects have historical precedent. The contemporary regulation of nonwhite bodies is part of a much longer legacy of social control in the United States. Moving forward, I urge scholars of Latina/o studies and related fields whose focus is on the US South to engage with the history of settler colonialism, the displacement of native peoples, and the African American history of this region as a way to make important historical connections among and across racialized and otherized groups.


Author(s):  
Tejashree Turla ◽  
Xiang Liu ◽  
Zhipeng Zhang

Rail transportation is pivotal for the national economy. Despite being rare, a train accident can potentially result in severe consequences, such as infrastructure damage costs, casualties, and environmental impacts. An understanding of accident frequency, severity, and risk is important for rail safety management. In the United States, extensive prior research has focused on risk analyses of train derailments and highway–rail grade crossing accidents. Relatively less work has been conducted regarding train collision risk. The US Federal Railroad Administration identifies various accident causes, among which the authors of this study have analyzed the major collision causes. For each major accident cause, the authors have analyzed its resultant collision frequency, severity (in terms of damage cost or casualties), and correspondingly the risk, which is the combination of the frequency and severity. The analysis was based on train collision data in the United States from 2001 to 2015. This analysis focuses on freight trains in the United States, due to their immense traffic exposure. On the temporal scale, collision rate (the number of collisions normalized by traffic exposure) has an approximately 5% annual reduction. In terms of collision cause, failures to obey signals, overspeeds, and violations of mainline operating rules accounted for more collisions than other causes. Two alternative risk measures, namely the expected consequence and conditional value at risk, were used to evaluate the freight train collision risk on main tracks, accounting for both the average and worst-case scenarios. This collision risk analysis methodology may provide the US Department of Transportation and railroad industry with information and decision support for identifying, evaluating, and implementing cost-effective risk mitigation strategies.


Author(s):  
Tim Watson

The introduction summarizes the process of decolonization in the British and French Empires and the role of the United States. Anthropology became a more professionalized discipline, raising the barriers to interdisciplinary conversations between anthropologists and other intellectuals and making it less desirable for colonial intellectuals to choose anthropology, as a significant number had done earlier in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, exchanges continued between literature and anthropology. I argue that the literary-anthropological dynamics of the 1950s and 1960s were prefigured by three examples in the 1930s and 1940s: Zora Neale Hurston’s fieldwork among African Americans in the US South, Michel Leiris’s account of Marcel Griaule’s 1930s anthropological expedition from Dakar to Djibouti, and the establishment of the Mass-Observation program to document British everyday life. The introduction analyzes Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes tropiques as a key text in the flourishing of a new literary anthropology in the 1950s.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-581
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD

This article explores Sally Mann's memoir Hold Still (2015) as a complex photo-text that excavates, mediates and shapes memories, both of her family and of the US South more broadly. Theorizing photo-text topographics, the article argues that various landscapes (regional, memorative, aesthetic) are mediated by the interrelation between word and image. Mann's depictions of her children, southern location, and – most explicitly – black–white relations in the United States will be shown to reveal how the past can never be “held still.”


Author(s):  
Samira Ziyadidegan ◽  
Moein Razavi ◽  
Homa Pesarakli ◽  
Amir Hossein Javid

The COVID-19 disease spreads swiftly, and nearly three months after the first positive case was confirmed in China, Coronavirus started to spread all over the United States. Some states and counties reported an extremely high number of positive cases and deaths, while some reported too few COVID-19 related cases and mortality. In this paper, the factors that could affect the transmission of COVID-19 and its risk level in different counties have been determined and analyzed. Using Pearson Correlation, K-means clustering, and several classification models, the most critical ones were determined. Results showed that mean temperature, percent of people below poverty, percent of adults with obesity, air pressure, percentage of rural areas, and percent of uninsured people in each county were the most significant and effective attributes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 232470962094130
Author(s):  
Krystal Mills ◽  
Oluwole Akintayo ◽  
Linda Egbosiuba ◽  
Salome Dadzie ◽  
Adrina Skyles ◽  
...  

The triad of diarrhea, dementia, and dermatitis constitutes the clinical diagnosis of pellagra. However, most reported cases of pellagra have occurred without all components of the triad. Pellagra was declared eradicated in the United States after an outbreak in the 1920s, and is now considered to be an exceedingly rare diagnosis in developed countries. In this article, we present a case of a 56-year-old man who presented with a significant history of alcohol use and chronic diarrhea. Pellagra was clinically diagnosed based on the triad of diarrhea, cognitive dysfunction, and dermatitis in this malnourished, alcoholic patient. The patient was treated and clinically improved with resolution of his diarrhea and cognitive dysfunction.


Author(s):  
Patrick McEachern

How do South Koreans see the United States today? South Koreans overwhelmingly see the United States, the US–South Korea alliance, and the American people, positively. The Pew Research Center showed South Koreans had a more positive view of the “American people” than any...


Author(s):  
Jianyong Wu ◽  
Shuying Sha

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents a severe threat to human health worldwide. The United States (US) has the highest number of reported COVID-19 cases, and over 16 million people were infected up to the 12 December 2020. To better understand and mitigate the spread of the disease, it is necessary to recognize the pattern of the outbreak. In this study, we explored the patterns of COVID-19 cases in the US from 1 March to 12 December 2020. The county-level cases and rates of the disease were mapped using a geographic information system (GIS). The overall trend of the disease in the US, as well as in each of its 50 individual states, were analyzed by the seasonal-trend decomposition. The disease curve in each state was further examined using K-means clustering and principal component analysis (PCA). The results showed that three clusters were observed in the early phase (1 March–31 May). New York has a unique pattern of the disease curve and was assigned one cluster alone. Two clusters were observed in the middle phase (1 June–30 September). California, Texas and Florida were assigned in the same cluster, which has the pattern different from the remaining states. In the late phase (1 October–12 December), California has a unique pattern of the disease curve and was assigned a cluster alone. In the whole period, three clusters were observed. California, Texas and Florida still have similar patterns and were assigned in the same cluster. The trend analysis consolidated the patterns identified from the cluster analysis. The results from this study provide insight in making disease control and mitigation strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neva Luthria ◽  
Steven L. Farrell ◽  
Ingrid Joylyn Paredes

The climate crisis requires immediate, rapid, and responsible action across all sectors. Without implementation of aggressive mitigation strategies, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that we will fail to remain below the catastrophic global warming threshold of 1.5°C. Climate engineering technologies, such as carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification (SRM), have been proposed as mitigation strategies, but have not been deployed at scale. In addition to the scaling problems, SRM technologies, particularly stratospheric aerosol injection, have faced criticism over ethical implications of their implementation. The United Nations (UN) efforts to introduce international governance over SRM have been blocked by several countries, including the United States (US). Meanwhile, domestic researchers in the US have independently pursued small-scale experiments. The effects of these experiments remain uncertain, yet, if scaled, extend to non-consenting countries, including those already more susceptible to the climate crisis. We recommend that the US (1) stop blocking the UN from pursuing research into the impacts of SRM to allow for equitable governance options to be explored and (2) establish a national advisory committee on solar geoengineering.


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