Exposure of the US population to extreme precipitation risk has increased due to climate change.

The magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events in the early twenty-first century have already proven to be increasing at a rate more quickly than previously anticipated. Currently, the biggest consequence of the change in extreme precipitation is the lack of a climate-adjusted national standard taking into account these recent increases that could be used to prevent life and property loss from catastrophic precipitation-driven floods. Here, we address how severe the change in extreme precipitation compares against the current national standard for precipitation climatology (NOAA Atlas 14) and how much of the population is affected by the underestimation of this risk in the contiguous United States (CONUS). As a result, extreme precipitation in the early twenty-first century has outpaced our current national standard in half of CONUS, and the heavy precipitation events experienced recently are quickly becoming a "new normal", which will increase in severity and frequency in a continually changing climate. Over three-quarters of the U.S. population will likely experience this new normal occurrence of extreme precipitation. As much as one-third of the population is expected to experience the current definition of a 1-in-100-year storm as often as three times in their lifetime. Additionally, the current precipitation standards for designing transportation infrastructure and urban stormwater drainage systems that are built upon Atlas 14 may be insufficient to protect the public's safety and personal/community property from severe flooding. Areas where flood risk is mitigated by operating hydraulic and adaptation structures urgently need to assess the impact of the increased-hourly extreme precipitation and reevaluate their applicable operation rules. Understanding and predicting patterns and the likelihood of short-duration heavy precipitation would be beneficial in preparing for severe precipitation-driven disasters, such as flash floods and landslides, which would happen more frequently in a changing climate. Following the results of this analysis, accelerating the development and dissemination of the next generation of the national standard that has been climatically adjusted to adapt to the new normal is strongly recommended.

Integrating climate change induced flood risk into future population projections.

Flood exposure has been linked to shifts in population sizes and composition. Traditionally, these changes have been observed at a local level providing insight to local dynamics but not general trends, or at a coarse resolution that does not capture localized shifts. Using historic flood data between 2000-2023 across the Contiguous United States (CONUS), we identify the relationships between flood exposure and population change. We demonstrate that observed declines in population are statistically associated with higher levels of historic flood exposure, which may be subsequently coupled with future population projections. Several locations have already begun to see population responses to observed flood exposure and are forecasted to have decreased future growth rates as a result. Finally, we find that exposure to high frequency flooding (5 and 20-year return periods) results in 2-7% lower growth rates than baseline projections. This is exacerbated in areas with relatively high exposure to frequent flooding where growth is expected to decline over the next 30 years.

Geospatial determinants of maternal and child exposure to fine particulate matter in Kintampo, Ghana: Levels within the household and community, by surrounding building density and near roadways.

BACKGROUND: Personal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from household air pollution is well-documented in sub-Saharan Africa, but spatiotemporal patterns of exposure are poorly characterized. OBJECTIVE: We used paired GPS and personal PM2.5 data to evaluate changes in exposure across location-time environments (e.g., household and community, during cooking and non-cooking hours), building density and proximity to roadways. METHODS: Our study included 259 sessions of geolocated, gravimetrically-calibrated one-minute personal PM2.5 measurements from participants in the GRAPHS Child Lung Function Study. The household vicinity was defined using a 50-meter buffer around participants' homes. Community boundaries were developed using a spatial clustering algorithm applied to an open-source dataset of building footprints in Africa. For each GPS location, we estimated building density (500 m buffer) and proximity to roadways (100 m buffer). We estimated changes in PM2.5 exposure by location (household, community), time of day (morning/evening cooking hours, night), building density, and proximity to roadways using linear mixed effect models. RESULTS: Relative to nighttime household exposure, PM2.5 exposure during evening cooking hours was 2.84 (95%CI = 2.70-2.98) and 1.80 (95%CI = 1.54-2.10) times higher in the household and community, respectively. Exposures were elevated in areas with the highest versus lowest quartile of building density (FactorQ1vsQ4 = 1.60, 95%CI = 1.42-1.80). The effect of building density was strongest during evening cooking hours, and influenced levels in both the household and community (31% and 65% relative increase from Q1 to Q4, respectively). Being proximal to a trunk, tertiary or track roadway increased exposure by a factor of 1.16 (95%CI = 1.07-1.25), 1.68 (95%CI = 1.45-1.95) and 1.27 (95%CI = 1.06-1.53), respectively. IMPACT: Household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels in sub-Saharan Africa is a major environmental concern for maternal and child health. Our study advances previous knowledge by quantifying the impact of household cooking activities on air pollution levels in the community, and identifying two geographic features, building density and roadways, that contribute to maternal and child daily exposure. Household cooking contributes to higher air pollution levels in the community especially in areas with greater building density. Findings underscore the need for equitable clean household energy transitions that reach entire communities to reduce health risks from household and outdoor air pollution.

