Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska
The discourse on vulnerability to COVID-19 or any other pandemic is about the susceptibility to the effects of disease outbreaks. Over time, vulnerability has been assessed through various indices calculated using a confluence of societal factors. However, categorising Arctic communities, without co...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 |
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crjcrbmj:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 2024-09-30T14:30:21+00:00 Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska Tiwari, Sweta Petrov, Andrey Mateshvili, Nino Devlin, Michele Golosov, Nikolay Rozanova-Smith, Marya Welford, Mark DeGroote, John Degai, Tatiana Ksenofontov, Stanislav Office of Polar Programs 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 en eng BMJ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ BMJ Global Health volume 8, issue 6, page e011646 ISSN 2059-7908 journal-article 2023 crjcrbmj https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 2024-09-19T04:12:53Z The discourse on vulnerability to COVID-19 or any other pandemic is about the susceptibility to the effects of disease outbreaks. Over time, vulnerability has been assessed through various indices calculated using a confluence of societal factors. However, categorising Arctic communities, without considering their socioeconomic, cultural and demographic uniqueness, into the high and low continuum of vulnerability using universal indicators will undoubtedly result in the underestimation of the communities’ capacity to withstand and recover from pandemic exposure. By recognising vulnerability and resilience as two separate but interrelated dimensions, this study reviews the Arctic communities’ ability to cope with pandemic risks. In particular, we have developed a pandemic vulnerability–resilience framework for Alaska to examine the potential community-level risks of COVID-19 or future pandemics. Based on the combined assessment of the vulnerability and resilience indices, we found that not all highly vulnerable census areas and boroughs had experienced COVID-19 epidemiological outcomes with similar severity. The more resilient a census area or borough is, the lower the cumulative death per 100 000 and case fatality ratio in that area. The insight that pandemic risks are the result of the interaction between vulnerability and resilience could help public officials and concerned parties to accurately identify the populations and communities at most risk or with the greatest need, which, in turn, helps in the efficient allocation of resources and services before, during and after a pandemic. A resilience–vulnerability-focused approach described in this paper can be applied to assess the potential effect of COVID-19 and similar future health crises in remote regions or regions with large Indigenous populations in other parts of the world. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Alaska The BMJ Arctic BMJ Global Health 8 6 e011646 |
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English |
description |
The discourse on vulnerability to COVID-19 or any other pandemic is about the susceptibility to the effects of disease outbreaks. Over time, vulnerability has been assessed through various indices calculated using a confluence of societal factors. However, categorising Arctic communities, without considering their socioeconomic, cultural and demographic uniqueness, into the high and low continuum of vulnerability using universal indicators will undoubtedly result in the underestimation of the communities’ capacity to withstand and recover from pandemic exposure. By recognising vulnerability and resilience as two separate but interrelated dimensions, this study reviews the Arctic communities’ ability to cope with pandemic risks. In particular, we have developed a pandemic vulnerability–resilience framework for Alaska to examine the potential community-level risks of COVID-19 or future pandemics. Based on the combined assessment of the vulnerability and resilience indices, we found that not all highly vulnerable census areas and boroughs had experienced COVID-19 epidemiological outcomes with similar severity. The more resilient a census area or borough is, the lower the cumulative death per 100 000 and case fatality ratio in that area. The insight that pandemic risks are the result of the interaction between vulnerability and resilience could help public officials and concerned parties to accurately identify the populations and communities at most risk or with the greatest need, which, in turn, helps in the efficient allocation of resources and services before, during and after a pandemic. A resilience–vulnerability-focused approach described in this paper can be applied to assess the potential effect of COVID-19 and similar future health crises in remote regions or regions with large Indigenous populations in other parts of the world. |
author2 |
Office of Polar Programs |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tiwari, Sweta Petrov, Andrey Mateshvili, Nino Devlin, Michele Golosov, Nikolay Rozanova-Smith, Marya Welford, Mark DeGroote, John Degai, Tatiana Ksenofontov, Stanislav |
spellingShingle |
Tiwari, Sweta Petrov, Andrey Mateshvili, Nino Devlin, Michele Golosov, Nikolay Rozanova-Smith, Marya Welford, Mark DeGroote, John Degai, Tatiana Ksenofontov, Stanislav Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
author_facet |
Tiwari, Sweta Petrov, Andrey Mateshvili, Nino Devlin, Michele Golosov, Nikolay Rozanova-Smith, Marya Welford, Mark DeGroote, John Degai, Tatiana Ksenofontov, Stanislav |
author_sort |
Tiwari, Sweta |
title |
Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
title_short |
Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
title_full |
Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the Arctic: a case study of Alaska |
title_sort |
incorporating resilience when assessing pandemic risk in the arctic: a case study of alaska |
publisher |
BMJ |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Alaska |
op_source |
BMJ Global Health volume 8, issue 6, page e011646 ISSN 2059-7908 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011646 |
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BMJ Global Health |
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8 |
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6 |
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e011646 |
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1811635342632026112 |