Volume 14, Issue 2

The World Health Organization defined climate change as the most important issue for the 21st century. In 2014, the State of Hawaii called climate change “a matter of security” that directly threatens “economic systems – food, water, energy, biodiversity and health” and has called for “actionable information for local decision making.” According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burden of human morbidity attributable to climate change is relatively small although not well quantified. Nevertheless, generic climate change impacts are often used to justify actions without adequate supporting local evidence. This paper analyzes Hawaii’s health risks in relation to air pollution, heat extremes, ultraviolet radiation, and weather extremes and finds that Hawaii’s natural geography, robust water, and sanitation infrastructure render the islands less vulnerable to many of the often-mentioned climate change threats. It concludes that the health security threat posed by climate change effects on Hawaii’s physical environment over the next 35 years is slight in most areas and moderate with regard to ecosystem health. Because all global communities tend to be both discrete and unique in their vulnerability, it recommends the collection of grassroots, community-based resilience data to reveal local vulnerabilities that can inform strategic statewide planning.

Disasters create overwhelming demands to affected communities and pose unique problems that complicate efforts of orchestrating the response. It is in such environments of uncertainty, operational friction, time-constraints and the need for interagency coordination that disaster and crisis managers are required to develop incident plans to address multiple demands. Based on observations from 50 disaster exercises, we have identified twenty critical points in incident planning, that is, those incident planning activities which are most challenging for emergency managers, are poorly implemented or otherwise constitute an area for improvement. The most challenging components of the incident planning process were information gathering from the field, running estimates of the situation, response-generated demands, resource capabilities and mobilization time, course of action development and analysis, and decision-making under uncertainty. In addition, this study identified three good practices in incident planning. First, the process is iterative and planners revisit several steps in a back-and-forth fashion. Second, both rational and intuitive decision-making processes are likely to be used during the course of any one incident, based on the time available for planning. Third, better plans are produced when flexibility is built into courses of action to address expected developments of situation or when decision-making is decentralized.

Human security and vulnerability theoretical frameworks are utilized to examine willingness of seniors living in independent living centers (ILCs) in two counties of southern New Jersey (United States) to follow voluntary and mandatory evacuation orders from a number of sources. The sample, mostly White (73.3%) and female (81.8%) indicated the most willingness to follow both categories of orders when delivered by military, law enforcement, and/or fire officials. The least level of willingness was noted with orders delivered by neighbors, church leaders, and media (TV and radio) outlets. No significant difference was found based on county residency, level of preparedness, or previous evacuation experience. Those with previous disaster experience, however, indicated a significantly increased willingness to follow voluntary evacuation orders from military or National Guard, fire department, and the state governor. No significant association was found between willingness to evacuate and self-reported generalized self-efficacy. A human security framework is suggested to be beneficial for analysis given the potential for increased community frustration, anger, or anxiety based on physical, social, and economic vulnerabilities identified for senior communities.