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Measuring the Storm: Methods of Quantifying Hurricane Exposure in Public Health
Citation:
Grabich, S., J. Horney, C. Konrad, AND D. Lobdell. Measuring the Storm: Methods of Quantifying Hurricane Exposure in Public Health. Natural Hazards Review. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Reston, VA, 1:1-2, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
The Environmental Quality Index (EQI), developed by ORD researchers, was utilized in this paper to control for other environmental influences in the analysis examining hurricanes and adverse perinatal outcomes. This is the first paper utlizing the EQI as a confounding factor in health outcome research.
Description:
Increasing coastal populations and storm intensity may lead to more adverse health effects from tropical storms and hurricanes. Exposure during pregnancy can influence birth outcomes through mechanisms related to healthcare, infrastructure disruption, stress, nutrition, and injury. However, accurate estimation of health effects may be limited by non-specific exposure definitions that create potential misclassification. Two predominant hurricane exposure assignments are: 1) county of Federal Emergency Management Agency Presidential disaster declaration and 2) specified area within a storm track. We propose a third method, meteorological severity of wind speed. Based on Saffir-Simpson categories, wind speed was examined through binary and quartile comparisons. We compared all three methods of exposure classification by examining associations with county-level preterm birth and low birth weight rates among Florida women pregnant during the 2004 hurricane season. To control for county-level environmental factors, we used the county-level Environmental Quality Index developed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Although models yielded unexpected negative results and insignificant rate differences, descriptive and mapping analysis of exposure methods showed clear heterogeneity of county exposure.
URLs/Downloads:
ORD-09112-FINAL ABSTRACT.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 118.831 KB, about PDF)http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000204
