Alistair Hayden, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice in Cornell University’s Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and formerly served as a Division Chief at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
To what extent does EPA have ready access to data to measure drinking water compliance reliably and accurately?
How do the impacts, costs, and resulting needs of slow-onset disasters compare with those of declared disasters, and what are implications for slow-onset disaster declarations, recovery aid programs, and HUD allocation formulas?
To better incorporate extreme heat and people-centered disasters into U.S. emergency management, Congress and federal agencies should take several interrelated actions.
The undercounting of deaths related to extreme heat and other people-centered disasters — like extreme cold and smoke waves — hinders the political and public drive to address the problem.
To protect the health and well-being of the nation’s children, the federal government must facilitate efforts to collect the data required to drive extreme heat mitigation and adaptive capacity in the classroom.
Data infrastructure critical for identifying and minimizing smoke-related hazards is largely absent from our wildland fire management toolbox despite its life-saving potential.