scholarly journals Blight Abatement of Vacant Land and Crime in New Orleans

2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (6) ◽  
pp. 650-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Kondo ◽  
Christopher Morrison ◽  
Sara F. Jacoby ◽  
Liana Elliott ◽  
Albert Poche ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Physical Disorder ◽  
Vacant Land ◽  
Vacant Lots ◽  
The Public ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
And Control

Objectives: In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused damage in New Orleans, Louisiana, and much of the land in low-resource neighborhoods became vacant and blighted. In 2014, New Orleans launched a program, Fight the Blight, which remediated properties in 6 neighborhoods. Our objective was to examine changes in crime rates near lots that were remediated (ie, debris removed and vegetation mowed). Methods: We used a quasi-experimental design to test whether crime rates changed from preremediation (January 2013–October 2014) to postremediation (July 2016–March 2017) near 204 vacant lots that were remediated compared with 560 control vacant lots that were not remediated between October 2014 and July 2016. We also examined differences between remediated lots that received 1 treatment (n = 64) and those that received ≥2 treatments (n = 140). Results: We found no significant differences between remediated and control lots in levels of violent, property, and domestic crimes from preremediation to postremediation. However, the number of drug crimes per square mile decreased significantly near all remediated lots (5.7% lower; P < .001) compared with control lots, largely driven by the significant decrease (6.4% lower; P < .001) in drug crimes found near lots that received ≥2 treatments. Conclusions: Investing in programs that improve neighborhood environments affected by high rates of physical disorder and vacancy may be a way to decrease violence. However, routine remediation may be needed to increase the public health impact of blight abatement programs in warmer climates, where weeds and vegetation grow rapidly.

scholarly journals Social patterns of natural disasters: The case of hurricane Katrina

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Mirko Filipović ◽  
Sonja Žakula
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Black People ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
Political Economic

Public perception and imagination tend to view natural disasters and catastrophes as phenomena that impact everyone equally. However, they do not occur in a historical, political, economic or social vacuum. Every phase and aspect of a disaster - its causes, vulnerability, preparedness, aftermath, response, reconstruction, the scope of the disaster and the price paid in the end are, to a lesser or greater extent, socially conditioned. Natural disasters actually replicate and amplify existing social inequalities and their effects. Such was also the case with hurricane Katrina. Black people, the poor, the elderly... remained in sunken New Orleans because their economic and social exclusion diminished their possibility to escape the disaster (the same way it diminished their opportunity to escape poverty). Had Katrina been a mere accident of geography and ecology, it would have been possible to peacefully await the resolution of its aftermath. However, because the inequalities which Katrina made apparent have deep socio-historical roots, it was illusory to expect that they would be repaired by the public policies on offer. Because of this, Katrina remains a powerful reminder to those advocating for a more just and democratic society.

The effects, costs and benefits of Salmonella control in the Danish table-egg sector

2008 ◽  
Vol 137 (6) ◽  
pp. 828-836 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. KORSGAARD ◽  
M. MADSEN ◽  
N. C. FELD ◽  
J. MYGIND ◽  
T. HALD
Keyword(s):  
Egg Production ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Societal Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Human Salmonellosis ◽  
Cost Benefit Ratio ◽  
Public Costs ◽  
And Control ◽  
Salmonella Control

SUMMARYA public plan for eradicating Salmonella in Danish table-egg production was implemented in 1996. During 2002, the poultry industry took over the responsibility of the programme. The proportion of infected layer flocks was reduced from 13·4% in 1998 to 0·4% in 2006. The public-health impact of the plan has been quite marked. In 1997, 55–65% of the 5015 cases of human salmonellosis were estimated to be associated with eggs. In 2006, these figures were reduced to 1658 and 5–7%, respectively. Based on an assessment of the number of human cases attributable to table eggs, we used probabilistic modelling to estimate the avoided societal costs (health care and lost labour), and compared these with the public costs of control. The probable avoided societal costs during 1998–2002 were estimated to be 23·3 million euros (95% CI 16·3–34·9), and the results showed a continuous decreasing cost–benefit ratio reaching well below 1 in 2002. Further reductions in the primary production based on effective surveillance and control are required to ensure continued success.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of ColorApp Mobile Application for Health Education and Promotion on Colorectal Cancer: A Quasi-Experimental Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nor Azwany Yaacob ◽  
Muhamad Fadhil Mohamad Marzuki ◽  
Najib Majdi Yaacob ◽  
Shahrul Bariyah Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Radzi Abu Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Colorectal Cancer ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
The Public ◽  
Screening Participation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Knowledge And Attitude ◽  
And Control

