DISASTER RESEARCH CENTER

GUR – A Stated Preference Survey to Model Patient Behavior During a Biological Outbreak

RESEARCHERS: Sue McNeil

FUNDING: UD General University Research (GUR)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
During a large-scale biological outbreak, public health agencies may employ Points of Dispensing (PODs) to distribute medical countermeasures to affected populations. While the public health community has studied the operation of PODs, little attention has been paid to how patients access PODs and whether the transportation system can support POD access. POD patients’ behaviors and decisions represent a significant obstacle for accurately modeling the traffic impacts of POD operations as little is known of how patients make decisions and what influences these decisions. Our goal is to better understand the patient decision-making process during a public health emergency. In this project, we are designing and implementing a web-based stated preference survey. The stated preference survey will address five distinct decisions: “if patients will go to a POD,” “which POD will they go to,” “when will they go to the POD,” “how will they get there,” and “which route will they take.” Additionally, the survey will examine the effects of providing POD information through news outlets and social media. The survey and data collection design are being structured to calibrate a discrete choice model that can be integrated into the existing transportation model to explore additional scenarios.

HAZARDS SEES TYPE 2: Dynamic Integration of Natural, Human, and Infrastructure Systems for Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering

RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, Tricia Wachtendorf

FUNDING: National Science Foundation

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
We are developing a new computational framework to support hurricane evacuation management. The framework, called the Integrated Scenario-based Evacuation (ISE), explicitly represents uncertainty in hurricane evolution and can be used to support robust, adaptive, and repeated decision-making. The hazard is represented with an ensemble of probabilistic hurricane scenarios, population behavior with a dynamic decision model, and traffic with a dynamic user equilibrium model. Components are integrated in a multi-stage stochastic program to provide a tree of evacuation order recommendations and an evaluation of the risk and travel time performance for that solution. The recommendations advance the state-of-the-art because: (1) they are based on an integrated hazard assessment that includes the effects of storm surge, wind waves, tides, river discharge, inland flooding, and wind; (2) explicitly balance competing objectives of minimizing risk and travel time; (3) offer a well-hedged solution robust under the range of hurricane evolutions; and (4) leverage the substantial value of decreasing uncertainty during an event. The first version has been developed and demonstrated in North Carolina. Additional PIs: R. Kolar, Oklahoma, B. Blanton, UNC Chapel Hill, L. Nozick, Cornell, and B.Colle Stony Brook

Infrastructure System Damage Modeling with Data from the 2010-2011 Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquakes

RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson

FUNDING: Internally Funded

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The goal of this research is to develop new infrastructure system damage models using statistical methods that are new for this application. Specifically, we are analyzing a large, uniquely comprehensive dataset of water supply system damage from the 2010-2011 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes. We are comparing generalized linear models, boosted regression trees, and random forest models to see which provide the best fit to the data and the best predictive power. The research aims to improve prediction of water supply system pipeline damage in future earthquakes and improve methods for modeling lifeline damage in extreme events in general. Co-Principal Investigators: Matthew Hughes (University of Canterbury) and Misko Cubrinovski (University of Canterbury)

JHU/CDC: Composite of Post-Event Well-Being (Copewell)

DURATION: August 15, 2017 – August 14, 2020
RESEARCHERS: James Kendra

FUNDING: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins University

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
COPEWELL is a systems dynamics model of community functioning and well-being during and after a disaster, designed to be used as a predictor, pre-event, of peri- and post-event resilience at the county level. Current project activities include initial sharing of the model, validation, stakeholder engagement, and evaluation. Principal Investigators: Jonathan M. Links, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness; Additional Co-PI: Tom Inglesby, MD, UPMC Center for Health Security

Justice and Evaluation of U.S. Managed Retreat

RESEARCHERS: A.R. Siders

FUNDING: Internally Funded

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Managed retreat – the purposeful movement of people and assets away from hazardous areas – is a controversial and potentially transformative climate adaptation strategy. A series of projects are exploring the environmental justice implications of managed retreat in practice and theory; the potential for managed retreat to promote transformative adaptation; how narratives of retreat in media affect public perceptions; and what lessons can be learned from historic examples.

Mental Health Impacts of the Covid-19 Response on the Public Health Workforce in the U.S.

DURATION: January 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney

FUNDING: Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Research

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The prolonged response to the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the mental health of the public health workforce. As we enter the ninth month of pandemic response with COVID-19 cases surging across the U.S., the pressures placed on the public health workforce are intensifying. Given unprecedented simultaneous challenges – the length, intensity, and politicization of the public health response, the potential for overlapping outbreaks of influenza, and the need to plan and implement a vaccination campaign – it is critical to identify protective factors that may mitigate the ongoing mental health impacts on a public health workforce already near its breaking point.