Climate change, riverine flood risk and adaptation for the conterminous United States.

Riverine floods are among the most costly natural disasters in the United States, and floods are generally projected to increase in frequency and magnitude with climate change. Faced with these increasing risks, improved information is needed to direct limited resources toward the most cost-effective adaptation actions available. Here we leverage a newly available flood risk dataset for residential properties in the conterminous United States to calculate expected annual damages to residential structures from inland/riverine flooding at a property-level; the cost of property-level adaptations to protect against future flood risk; and the benefits of those adaptation investments assuming both static and changing climate conditions. Our modeling projects that in the absence of adaptation, nationwide damages from riverine flooding will increase by 20-30% under high levels of warming. Floodproofing, elevation and property acquisition can each be cost-effective adaptations in certain situations, depending on the desired return on investment (i.e., benefit cost ratio), the discount rate, and the assumed rate of climate change. Incorporation of climate change into the benefit-cost calculation increases the number of properties meeting any specified benefit-cost threshold, as today's investments protect against an increasing frequency of future floods. However, because future expected damages are discounted relative to present-day, the adaptation decisions made based on a static climate assumption are very similar to the decisions made when climate change is considered. If the goal is to optimize adaptation decision making, a focus on quantifying present-day flood risk is therefore at least as important as understanding how those risks might change under a warming climate.

Residential Transience Among Adults: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Association with Mental Illness and Mental Health Service Use.

This study examined the association between frequent residential mobility (i.e., residential transience) and mental illness, mental health service use, and unmet need for services. Data are from the 2010 to 2014 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (n = ~ 229,600). Logistic regression models examined the relationship between proximal (past year) and distal (past 2-5 years) residential transience and past year any mental illness (AMI), serious mental illness (SMI), mental health service use among adults with mental illness, and unmet need for services. Adults with transience had greater odds of AMI and SMI than those without transience. Proximal and distal transience were unrelated to past year mental health service use among adults with mental illness, but the odds of unmet need for services were greater among adults with transience compared with those without, suggesting a level of unmet service need among those with transience.

Disaggregating Mass Public Shootings: A Comparative Analysis of Disgruntled Employee, School, Ideologically motivated, and Rampage Shooters.

This study compares the demographic, background, motivation, and pre-event and event-level behaviors across four types of mass public shooters: disgruntled employee, school, ideologically motivated, and rampage offenders. Using a database containing detailed information on 318 mass public shootings that occurred in the United States between 1966 and 2017, we find systematic differences in the characteristics, motivations, target selection, planning, and incident-level behaviors among these offenders. The results show that ideologically motivated shooters to be the most patient, and methodical, and as a result the most lethal. Conversely, disgruntled employees, who are driven by revenge, tend to have little time to plan and consequently are the least lethal shooters. These, among other differences, underscore the need for prevention strategies and policies to be tailored to specific types of offenders. Furthermore, the results also highlight commonalities across offender type, suggesting that the social and psychological pathways to violence are universal across offenders.

Estimating Recent Local Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on Current Real-Estate Losses: A Housing Market Case Study in Miami-Dade, Florida.

