Building Back Better: Local Health Department Engagement and Integration of Health Promotion into Hurricane Harvey Recovery Planning and Implementation

Mallory Kennedy, Shannon Gonick, Hendrika Meischke, Janelle Rios and Nicole A. Errett
Additional contact information
Mallory Kennedy: The University of Washington School of Public Health Department of Health Services, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Shannon Gonick: The University of Washington School of Public Health Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Hendrika Meischke: The University of Washington School of Public Health Department of Health Services, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Janelle Rios: The University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) School of Public Health, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Nicole A. Errett: The University of Washington School of Public Health Department of Health Services, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: Disaster recovery provides an opportunity to build healthier and more resilient communities. However, opportunities and challenges encountered by local health departments (LHDs) when integrating health considerations into recovery have yet to be explored. Following Hurricane Harvey, 17 local health and emergency management officials from 10 agencies in impacted Texas, USA jurisdictions were interviewed to describe the types and level of LHD engagement in disaster recovery planning and implementation and the extent to which communities leveraged recovery to build healthier, more resilient communities. Interviews were conducted between December 2017 and January 2018 and focused on if and how their communities were incorporating public health considerations into the visioning, planning, implementation, and assessment phases of disaster recovery. Using a combined inductive and deductive approach, we thematically analyzed interview notes and/or transcripts. LHDs reported varied levels of engagement and participation in activities to support their community’s recovery. However, we found that LHDs rarely articulated or informed decision makers about the health impacts of recovery activities undertaken by other sectors. LHDs would benefit from additional resources, support, and technical assistance designed to facilitate working across sectors and building resilience during recovery.

Keywords: disaster recovery; public health; resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/299/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/299/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:299-:d:200097

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().