RSS Channels IndexProfNet Wire: Health & Medicine: Impact of Hurricane Katrina/Rita
Additional updates to the round-up will be posted at http://profnet.prnewswire.com/organik/orbital/thewire/lst_leads.jsp?iLRTopicID =10923 You may also find helpful our wiki-based resource of academic experts: http://www.katrinaexperts.com
**1. LLOYD KOLBE, professor in INDIANA UNIVERSITY's public health program: “The hurricane has caused 10 discrete types of public health problems that its victims only now are beginning to experience simultaneously. These disasters will occur with increasing frequency. As a nation and in our individual communities, we need to learn from Katrina how to prepare for natural and manmade disasters, how to cope with them effectively while they are happening, and to how recover from them effectively.� Kolbe is also the former director and founder of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
**2. DR. ANDREW CHRISTOPHER, assistant professor of psychology at ALBION COLLEGE, can comment on the effect of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans on our personal and national psyches: “The reason for the reaction to Katrina across the nation is that the disaster hit here, in the U.S. The word ‘refugee’ is supposed to pertain to people from far-away, third-world places, not to fellow Americans. That is very distressing to many of us. Americans without food and water -- how is that possible? How could fellow Americans act the way a small number of people in the hurricane-ravaged areas are now acting, looting and shooting at rescue workers?�
**3. DR. AYN WELLEFORD, assistant professor and interim chair of the Department of Gerontology at VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, is available to discuss the special issues facing the elderly displaced by Hurricane Katrina: “Medical histories and health maintenance, including multiple drug prescriptions, were likely lost when people left their primary residence for shelters. The emergency health response teams need to include professionals with specific training to evaluate and assess the medical and mental health needs of the elderly.�
**4. MARY GILCHRIST, director of the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA’s (Iowa City, Iowa) Hygienic Laboratory, leads the state's environmental and public health laboratory and can discuss waterborne pathogens and other infectious risks to human health: "Consumption of contaminated food or water can lead to diseases due to more common infectious agents like E. coli, Salmonella and Shigella and more unusual diseases like cholera. Skin exposure to contaminated water can lead to other diseases like leptospirosis. And standing water can amplify mosquitoes, encouraging increases in mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus.�
**5. DENNIS MAKI, Ovid O. Meyer Professor of Medicine at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, is a national expert on the control of emerging and infectious diseases: “The spread of disease from contaminated water will be the top health threat for the more than 2 million people impacted by the hurricane.�
**6. MARV BIRNBAUM is a professor of medicine and president of the WORLD ASSOCIATION OF DISASTER AND EMERGENCY MEDICINE (WADEM). Birnbaum's leadership with WABEM is helping establish international standards for medical responses during disasters: “There are parallels between the lessons learned in Sri Lanka and the current crisis unfolding in New Orleans.�
**7. DR. DANIEL SARABIA, a sociologist at ROANOKE COLLEGE, teaches a class called "Crowds, Panic and Disasters": "Disasters alter the normative structure of communities, which generally guides human behavior. When there is a sense of confusion and ambiguity, and people find themselves in dire straits, people sometimes engage in behavior that they themselves would not find acceptable. In the absence of being able to procure the very basic of necessities, some people will engage in behavior normally defined as deviant. This is not necessarily a moral lapse, but values can temporarily change in disasters. Norms have not been thrown out the window, but events cause people to grapple with what's normal."
**8. DR. RAYMOND FOWLER, associate professor of emergency medicine at UT SOUTHWESTERN and deputy medical director for operations and quality assurance for the DALLAS AREA BIOTEL (EMS) SYSTEM, oversees a medical command center for evacuees currently housed in Dallas. The effort includes more than a dozen physicians from UT Southwestern, assisted by medical staff from Parkland Memorial Hospital, Children’s Medical Center Dallas, and UT Southwestern’s hospitals and clinics, working up to 20-hour days to care for the sick and injured. UT Southwestern also has experts in pediatric infectious diseases available for comment. Several of the infectious-disease faculty members have provided medical care to evacuees currently staying in Dallas, and can talk generally about some of the vaccination efforts and the ongoing medical treatment of those children.
**9. DR. PAM HALDEMAN, chair of the sociology, gerontology, social work, documentary film and social justice programs at MOUNT ST. MARY'S COLLEGE in Los Angeles, is able to comment on social issues that are driving the looting and violence going on in New Orleans: "Looting and vandalism are the outcome of long-term, pent-up frustration, marginalization, alienation, hopelessness, anger and lack of social control. When these are combined with an opportunity structure to act out, people do. It is not surprising and is predictable."
**10. JASON NIER, associate professor of psychology at CONNECTICUT COLLEGE, is available to talk about the psychology of looting. Nier explains this behavior as "deindividuation," in which people lose their sense of self-awareness and no longer feel like they will be held accountable for their actions, which leads them often to act in ways that they normally would not: "Normally, people's behavior is governed by their own values, as well as societal values, to ‘do the right thing,’ but under some circumstances, which are clearly evident in the aftermath of Katrina, people's behavior is no longer constrained by such moral codes. Nier is a social psychologist whose research focuses primarily on inter-group relations.
