115 search results
December 2024
Journal of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Volume 87, Number 5 View the IssueAbout the Cover Tropospheric ozone concentrations have trended downward in many U.S. cities since 2000. In Texas, however, concentrations and regulatory exceedances abruptly ro...
State Enacted Body Art Legislation: 2024 Sessions
October 11, 2024 For the 2024 state legislative sessions that began in January 2024, state legislators introduced 64 bills related to body art. Of these bills, 19 were passed and enacted into law. Body art legislation covered topics such as barb...
State Enacted Food Safety Legislation: 2024 Sessions
September 19, 2024 For the 2024 state legislative sessions that began in January 2024, state legislators introduced 250 bills related to food safety. Of these bills, 41 were passed and enacted into law, with another 11 eligible for signing by th...
Back on the Hill Again, Virtually
May 28, 2024 During the hectic federal budget month of May, we were again talking to Congress, this time virtually.Republican appropriators from the House of Representative came out with their top line fiscal year (FY) 2025 budgets—$711 billion ...
We Were Back on Capitol Hill Advocating for You
May 15, 2024 We were again advocating for environmental health on Capitol Hill, this time to promote funding for the Human Foods Program within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Government Affairs Director Doug Farquhar met with 17 congress...
Our Visit to the CDC Vector-Borne Laboratory
April 30, 2024 On Wednesday, April 24, our CEO Dr. David Dyjack and Government Affairs Director Doug Farquhar visited the CDC Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Dr. Sue Visser, deputy director for Policy and Extramural Pro...
State Voices Amplified During 2024 Hill Day
April 8, 2024 We held our 7th Annual Hill Day on March 28, 2024, with a new twist. This was the first year that instead of only including our board members, we facilitated the opportunity for our members to join us. We are pleased to report that...
President Biden Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Proposal Released
March 18, 2024 President Biden released his fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget proposal on March 11, outlining the Administration’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year, including amounts to fund environmental health programs at the Cen...
Congress to Approve Fiscal Year 2024 Funding for Several Federal Agencies
March 4, 2024 Congress released the massive $467.5 billion fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations package for the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD budgets. T...
Federal Funding: Congressional Update
February 26, 2024 As we move into the sixth month of the federal fiscal year (FY 2024) with no final agreement and the continuing resolution (CR) expiring, Congress needs to act—either to enact the appropriations bill or another CR.No one in Con...
2023 State Legislation on Body Art
January 9, 2024 A total of 60 pieces of legislation related to body art were introduced in 19 states and Puerto Rico during the 2023 legislative sessions. Of these 60, 9 were enacted in California, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Tennessee. ...
2023: Our Year in Review for Government Affairs
January 5, 2024 Washington, DC, remains as chaotic as ever. Congress spent more time trying to figure out a speaker than floor time on appropriations. The House of Representatives is as far behind as it has ever been on passing the fiscal year (...
House and Senate Have Until January 19 to Finalize Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations
December 18, 2023 Congress is much closer to finalizing the fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations than the last blog posted on the topic in July, but they still have a ways to go. Top-Line Spending Levels and Other Fund...
Concurrent Disaster Response Success Story
This success story describes how the Environmental Division of the Town of Addison, Texas faced the challenges of a winter storm during COVID-19 in the context of ensuring food safety, public health, and providing warming stations and power to a...
2023 Update on State Food Safety Legislation
October 3, 2023 The following table provides a summary of bills related to food safety that have been introduced by state legislations in 2023.Food Safety Topic# of Bills IntroducedRetail food67Food freedom66Food safety51Meat, seafood, or poultr...
Our Story to Tell
October 3, 2023 As I relax here in a cabana near Cabo San Jose in Baja, California, I’m letting myself do one of my favorite forms of relaxation: thinking.Being unencumbered by the noise of everyday life frees me to just sit and think. About wor...