Mission First, Greyshirts Always: An Exploration into the Reintegration Experiences of Short-Term Volunteers Following Disaster Response Operations

RESEARCHERS: Roni Fraser

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Following a disaster, waves of helpers and voluntary organizations converge to the disaster area and provide immediate assistance and emotional support to survivors. This study sought to expand on previous research related to disaster volunteerism and reentry experiences to contribute to the gap in knowledge related to permanent disaster volunteer re-integration and resilience. Through primary data and qualitative interviews with 25 volunteers from Team Rubicon, a national disaster response nonprofit results found that volunteers engaged in additional volunteer activities and communicated with fellow volunteers as strategies for successful post-operation re-integration. Through a social capital approach, bonding and bridging capital was crucial in the development of resilience among volunteers. This study is critical to consider given the reliance on volunteers in the disaster response and recovery process and the need to ensure the mental well-being of disaster survivors and disaster volunteers. To best promote the resilience capacity among volunteers, organizations should focus on the volunteer experience related to billet conditions, diversity of membership and volunteer roles, development of organizational trust, and appreciation of volunteer service throughout the volunteer’s membership. Future research should expand on these findings by quantitatively exploring the volunteer reentry experience with a larger sample of NVOAD volunteers and the role that linking capital may have in influencing the volunteer reentry experience.

NFWF: Resilience Through Regeneration in Northeast Wilmington

DURATION: January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney

FUNDING: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The project uses innovative “resilience through regeneration” design techniques that capitalize on the reuse of vacant and abandoned properties for green infrastructure and use landscape performance measures to quantify resilience and flood risk reduction benefits. Together with hydrologic and flood resilience, social, economic, and public health performance of designs will be measured and reported to the community based on their expressed priorities for improvements to public health, recreational access, and economic opportunities and to federal, state, and local stakeholders that will be involved in future funding, permitting, and implementation of the resilient masterplan for Northeast Wilmington.

NIEHS: Comprehensive Tools and Models for Addressing Exposure to Mixtures During Environmental Emergency-Related Contamination Events

DURATION: April 1, 2017 – March 31, 2022
RESEARCHERS: Jennifer Horney

FUNDING: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Comprehensive tools and models for addressing exposure to mixtures during environmental emergency-related contamination events. Overall Program Description: Climate change and shifts in domestic economic activity markedly increase risks from catastrophic chemical contamination events resulting from weather-related or anthropogenic emergencies. The complexities of hazardous chemical exposures, potential adverse health impacts, and the need to rapidly and comprehensively evaluate the potential hazards of exposures to complex mixtures call for novel approaches in the Superfund Research Program. This Center brings together a team of scientists from biomedical, geosciences, data science and engineering disciplines to design comprehensive solutions for complex exposure- and hazard-related challenges. Our overall theme is to characterize and manage both existing and environmental emergency-created hazardous waste sites through the development of the tools that can be used by first responders, the impacted communities, and the government bodies involved in site management and cleanup. Our case study is a hurricane or flooding event that impacts Galveston Bay/Houston Ship Channel area and leads to exposure to contaminated sediments.

NSF COLLAB RSH CRISP TYPE 2: Defining and Optimizing Societal Objectives for the Earthquake Risk Management of Critical Infrastructure

DURATION: September 1, 2017 – August 31, 2021
RESEARCHERS: Rachel Davidson, James Kendra

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Critical infrastructure systems, such as electric power and water supply, must be designed, managed, and operated so they function reliably and efficiently even in the case of an extreme event. Nevertheless, the way infrastructure system services meet societal needs and the way disruptions of those services impair the ability to meet societal needs are not well understood. In this project, we will define the societal objectives for infrastructure system performance in earthquakes and develop a method to comprehensively optimize a broad range of risk management strategies to meet them, including component design, upgrading, and repair and restoration planning. Specific project tasks include: (1) Developing a probabilistic scenario-based model of the risk of multiple infrastructure systems to earthquakes with the ability to evaluate alternative risk management strategies; (2) Integrating the complementary strengths of social media, household surveys, and economic impact analyses to empirically assess societal objectives, users’ adaptive strategies in responding to disruptions, and the relationships between them and traditional measures of system functioning; (3) Developing an optimization model to optimize risk management to meet societal objectives; and (4) Demonstrating models through a full-scale case study for electric power and water in collaboration with our partners at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.