Environment, Urbanization, and Public Health: The Bubonic Plague Epidemic of 1912 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Zulawski, Ann

doi:10.25222/larr.424

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…As disaster scholars have repeatedly shown, disasters are "all-encompassing occurrences" that sweep every aspect of human life: biological, social, economic, and cultural (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999). Catastrophes can put institutions and social arrangements to the test, generating different types of social or political "aftershocks" (see also Martland 2007;Gawronski and Olson 2013;Zulawski 2018;Gil and Atria 2021;Piazza and Schneider 2021).…”

Section: Catastrophes As Critical Juncturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disasters as Critical Junctures: State Building and Industrialization in Chile after the Chillán Earthquake of 1939

Gil

2022

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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In 1939 an earthquake destroyed south-central Chile, especially the city of Chillán. This event was arguably the most catastrophic socio-natural disaster in Chilean history, yet it has been mostly ignored in historical research. This article shows that the earthquake triggered a critical juncture for the Chilean state and was a determining factor in some of the most important institutional developments of the period. Using primary sources, the article describes this juncture, focusing on the destabilizing effect of the earthquake and linking it to the creation of two new state institutions, the Production Development Corporation (CORFO) and the Reconstruction and Assistantship Corporation (CRA), together with other important changes in state capacities. It concludes that the disaster is crucial in understanding the Chilean transition from an exporting economy to an import-substituting one after 1940, and to account for the strength of the Chilean state in the decades to come.

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Section: Catastrophes As Critical Juncturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disasters as Critical Junctures: State Building and Industrialization in Chile after the Chillán Earthquake of 1939

Gil

2022

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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“…This transition brought public health benefits, including improved sanitation practices and housing conditions, the creation of local health boards and hospitals, and increased access to primary education. However, urbanization in Puerto Rico also led to widening economic and racial disparities that resulted in unfavorable neighborhood and living conditions among socially marginalized individuals (e.g., poor and Black Puerto Ricans) ( 10 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The neighborhood context and all-cause mortality among older adults in Puerto Rico

García

McEniry

et al. 2023

Front. Public Health

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BackgroundRecent efforts have been made to collect data on neighborhood-level attributes and link them to longitudinal population-based surveys. These linked data have allowed researchers to assess the influence of neighborhood characteristics on the health of older adults in the US. However, these data exclude Puerto Rico. Because of significantly differing historical and political contexts, and widely ranging structural factors between the island and the mainland, it may not be appropriate to apply current knowledge on neighborhood health effects based on studies conducted in the US to Puerto Rico. Thus, we aim to (1) examine the types of neighborhood environments older Puerto Rican adults reside in and (2) explore the association between neighborhood environments and all-cause mortality.MethodsWe linked data from the 2000 US Census to the longitudinal Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project (PREHCO) with mortality follow-up through 2021 to examine the effects of the baseline neighborhood environment on all-cause mortality among 3,469 participants. Latent profile analysis, a model-based clustering technique, classified Puerto Rican neighborhoods based on 19 census block group indicators related to the neighborhood constructs of socioeconomic status, household composition, minority status, and housing and transportation. The associations between the latent classes and all-cause mortality were assessed using multilevel mixed-effects parametric survival models with a Weibull distribution.ResultsA five-class model was fit on 2,477 census block groups in Puerto Rico with varying patterns of social (dis)advantage. Our results show that older adults residing in neighborhoods classified as Urban High Deprivation and Urban High-Moderate Deprivation in Puerto Rico were at higher risk of death over the 19-year study period relative to the Urban Low Deprivation cluster, controlling for individual-level covariates.ConclusionsConsidering Puerto Rico's socio-structural reality, we recommend that policymakers, healthcare providers, and leaders across industries to (1) understand how individual health and mortality is embedded within larger social, cultural, structural, and historical contexts, and (2) make concerted efforts to reach out to residents living in disadvantaged community contexts to understand better what they need to successfully age in place in Puerto Rico.

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En estricto aislamiento: La invasión estadounidense y la medicalización de la lepra en Puerto Rico, 1898–1903

Chirinos

2022

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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Resumen En este artículo se analizan las circunstancias históricas en las cuales cambiaron, tanto el discurso médico como la atención que se daba a las personas con lepra en Puerto Rico. Se toma como punto de partida la invasión estadounidense de 1898 y su proyecto de transformación de la salud pública de la isla. Como parte de estos cambios se identifica un nuevo modelo de atención para los contagiados, basado en la idea del aislamiento. De esta manera, las autoridades sanitarias se distanciaban de la teoría de la herencia, la que se había manejado con anterioridad a esa fecha. Se argumenta que ese aislamiento fue expresión de la política colonialista del momento. Se quiere mostrar que la rigurosidad del nuevo modelo de atención transformó la vida de aquellos enfermos, los cuales pasaron de convivir con sus familias, a recluirse en un islote. Este proceso de transformación fue iniciado particularmente por los médicos del Marine Hospital Service.

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Environment, Urbanization, and Public Health: The Bubonic Plague Epidemic of 1912 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Cited by 3 publications

References 17 publications

Disasters as Critical Junctures: State Building and Industrialization in Chile after the Chillán Earthquake of 1939

Disasters as Critical Junctures: State Building and Industrialization in Chile after the Chillán Earthquake of 1939

The neighborhood context and all-cause mortality among older adults in Puerto Rico

En estricto aislamiento: La invasión estadounidense y la medicalización de la lepra en Puerto Rico, 1898–1903

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