Opinion: Compound Risks and Complex Emergencies Require New Approaches to Preparedness
This article calls for a need to redesign institutions to be proactive, agile, and socially just when confronted with compound risks that have become increasingly likely. This resource includes: Risk reduction framework and funding Pandemic l...
COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health
This article discusses features of the built environment that affect the risk of COVID-19 and identify elements of the pandemic response with implications for the built environment and for long-term public health. This resource includes: Influe...
Disaster Behavioral Health Through the Lens of COVID-19
This article reviews the history and framework of emergency planning and response and addresses aspects related to COVID-19. Recommendations for how best to incorporate behavioral health responses into future disaster emergency planning are offe...
Compounding Hazards and Intersecting Vulnerabilities
This report discusses study findings that measure how COVID-19 affected extreme heat vulnerability during the summer of 2020. This resource includes: Examination of socio-demographic characteristics and pandemic related factors Examined vulne...
The COVID-19 Crisis Worsens With the Occurrence of Climate Extremes and Disasters
This article examines the impacts of climate disasters and COVID-19 in Africa and provides suggestions for countries to strengthen their emergency department by boosting the staff component, provide adequate technical support and develop detaile...
Reflection of Challenges and Opportunities within the COVID-19 Pandemic to Include Biological Hazards into DRR Planning
This article examines key challenges and opportunities from COVID-19 as highlighted at the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Forum convened by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Regional office...
Bottom-Up Citizen Engagement for Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management
This article describes how there is a need to advance bottom-up engagement in health disaster and emergency management programs, policies and research. The article also highlights that all disasters and health emergencies start at the local leve...
Excess of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Due to Fine Particulate Matter Exposure During the 2020 Wildfires in the United States
This article analyzes data on PM2.5, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, and other confounders for 92 western U.S. counties affected by 2020 wildfires. It includes estimates of the association between short-term exposure to PM2.5 and the ep...
Changing Vulnerability for Hurricane Evacuation During a Pandemic
This article examines data from workshops involving emergency management and public health experts to support planning for hurricane evacuation and sheltering. This resource includes: Policy integration findings Expanded protections for popula...
Supporting Wildfire Response During a Pandemic in the United States
This article reviews the development and application of a COVID-19 Incident Risk Assessment Tool. The tool includes summary of usage statistics, examples of real use on wildfire incidents, and report feedback from users. The tool was used to fil...
Potential Impact of Earthquakes During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic
This article analyzes the potential impact that seismic events may have on the infection rate within regions afflicted by both epidemics and earthquakes. It also explores open software packages that can be employed to simulate the impact of futu...
Mitigating the Twin Threats of Climate-Driven Atlantic Hurricanes and COVID-19 Transmission
This article looks at the co-occurrence of the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season and the COVID-19 pandemic and how together they create a complex dilemma for protecting populations from the intersecting threats. This resource answers the questions ...
The United States COVID-19 Pandemic in the Flood Season
This article outlines a tool that assesses the compound risk of COVID-19 at the county level. The article found that the number of flood insurance house claims can proxy the displaced population accurately with more spatiotemporal detail, and th...
An Eye on COVID: Hurricane Preparedness at a COVID-19 Alternative Care Site
This article shares the process of establishing a Medical Monitoring Station (MMS) in downtown New Orleans to maximize patient safety and continuity of operations during a real-world event. In 2020, the state of Louisiana activated the MMS that ...
Challenges for the Disaster Workforce During a Compound Hurricane-Pandemic
This article identifies how emergency management planning for both the changing dynamics of COVID-19 and hurricane season may change under a compound threat. COVID-19 and the increase of natural disasters occurring pushes new considerations to b...
Cascading Risks of COVID-19 Resurgence During an Active 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season
This article reviews risks of hurricanes to coastal states during the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Protecting the population from hurricane hazards revolves around evacuation and sheltering individuals. However, e...
