As the Earths climate changes, coastal communities are increasingly vulnerable to the natural hazards that are driven by these processes, particularly in regards to the health of these communities. It has been shown that disease patterns can change in response to our environment, putting the health resilience of communities at risk. This study looks at the relationship between natural exposure and traditional resilience index variables in the context of the spread of West Nile Virus along the Gulf of Mexico. Through analysis of 534 counties, the West Nile Virus for 2001-2012 was analyzed as an incidence and incidence rate at three levels of urban and rural classification (metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural) as well as for the entire study area. Regression analysis found that models incorporating both natural and society indicators were more successful at explaining a populations vulnerability to the West Nile Virus. It was seen that short-term climate variability and economic indicators were important measures of a communitys health resilience in the context of the prevalence of the West Nile Virus. Socio-economic characteristics proved to be more explanatory in rural environments while natural characteristics explained more variance in metropolitan and micropolitan environments. Increasing temperatures were found to increase the spread of the West Nile Virus, particularly in urban areas. This study is a tangible analysis of health resilience in the context of both the human and natural environments across different levels of human infrastructure on a large spatial scale.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04152013-153146 |
| Date | 11 May 2013 |
| Creators | Mata, Lillian Patricia |
| Contributors | Lam, Nina, Reams, Margaret, Johnson, Crystal |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04152013-153146/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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