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Emergencies and disasters impact population health. Despite the importance of upstream readiness, a persistent challenge for public health practitioners is defining what it means to be prepared. There is a knowledge gap in that existing frameworks lack consideration for complexity relevant to health systems and the emergency context. The objective of this study is to describe the essential elements of a resilient public health system and how the elements interact as a complex adaptive system.
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Abstract Objective To examine mental health and community cohesion in women living in Calgary after a natural disaster considering previously collected mental health data. Methods Data from an ongoing longitudinal cohort, the All Our Families study, were used to examine mental health and community cohesion 5 months after a major flood in Calgary, Canada. Participants who had completed a baseline questionnaire before the flood were eligible for inclusion in this study (N=923). Four multivariable logistic regression models were built to examine predictors of post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and community cohesion. Results Elevated anxiety before the flood was associated with 2.49 (95% CI: 1.17, 5.26) increased odds of experiencing high levels of post-traumatic stress, regardless of whether respondents lived in a flood-risk community or not. Women who experienced damage to property, or who provided help to others, were more likely to perceive an increased sense of community cohesion (adjusted ods ratio (AOR): 1.67; 95% CI: 1.09, 2.54 and AOR: 1.68; 95% CI: 1.13, 2.52, respectively). Conclusions Women with underlying mental health conditions may be more vulnerable to the psychological impacts of a natural disaster regardless of their level of exposure. Natural disasters may bring communities together, especially those who were more tangibly impacted. ( Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness . 2018;12:470–477)
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Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo
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Summary The questionable ability of the U.S. pension system to provide for the growing elderly population combined with the rising number of people affected by depression and other mental health issues magnifies the need to understand how these household characteristics affect retirement. Mental health problems have a large and significant negative effect on retirement savings. Specifically, psychological distress is associated with decreasing the probability of holding retirement accounts by as much as 24 percentage points and decreasing retirement savings as a share of financial assets by as much as 67 percentage points. The magnitude of these effects underscores the importance of employer management policy and government regulation of these accounts to help ensure households have adequate retirement savings.
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The environmental management literature suggests that resilience is key to managing complex systems and reducing vulnerability resulting from uncertainty and unexpected change. Yet, flood risk management (FRM) has emerged largely from a culture of resistance. This paper takes the pulse of the current state of FRM research, with a focus on how the scholarly community has approached governance for flood resilience. Our analysis of the FRM journal literature identified 258 articles addressing governance and flooding, resilience and adaptation. Five main research themes emerged from these articles, addressing a variety of issues, but mostly lacking the degree of integration needed to address the social‐ecological complexity of FRM. Overall, research supporting the governance of FRM for resilience lacks integration, and methods of mitigating this lack of integration are poorly studied. We conclude with a discussion about the nature and scope of FRM research for resilience, and identify opportunities for more integrative FRM research that is more tightly coupled with policy and practice.