Nonprofit Capacity to Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat
This report examines the professional capacity of nonprofit organizations when responding to disasters occurring simultaneously. This report includes:Service delivery strategies for nonprofits during COVID-19Impact of natural disasters on nonpro...
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Wildfire Smoke
This article identifies the potential for dangerous interactions between COVID-19 and smoke pollution This resource includes: Strategies to manage the combination of public health threats Recommended for environmental and public health officia...
Orchestrating Performance of Healthcare Networks Subjected to the Compound Events of Natural Disasters and Pandemic
This article combines wildfire data with varying courses of the spread of COVID-19 to evaluate the effectiveness of different strategies for managing patient demand. It shows that losing access to medical care is a function of the relative occur...
Responding to Simultaneous Crises: Communications and Social Norms of Mask Behavior During Wildfires and COVID-19
This article looks into the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for co-occurring wildfires and the health risks that they pose. While there are behaviors that can be implemented to reduce the negative impacts, government agencies and public heal...
A Multi-Hazards Earth Science Perspective on the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Potential for Concurrent and Cascading Crises
This article explores an epidemic model with a concurrent disaster event, which predicts a greater infection rate following the events during the pre-infection rate peaks period compared with post peak events. This highlights the need for enacti...
Compound Risks of Hurricane Evacuation Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
This article models how a hurricane evacuation from four different counties in a state would impact COVID-19 case levels. The number of COVID-19 cases produced by the evacuation is influenced by the ability of destination counties meeting the ne...
A Rapid Assessment of Disaster Preparedness Needs and Resources During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This article provides a rapid qualitative assessment method to determine the impact of the pandemic on preparedness and response to natural disasters and the impact of past experiences with natural disasters in responding to the pandemic. This a...
Data-Driven Operation of the Resilient Electric Grid: A Case of COVID-19
This article explores the resilience of power grids in the face of pandemics and various machine learning tools that can be helpful to augment human operators are discussed by reviewing the impact of COVID-19 on power grid operations and actions...
Compound Natural and Human Disasters: Managing Drought and COVID-19 to Sustain Global Agriculture and Food Sectors
This article describes how droughts and pandemics interact and identifies appropriate policies to address them individually and together. Disasters, both natural and human made disrupt global food supply chains when they occur at the same time a...
The Mental Health Impacts of Successive Disasters
Experiencing a natural disaster at the same time as a global pandemic is associated with negative impacts on mental health. This article studies resiliency at the individual and community levels to understand problematic impacts following a disa...
A Community Case Study on Geographic, Environmental, and Social Health Disparities in COVID-19 Disease
This article examines the socioeconomic, geographic, and environmental vulnerabilities within a rural area. The article reviews that rural areas are particularly susceptible to the continuum of expected COVID-19 disease and related outcomes. Rur...
Tangible Tabletops and Dual Reality for Crisis Management
This article reviews a study between tangible and tactile interactions. The study consisted of 32 participants remotely displacing robots and exploring a simulated disaster area. This study includes: Difference between two interaction technique...
When Emergencies and Disasters Collide
This article details the interaction between the responses to both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Magna earthquake in Utah. COVID-19 may have limited injuries or the loss of life during the earthquake, and it also enabled an early activation of t...
Navigating the Wildfire-Pandemic Interface
This article provides preliminary data that suggests the current challenges around collective action to address wildfire risk may be further exacerbated due to COVID-19, and that the pandemic has potentially widened existing disparities in house...
Studying Social Workers' Roles in Natural Disasters During a Global Pandemic
This article shares practice and research recommendations for a social worker relating to therapeutic interactions, social justice, and public health during disasters. Social workers are viewed as a source of reliable information about safety, r...
Maintaining Critical Infrastructure Resilience to Natural Hazards During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This article describes alternative approaches that an energy organization can take to prepare for a concurrent disaster. Maintaining strong infrastructure during a natural disaster during COVID-19 is challenging and has the potential to disrupt ...