BACKGROUND Background: Lack of knowledge and poor attitude is one of the barriers to colorectal cancer screening participation. Printed material such as pamphlets and posters were the main approach in health education on disease prevention. Current information technology advancement had seen an increasing trend of the public to read from websites and mobile app using their smartphone. Thus, health information dissemination should also be diverted to the current trend of information search. Increase in knowledge and awareness will hopefully increase the screening participation and prevent late detection of diseases such as colorectal cancer. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of ColorApp mobile applications in improving the knowledge and attitude on colorectal cancer among user aged 50 years old and above who are the population at risk for the disease in Kedah. METHODS Methods: A quasi-experimental study has been conducted involving 100 participants in Kedah, Malaysia. Participants from five randomly selected community empowerment program in Kota Setar district was chosen as the intervention group while Kuala Muda district was chosen as the control group. Participants were given a self-administered validated questionnaire on knowledge and attitude towards colorectal cancer. A usable mobile application, the ColorApp (Colorectal Cancer Application) was developed as a new educational tool on colorectal cancer prevention. The intervention group were given 2 weeks to use the ColorApp. The same questionnaire was redistributed to both groups after two weeks. The mean percentage score for knowledge and attitude between groups were compared using Repeated Measure ANCOVA. RESULTS Result: There was no significant difference of age, sex, highest education level, current occupation, and diabetic status between the two groups. The number of smokers was significantly higher in intervention groups as compared to control group and it has been controlled during analysis. There was a significant difference in mean knowledge score between intervention and control group with regards to time [Huynh Feldt: F (1,95) = 19.81; p < 0.001]. However, there was no significant difference in mean attitude score between intervention and control group with regards to time [F (1,95) = 0.36, p = 0.550]. CONCLUSIONS Conclusion: The mobile application can be one of the adjunct approaches in educating the public on colorectal cancer.

Analyzing Mega-Disaster Hurricane Katrina

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjen Boin ◽  
Christer Brown ◽  
James A. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Local Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scale Response ◽  
State And Local

The response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has been widely described as a disaster in itself. Politicians, media, academics, survivors, and the public at large have slammed the federal, state, and local response to this mega disaster. According to the critics, the response was late, ineffective, politically charged, and even influenced by racist motives. But is this criticism true? Was the response really that poor? This article offers a framework for the analysis and assessment of a large-scale response to a mega disaster, which is then applied to the Katrina response (with an emphasis on New Orleans). The article identifies some failings (where the response could and should have been better) but also points to successes that somehow got lost in the politicized aftermath of this disaster. The article demonstrates the importance of a proper framework based on insights from crisis management studies.

Who Governs? How Shifts in Political Power Shape Perceptions of Local Government Services

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 1503-1528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingo Morel ◽  
Sally A. Nuamah
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Services ◽  
Traditional Public Schools

What factors influence citizens’ perceptions of local government services? To answer this question, we examine citizens’ perceptions of public education in post-Katrina New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans began to transform most of its traditional public schools into charters. Although studies show that test scores have improved since the mass adoption of charters post-Katrina, surveys show that most Black citizens in New Orleans do not perceive that the New Orleans schools have improved post-Katrina. A majority of White residents, however, perceive that the schools are better post-Katrina. Relying on a survey of New Orleans residents, we argue that local shifts in political power by race help explain the racial differences in perceptions of the public schools. The study’s findings suggest that perceptions of the quality of public goods are shaped by perceptions of “who governs?”

NEW ORLEANS IS NOT THE EXCEPTION: Re-politicizing the Study of Racial Inequality

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Frymer ◽  
Dara Z. Strolovitch ◽  
Dorian T. Warren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Color Line ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Normal Functioning ◽  
The Public

Although political science provides many useful tools for analyzing the effects of natural and social catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the scenes of devastation and inequality in New Orleans suggest an urgent need to adjust our lenses and reorient our research in ways that will help us to uncover and unpack the roots of this national travesty. Treated merely as exceptions to the “normal” functioning of society, dramatic events such as Katrina ought instead to serve as crucial reminders to scholars and the public that the quest for racial equality is only a work in progress. New Orleans, we argue, was not exceptional; it was the product of broader and very typical elements of American democracy—its ideology, attitudes, and institutions. At the dawn of the century after “the century of the color-line,” the hurricane and its aftermath highlight salient features of inequality in the United States that demand broader inquiry and that should be incorporated into the analytic frameworks through which American politics is commonly studied and understood. To this end, we suggest several ways in which the study of racial and other forms of inequality might inform the study of U.S. politics writ large, as well as offer a few ideas about ways in which the study of race might be re-politicized. To bring race back into the study of politics, we argue for greater attention to the ways that race intersects with other forms of inequality, greater attention to political institutions as they embody and reproduce these inequalities, and a return to the study of power, particularly its role in the maintenance of ascriptive hierarchies.