Sea-Level Rise (SLR) Projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) indicate increasing, and imminent, risk to coastal communities from tidal flooding and hurricane storm surge. Building on recent research related to the potential demographic impacts of such changes (Hauer et al. 2016, in Nat Clim Chang 3:802-806, 2017; Neumann et al. 2015; Curtis and Schneider in Popul Environ 33:28-54, 2011), localized flooding projections in the Miami Beach area (Wdowinski et al. in Ocean Coast Manag 126:1-8, 2016) and projected economic losses associated with this rise in projected SLR (Fu et al. Ocean Coast Manag 133:11-17, 2016); this research investigates the accrued current cost, in terms of real-estate dollars lost, due to recurrent tidal flooding and projected increases of flooding in Miami-Dade County. Most directly related to this line of research, Keenan et al. (2018) have recently produced results indicating that Climate Gentrification is taking place in Miami, FL with higher elevations in flood prone areas appreciating at a higher rate. In that vein of thinking, we seek to answer a question posed by such research: What is the actual accrued loss to sea-level rise over the recent past? To answer this question, we replicate well-documented estimation methods by combining publicly available sea-level rise projections, tide gauge trends, and property lot elevation data to identify areas regularly at risk of flooding. Combining recent patterns of flooding inundation with future forecasts, we find that properties projected to be inundated with tidal flooding in 2032 have lost $3.08 each year on each square foot of living area, and properties near roads that will be inundated with tidal flooding in 2032 have lost $3.71 each year on each square foot of living area. These effects total over $465 million in lost real-estate market value between 2005 and 2016 in the Miami-Dade area.

Cure violence: a public health model to reduce gun violence.

Scholars and practitioners alike in recent years have suggested that real and lasting progress in the fight against gun violence requires changing the social norms and attitudes that perpetuate violence and the use of guns. The Cure Violence model is a public health approach to gun violence reduction that seeks to change individual and community attitudes and norms about gun violence. It considers gun violence to be analogous to a communicable disease that passes from person to person when left untreated. Cure Violence operates independently of, while hopefully not undermining, law enforcement. In this article, we describe the theoretical basis for the program, review existing program evaluations, identify several challenges facing evaluators, and offer directions for future research.

Parvenus and conflict in elite cohorts.

Previous studies find that greater workplace diversity leads to higher degrees of conflict in low and medium-status workgroups. This paper examines whether similar dynamics operate in elite cohorts. We use data from a survey of White House Fellows (N=475) to look at how the presence of parvenus-individuals from underrepresented groups in elite environments-change the rate at which fellows reported conflict with each other and with the director of the program. We find that there is no unified "parvenu experience." Analysis of the interaction between race and cohort diversity reveals inflection points consistent with Kanter's (1977) theory of tokenism, but the effects of increasing diversity diverge: for Hispanics, conflict with the director increases with diversity, while for Asians, conflict falls with diversity. While other groups' level of conflict with their peers stays roughly constant, Asians' reported level of conflict with their peers increases with diversity.

Prevalence of HCV infection among clients in community-based health settings in Hawaii, 2002-2010: assessing risk factors.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine the prevalence of HCV infection and identify risk factors associated with HCV infection among at-risk clients presenting to community-based health settings in Hawaii. METHODS: Clients from 23 community-based sites were administered risk factor questionnaires and screened for HCV antibodies from December 2002 through May 2010. We performed univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Of 3306 participants included in the analysis, 390 (11.8%) tested antibody positive for HCV. Highest HCV antibody prevalence (17.0%) was in persons 45 to 64 years old compared with all other age groups. Significant independent risk factors were current or prior injection drug use (P < .001), blood transfusion prior to July 1992 (P = .002), and having an HCV-infected sex partner (P = .03). Stratification by gender revealed sexual exposure to be significant for males (P = .001). CONCLUSIONS: Despite Hawaii's ethnic diversity, high hepatocellular carcinoma incidence, and a statewide syringe exchange program in place since the early 1990s, our HCV prevalence and risk factor findings are remarkably consistent with those reported from the mainland United States. Hence, effective interventions identified from US mainland population studies should be generalizable to Hawaii.