{"id":1713,"date":"2024-09-25T20:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/?post_type=projects&p=1713"},"modified":"2024-09-25T20:00:35","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:00:35","slug":"disasters-colliding-the-epidemiology-of-severe-weather-events","status":"publish","type":"projects","link":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/projects\/disasters-colliding-the-epidemiology-of-severe-weather-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Disasters Colliding: The Epidemiology of Severe Weather Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed Program<\/span><\/h1>\n

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Disasters Colliding: The Epidemiology of Severe Weather Events<\/span><\/h3>\n

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It is well understood that disparate disasters interact to affect the resilience and prosperity of\u00a0communities, and disproportionately affects low income families and communities of color.\u00a0However, given the lack of a common theoretical framework, it is rare for these interactions to be well understood or quantified. We are particularly interested in the interaction of severe\u00a0weather events (e.g. hurricanes and tornadoes) and epidemics (e.g. COVID-19). Separately, we\u00a0have worked on a wide range of disasters that have affected populations in the Southeast US,\u00a0including Hurricanes Irma, Michael, Maria, and Laura and epidemics of SARS-CoV-2\u00a0(COVID-19), Chikungunya virus, Zika virus, and West Nile virus. Observing events unfolding in our communities has caused us to conjecture that the interactive effects between catastrophic disturbances and stressors might be much more considerable than previously recognized. For\u00a0instance, hurricane evacuations increase human aggregation, a key factor that affects the\u00a0transmission of acute respiratory infections like SARS-CoV-2. Similarly, weather damage to\u00a0health infrastructure could significantly reduce a community\u2019s ability to provide services to\u00a0people sick with COVID-19 and other diseases. As globalization and human population and\u00a0movement continue to increase, and weather events due to climatic changes are becoming\u00a0more intense and severe, such complex interactions are expected to magnify and significantly\u00a0impact environmental and human health.<\/p>\n

Our team proposes a pilot investigation of two key hypotheses:<\/p>\n

H1. Primary disturbances in the past (e.g., Hurricanes Irma, Michael, and Maria) led to community and medical infrastructure damage such that when hit by a secondary epidemic\u00a0disturbance (COVID-19), negative health outcomes (e.g., case fatality rate) were greater in\u00a0affected communities compared to controls.<\/p>\n

H2. Primary disturbances in the present (e.g., the current onslaught of hurricanes such as Laura\u00a0and Delta) leads to local aggregation (i.e., shelters, hotels, etc.) and human movement (i.e.,\u00a0evacuation), diminishing the effectiveness of local containment activities leading to higher rates\u00a0of transmission (measured as epidemic growth rate) AND disruption of medical services\u00a0(measured as COVID-19 case fatality rate) compared with controls.<\/p>\n

Our team will theorize these questions and assemble data from our diverse research groups,\u00a0including the UGA COVID-19 portal<\/a> and NOAA NCDC IBTRACS<\/a>. Results from this study will\u00a0<\/span>assist with community preparedness and resilience plans as compounded catastrophic natural weather events have continued to collide with human health. Implications from this project are far-reaching as methods can be further extended to other weather events e.g.,\u00a0 severe wildfires in the rural-urban interphase in the western U.S. We anticipate obtaining preliminary data that would then support the application for a major grant from the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n

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Team Lead<\/h4>\n

John Drake<\/strong>
\nSchool of Ecology
\njdrake@uga.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Team Members<\/h4>\n

Kamal Gandhi<\/strong>
\nSchool of Forestry and Natural Resources<\/p>\n

Meredith Welch-Devine<\/strong>
\nGraduate School<\/p>\n

Brian Bledsoe<\/strong>
\nCollege of Engineering<\/p>\n

Marshall Shepherd<\/strong>
\nDepartment of Geography<\/p>\n

Lynne Seymour<\/strong>
\nDepartment of Statistics<\/p>\n

\u00c9ric Marty<\/strong>
\nSchool of Ecology[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”482″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-1713","projects","type-projects","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projects\/1713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projects"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/projects"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projects\/1713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/team-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}