Who Dat Say (We) "Too Depraved to Be Saved"?: Re-membering Katrina/ Haiti (and Beyond): Critical Studyin'for Human Freedom

2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce King
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Black Studies ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Disaster Narratives ◽  
Cultural Amnesia

In this essay, Joyce King attempts to interrupt the calculus of human (un)worthiness and to repair the collective cultural amnesia that are legacies of slavery and that make it easy—hegemonically and dysconsciously—for the public to accept myths and media reports, such as those about the depravity of survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the earthquake in Haiti. King uses examples of Black Studies scholarship within a critical studyin' framework to recover and re-member the historical roots of resistance and revolution and the African cultural heritage that New Orleans and Haiti have in common. Within this framework, teachers, students, and parents can combat ideologically biased knowledge, disparaging discourses of Blackness,and dehumanizing disaster narratives.

scholarly journals Društveni obrasci prirodnih katastrofa: Slučaj Katrina

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
Mirko Filipović ◽  
Sonja Žakula
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Black People ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Economic

 Public perception and imagination tend to view natural disasters and catastrophes as phenomena that impact everyone equally. However, they do not occur in a historical, political, economic or social vacuum. Every phase and aspect of a disaster - its causes, vulnerability, preparedness, aftermath, response, reconstruction, the scope of the disaster and the price paid in the end are, to a lesser or greater extent, socially conditioned. Natural disasters actually replicate and amplify existing social inequalities and their effects. Such was also the case with hurricane Katrina. Black people, the poor, the elderly... remained in sunken New Orleans because their economic and social exclusion diminished their possibility to escape the disaster (the same way it diminished their opportunity to escape poverty). Had Katrina been a mere accident of geography and ecology, it would have been possible to peacefully await the resolution of its aftermath. However, because the inequalities which Katrina made apparent have deep socio-historical roots, it was illusory to expect that they would be repaired by the public policies on offer. Because of this, Katrina remains a powerful reminder to those advocating for a more just and democratic society. 

The Environmental Health Impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (10) ◽  
pp. 1480-1484 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Diaz ◽  
Kari F. Brisolara ◽  
Daniel J. Harrington ◽  
Chih-yang Hu ◽  
Adrienne L. Katner
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Storm Damage ◽  
Us History ◽  
Internet Searches ◽  
Louisiana Coast ◽  
Damage Risk

Hurricane Katrina caused unprecedented flood damage to New Orleans, Louisiana, and has been the costliest hurricane in US history. We analyzed the environmental and public health outcomes of Hurricane Katrina by using Internet searches to identify epidemiological, sociodemographic, and toxicological measurements provided by regulatory agencies. Atmospheric scientists have now warned that global warming will increase the proportion of stronger hurricanes (categories 4–5) by 25% to 30% compared with weaker hurricanes (categories 1–2). With the new $14.6 billion Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System providing a 100-year storm surge–defensive wall across the Southeast Louisiana coast, New Orleans will be ready for stronger storms in the future.

Growth Machine Up-links and the Manufacture of Flood Risk in Mid-twentieth Century New Orleans

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 446-464
Author(s):  
Nicole Youngman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
Proximate Cause ◽  
Drainage Canals ◽  
Hurricane Storm Surge ◽  
And Control

Environmentally destructive megaprojects, which substantially shift the topography and hydrology of the ecosystems in which they are embedded in ways that potentially exacerbate preexisting disaster risks, are created through a combination of lobbying by municipal growth machines and applications of higher level state authority, resources, and control. New Orleans’ manufactured hurricane storm surge risk provides a crucial case study of this dynamic. After Hurricane Katrina, forensic engineers found that the proximate cause of the New Orleans flood was the levee and floodwall failures along the city’s shipping and drainage canals, but this disaster cannot be fully understood without an examination of the city’s mid-twentieth century political economy, particular regarding the power of the local shipping industry and its up-links to entities in the federal government. During this time period, local New Orleans elites were able to take advantage of the two world wars and postwar economic expansion to dramatically enlarge the city’s shipping canal system with massive funding and expertise from the Maritime Commission and the Corps of Engineers, massively amplifying the city’s flood risk in ways that ultimately led to the Katrina catastrophe.

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