**11. CARMEN RUSSONIELLO, recreational therapist at EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY, can offer a perspective on the mental health of survivors of Hurricane Katrina, particularly children. After Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Russoniello studied post-traumatic stress disorder in school-aged children and conducted successful intervention that reduced symptoms of PTSD in these children. He has written several articles (with co-authors) about this research and the intervention techniques.
**12. JONATHAN TURNER, distinguished professor of sociology at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE, can talk about the social, institutional, and racial assumptions and forces-at-work behind the chaos that descended on New Orleans' mostly poor and Black residents. His specialties within his discipline include the sociology of emotions, ethnic relations, social institutions, social stratification and bio-sociology.
**13. ELAINE HANSON, assistant professor and director of the international disaster psychology program at the UNIVERSITY OF DENVER, is available to speak on issues surrounding the psychological and psychosocial needs of communities adversely impacted by disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.
**14. DR. GREGORY C. GARMAN, associate professor and director of VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY’s Life Sciences Center for Environmental Studies, can comment on toxic floodwaters in the disaster region and the ecological implications of contaminated water. Garman’s areas of research are river and stream ecology, fish ecology, anadromous fishes, ecology of large coastal rivers, biology of migratory fishes and effects of urbanization on system ecosystems.
**15. DR. JOSEPH ORNATO, professor and chairman of emergency and internal medicine at the VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY Medical Center, specializes in cardiology, resuscitation, emergency management/preparedness and disaster response. Ornato also is the director of the City of Richmond's Emergency Management Service department.
**16. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (RUDDY) ROSE, director of the VIRGINIA POISON CENTER and associate professor of emergency medicine at VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, can discuss exposure and treatment involving a myriad of poisons, toxins and corrosives.
**17. DR. MIKE EDMOND is the chief epidemiologist at the VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY Medical Center. A professor of internal medicine and preventive medicine, Edmond can discuss epidemiology and disease processes. He is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease.
**18. ERIC DICKSON, M.D., associate professor and head of the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA (Iowa City, Iowa) Department of Emergency Medicine, began his medical career as an Army combat medic, and he served as medical director for several police SWAT teams and fire departments in central Massachusetts prior to coming to Iowa in 2003. He can provide perspective on emergency medicine in disaster situations.
**19. DR. DAVID SATTLER, associate professor of psychology at WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, is an expert on psychological responses to hurricanes and can discuss disaster stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, coping responses, looting problems, what parents can tell their children to help them cope, and resiliency and growth during recovery. He conducts research projects around the world, with the goal of improving intervention and recovery programs and preparedness. He also can discuss how repeated disaster threats influence preparedness and stress, which is most likely to prepare and citizens' understanding about what to do when a hurricane threatens their community.
**20. STACEY FREEDENTHAL is an associate professor and clinical social work specialist at the UNIVERSITY OF DENVER's Graduate School of Social Work whose research and scholarship are focused on suicide prevention and intervention. She has worked with victims of trauma in a variety of settings, including hospital emergency rooms.
**21. MARIAN BUSSEY is assistant professor at the UNIVERSITY OF DENVER's Graduate School of Social Work. Her clinical social work background includes work with children, families and adults. She teaches courses on mental health assessment and trauma, and is coordinator of the school's trauma response and recovery certificate program, which includes content on disaster-related trauma.
**22. LEONARD BICKMAN, professor of psychology at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, can discuss how people react following disasters. He has written more than 15 books and numerous articles, and has been the principal investigator on more than 25 major grants, including research on the psychological effects of disasters. He has completed the evaluation of the largest mental health services demonstration project ever conducted on children and adolescents. Bickman is the past president of the American Evaluation Association and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
**23. NED KALIN, professor of psychiatry at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON and director of the HEALTHEMOTIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, is a psychiatrist who sees patients with stress-related depression and anxiety and has studied stress in his laboratory for more than 20 years. Kalin can discuss the psychological impacts of the disaster on survivors and emergency personnel, and unique traumas faced by children.
**24. ANNE HEWITT, assistant professor of health care administration at SETON HALL UNIVERSITY, is an expert in strategic planning and managing community health services. She also has experience evaluating and consulting with various state and local health care agencies and institutions. She can address community health, health care human resources, and health care crisis planning and response, as well as nutrition.
**25. DR. DAVID J. WESTENBERG, associate professor of biological sciences at UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA and an expert on infectious diseases, can discuss waterborne illness and other possible complications resulting from the rising New Orleans flood water.
**27. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, professor and chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, can discuss the public health crisis facing the areas hit by the hurricane. Schaffner is a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and a national expert on infectious diseases.
**28. TOM TALBOT, assistant professor of medicine in VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER’s Division of Infectious Diseases, can discuss the public health crisis facing the areas hit. Talbot is associate hospital epidemiologist and assistant hospital infection control officer at Vanderbilt University Hospital.
**29. PETER WRIGHT, professor of pediatrics at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, has been to disaster areas a number of times over the years, during and following both natural and man-made disasters. He can speak about the progression of diseases after disasters like the one that hit the Gulf Coast, especially when it comes to children. He can also talk about the impact on the surrounding communities and about the type of aid that will be crucial to avoid more deaths from the diseases that follow in these types of catastrophes.
**30. Sleep specialists at the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SLEEP MEDICINE can discuss the effects and dangers of sleep deprivation and sleep-related issues for evacuees, medical volunteers and relief workers affected by and responding to Hurricane Katrina.
Print-friendly Layout