Flooding and abandonment have shaped rat demography across post-Katrina New Orleans

Ghersi, Bruno M.; Peterson, Anna C.; Riegel, Claudia; Campanella, Richard; Childs, James E.; Blum, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104218

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 62 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This pattern may arise because residents with lower incomes have fewer resources to hire professionals or manage opportunities for rat harborage, which includes ceiling and wall cracks, waste material, and overgrowth [12]. A study conducted in New Orleans demonstrated that rats were most abundant in areas with vacant buildings, unmaintained buildings and vegetation, and debris [13]. This is especially important in lower-income and historically marginalized communities where vacant and unmaintained homes are often disproportionately concentrated [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality in exposure and knowledge drives vulnerability to rat-associated leptospirosis among Chicago communities

Dyer,

Byers,

Buckley

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To predict and prevent public health risks from urban rats, studies often examine zoonotic pathogen prevalence in rats in different urban environments. However, human exposure to rats and their awareness of the associated risks are poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to identify factors associated with two aspects of vulnerability to leptospirosis as a model rat-associated disease: 1) exposure to rat urine in the home and 2) lack of awareness that rats carry leptospirosis. To collect data on residents’ experiences and knowledge about rats, we mailed a survey to randomly-selected households along an income gradient in Chicago. Of 432 complete cases, 36% had observed rat urine in the home and 73% were unaware that rats carry leptospirosis. Using logistic regression, we found that non-white respondents had over three times higher odds of observing rat urine in the home than white respondents. Dog owners and respondents who sought out information about rats, regardless of source, were more likely to be aware that rats carry leptospirosis. When we examined both aspects of vulnerability simultaneously using multinomial regression, we found that residents most vulnerable to leptospirosis (who had been exposed to urine and were not aware that rats carry leptospirosis) were significantly less likely to be white and less likely to be dog owners. Our results suggest that more public education is needed about rat-associated diseases spread through feces and urine and that exposure to rats should be considered another environmental health burden that is disproportionately persistent in underserved communities of color.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality in exposure and knowledge drives vulnerability to rat-associated leptospirosis among Chicago communities

Dyer,

Byers,

Buckley

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Physical outcomes are numerous but include gastrointestinal illnesses, skin rashes, infections, and poisoning from exposure to chemical irritants dispersed by flood events [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Extreme weather and flood events have also been shown to increase transmission of bacterial respiratory infections through inhalation of waterborne bacteria such as Legionella [33] and zoonotic pathogen infections as a result of increased rat populations [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Related Catastrophic Rainfall Events and Non-Communicable Respiratory Disease: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Peirce

Espira

Larson

2022

Climate

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, the impacts of which disproportionately impact urban populations. Pluvial flooding and flooding related sewer backups are thought to result in an increase in potentially hazardous human-pathogen encounters. However, the extent and nature of associations between flooding events and non-communicable respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are not well understood. This research seeks to characterize the state of research on flooding and NCRDs through a systematic review of the scientific literature. We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus for published scholarly research papers using the terms flooding, monsoon, and tropical storm with terms for common NCRDs such as asthma, COPD, and chronic bronchitis. Papers were included if they covered research studies on individuals with defined outcomes of flooding events. We excluded review papers, case studies, and opinion pieces. We retrieved 200 articles from PubMed, 268 from Web of Science and 203 from Scopus which comprised 345 unique papers. An initial review of abstracts yielded 38 candidate papers. A full text review of each left 16 papers which were included for the review. All papers except for one found a significant association between a severe weather event and increased risk for at least one of the NCRDs included in this research. Our findings further suggest that extreme weather events may worsen pre-existing respiratory conditions and increase the risk of development of asthma. Future work should focus on more precisely defining measure of health outcomes using validated tools to describe asthma and COPD exacerbations. Research efforts should also work to collect granular data on patients’ health status and family history and assess possible confounding and mediating factors such as neighborhood water mitigation infrastructure, housing conditions, pollen counts, and other environmental variables.

show abstract

Flooding and abandonment have shaped rat demography across post-Katrina New Orleans

Cited by 2 publications

References 62 publications

Inequality in exposure and knowledge drives vulnerability to rat-associated leptospirosis among Chicago communities

Inequality in exposure and knowledge drives vulnerability to rat-associated leptospirosis among Chicago communities

Climate Change Related Catastrophic Rainfall Events and Non-Communicable Respiratory Disease: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About