Disaster Recovery and Population Health
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Global Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 16460
Special Issue Editors
Interests: community health; disaster health; disaster impact and recovery; environmental interventions; population health; public health systems; social behaviors; social determinants of health
Interests: population studies; immigrant health; international health; natural disasters; health recovery
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Although the field of public health disaster science has made progress in defining the phenomenon of “disaster recovery” and its health implications since Smith and Wenger first characterized recovery as an under-tilled research field that was “the least understood aspect of emergency management” (Handbook of Disaster Research, 2007), much remains to be learned. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research in Public Health, co-edited by David Abramson (New York University), Mark VanLandingham (Tulane University), and Mary Waters (Harvard University), will provide the field with an opportunity to review what has been learned about recovery and to consider the gaps to be filled. The editors are interested in original research, systematic reviews, and perspectives and commentaries that focus on methodological and epistemological aspects of individual and population recovery; the determinants and trajectories of long-term recovery, including those factors that mediate or moderate recovery; and systemic factors, as well as policies and practices, that support or inhibit successful recovery.
It has been a decade since FEMA released the US National Disaster Recovery Framework, a guidance document that provided the first organizational structure for federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal recovery efforts, although much of the work has been unfunded. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, over those ten years there have been 146 distinct billion-dollar climate disasters in the United States. Countless communities have been confronted with the challenges of managing a disaster recovery effort while facing new and emerging hazards, including biological and technological threats as well as anthropocentric ones. With each disaster, policy-makers and community leaders speak of “building back better” or of acclimating to a New Normal. This Special Issue will contribute to the evidence base supporting, or refuting, such proclamations.
Among the “sub-themes” that the editors would like contributors to consider are the following, although this should not be regarded as an exhaustive list:
- The means, methods, and measures of disaster recovery, particularly long-term recovery;
- The tensions between infrastructure and population recovery—how should funding and effort be prioritized, given the needs to reconstruct and redevelop brick and mortar, as well as the need to attend to health and human service systems and displaced populations?
- What contributes to population recovery—to what extent is recovery dependent upon individual and household characteristics, to community-level characteristics (and neighborhood effects), to broader systemic and institutional practices and norms?
- How does the intersection of race, class, and gender influence the speed with which populations recover?
- Are there certain civic institutions or social conditions that have an “outsize” influence on population recovery—for example, housing stability and educational systems?
- How is disaster recovery experienced along the life-course? Do children and youth, young adults, and older adults recover in different ways and at different rates? Is each group responsive to different recovery stimuli?
- How can we incorporate recovery research into emergency management and recovery practices? How can we tie what we have learned among researchers to specific policies?
- Are there “social determinants of recovery”, similar to social determinants of health? What role does culture play in population recovery?
Dr. David M. Abramson
Prof. Dr. Mark J. VanLandingham
Prof. Dr. Mary C. Waters
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- disaster recovery
- long-term recovery
- disaster mental health
- individual and community resilience
- health consequences
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