Environmental Health Needs Habitability Assessment Hurricane Katrina Response Initial Assessment

This report provides an initial assessment of the overarching environmental health and infrastructure issues faced by New Orleans to reinhabit the city. It was prepared by a joint taskforce of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This report provides an initial assessment of the overarching environmental health and infrastructure issues faced by New Orleans to reinhabit the city. It was prepared by a joint taskforce of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Environmental Health Needs and Habitability Assessment - Hurricane Katrina Response

Public health officials have the traditional responsibilities of protecting the food supply, safeguarding against communicable disease, and ensuring safe and healthful conditions for the population. Beyond this, public health today is challenged in a way that it has never been before. Starting with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, public health officers have had to spend significant amounts of time addressing the threat of terrorism to human health. Hurricane Katrina was an unprecedented disaster for the United States. During the first weeks, the enormity of the event and the sheer response needs for public health became apparent. The tragic loss of human life overshadowed the ongoing social and economic disruption in a region that was already economically depressed. Hurricane Katrina reemphasized to the public and to policy makers the importance of addressing long-term needs after a disaster. On October 20, 2005, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop which convened members of the scientific community to highlight the status of the recovery effort, consider the ongoing challenges in the midst of a disaster, and facilitate scientific dialogue about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on people's health. Environmental Public Health Impacts of Disasters: Hurricane Katrina is the summary of this workshop. This report will inform the public health, first responder, and scientific communities on how the affected community can be helped in both the midterm and the near future. In addition, the report can provide guidance on how to use the information gathered about environmental health during a disaster to prepare for future events.

In November 2005, New Orleans city leaders asked RAND to estimate the repopulation of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Bring New Orleans Back Commission needed estimates of the city's population in the immediate and near-term future to guide the redevelopment planning process. An assessment of flood damage to housing based on the depth of floodwater and the likely pace of reconstruction of damaged housing guided the estimates.

Soon after the first Earth Day in 1970, the academic world saw a virtual explosion of new, interdisciplinary 'environmental' programs, many of which took explicit note for the first time of the fact that 'environmental' problems are inherently social problems as well. Even in the new programs, however, issues of equity and the environment were usually relegated to isolated classes on environmental ethics. Today, they still are.

"In 2006, Tavis Smiley teamed up with other leaders in the black community to create a national plan of action to address the ten most crucial issues facing African Americans. The Covenant with Black America ... ran the gamut from health care to criminal justice, affordable housing to education, voting rights to racial divides. But a decade later, black men still fall to police bullets and brutality, black women still die from preventable diseases, black children still struggle to get a high quality education, the digital divide and environmental inequality still persist ... So Smiley calls for a renewal of The Covenant, presenting in this new edition the original action plan--with a new foreword and conclusion--alongside fresh data from the Indiana University School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA) to underscore missed opportunities and the work that remains to be done"--Amazon.com.

Written jointly by experts in law and in public health, this book is designed specifically for public health practitioners, lawyers, healthcare providers, and law and public health educators and students. It identifies, defines, and clarifies the complex principles of law as they bear on the practice of public health.