Project Objectives The primary objective in this project was to develop, pilot, and validate a standardized household survey to more precisely quantify public health impacts originating from coupled food, energy, and water (FEW) insecurities under compounding hazard contexts. The goal was to make this survey actionable and accessible, with the purpose of being used by community members to understand the current health and FEW needs, and outline prospective solutions. Learn…
Nature defined by racialization: A talk with Dr. Jennifer Roberts
The University of Connecticut welcomed Dr. Jennifer Roberts, an associate professor for the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland. Roberts discussed the relationship between race and nature in her talk, “We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Understanding the Racialization of Nature.” She began the lecture by referencing a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. The line that Roberts felt most connected to and used was, “We are each other’s harvest:…
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Promoting Equitable Wildfire Recovery in Lahaina: Four Lessons for Local Leaders, from Colorado’s Marshall Fire
It’s been more than three months since a wildfire devastated Lahaina, a historic Hawaiian town on the island of Maui. Recovery after such disasters can take years to decades and often leaves communities less equitable than before. For the past two years, we’ve studied three Colorado communities’ recovery after the Marshall Fire—the most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history. We understand there are key differences between Maui’s experience and Colorado’s—especially the incomprehensible…
‘Never seen anything like this: Native elders share knowledge at UM’
Sitting on a wool blanket inside a tipi on the University of Montana’s campus Oval, Tyson Running Wolf stuffed tobacco into a pipe. A fire in the center crackled, and the smell of burning sweetgrass filled the air. Once it was lit, Running Wolf passed the pipe to Leonard Traveller, a Blackfoot knowledge keeper, who came down from Canada for the ceremony. Before sharing a prayer, Traveller spoke of unity.…
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Community-based Participant-observation (CBPO): A Participatory Method for Ethnographic Research
Community-based participant-observation purposefully combines participant-observation and community-based participatory research. While participant-observation is the core method of ethnography and foundational to cultural anthropology, community-based participatory research initially emerged from health and related applied sciences to align researchers’ and communities’ agendas through focused collaboration. Participant-observation and community-based participatory research have different scholarly origins and norms but are united in centering communities’ understandings on their terms. Combining the strengths of both, we provide…
Greenness and excess deaths from heat in 323 Latin American cities: Do associations vary according to climate zone or green space configuration?
Green vegetation may protect against heat-related death by improving thermal comfort. Few studies have investigated associations of green vegetation with heat-related mortality in Latin America or whether associations are modified by the spatial configuration of green vegetation. We used data from 323 Latin American cities and meta-regression models to estimate associations between city-level greenness, quantified using population-weighted normalized difference vegetation index values and modeled as three-level categorical terms, and excess deaths from heat…
USC launches liver disease study as part of $50.3 million “multi-omics” consortium
The six-site consortium, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will study individuals from ancestrally diverse populations that are traditionally underrepresented in medical research. The Keck School of Medicine of USC has received funding from the National Institutes of Health as part of a five-year, $50.3 million “multi-omics” study of human health and disease involving six sites. Researchers in the Multi-Omics for Health and Disease consortium will study fatty liver disease, hepatocellular…
Surveillance Systems for Sustainable Fisheries: Perceptions on the Adoption of Electronic Monitoring in the Northeast US Multispecies Fishery
Amendment 23 (A23) to the Northeast Multispecies Fisheries Management Plan will remake monitoring systems for the Northeast US commercial groundfish fishery. In addition to substantially increasing monitoring coverage, A23 will provide fishers with the option to utilize electronic monitoring (EM) technologies in place of human at-sea observers. Based on twenty-sixinterviews with representatives of the fishing industry, nongovernmental organizations, regulatory agencies, EM service providers, and other stakeholder groups, this paper examines…
When Green Spaces Displace Residents, Our Cities’ Health Suffers
Op-ed: Cities are working to improve residents’ well-being with more urban green spaces. But they must be on the watch for green gentrification and its negative health consequences. By JPB Fellow VINIECE JENNINGS, ALESSANDRO RIGOLON & JPB Fellow NA’TAKI OSBORNE JELKS It’s an undeniable fact: Green spaces are crucial to our health and wellbeing. Again and again, researchers have found that access to urban green spaces – from parks to gardens to…
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Disparities in joint exposure to environmental and social stressors in urban households in Greater Boston
Understanding how environmental and social stressors cluster is critical to explaining and addressing health disparities. It remains unclear how these stressors cluster at fine spatial resolution in low to medium-income, urban households. We explored patterns of environmental and social exposures at the household-level and potential predictors of these joint exposures in two environmental justice communities in the Greater Boston area. Find here the full article.