Warren S. Eller

The Core and Periphery of Emergency Management Networks

Emergency planning and response increasingly involve close interactions between a diverse array of actors across fields (emergency management, public health, law enforcement, etc.); sectors (government, non-profit and for-profit); and levels of government (local, state and federal). This article assesses the temporal dynamics of emergency management networks in two moderately sized communities that have served as large-scale disaster evacuation hosting sites in the past decade. The paper uses two strategies for tracking the evolution of these networks across time. First, we develop a network roster using newspaper and newswire data sources across a decade. Second, we develop a view of the evolution of the networks by analysing emergency operations plans for each community. Analysis of data reveals a contrast between a core set of consistent (mostly governmental) actors and a peripheral set of rapidly turning over (mostly non-governmental) actors – though the account depends on the mode of data on which one focuses. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantage presented by having a two-tier network for evacuation hosting that mixes core and periphery across multiple sectors.

Zen and the Art of Policy Analysis: A Response to Nielsen and Wolf

Nielsen and Wolf lodge several criticisms of Meier, Wrinkle, and Polinard (1999). Although most of the criticisms deal with tangential issues rather than our core argument, their criticisms are flawed by misguided estimation strategies, erroneous results, and an inattention to existing theory and scholarship. Our reanalysis of their work demonstrates these problems and presents even stronger evidence for our initial conclusion-that both minority and Anglo students perform better in schools with more minority teachers.

Care of dogs and attitudes of dog owners in Port-au-Prince, the Republic of Haiti.

This article reports the first known study on dogs in Port-au-Prince. Interviews with 1,290 residents provided information on 1,804 dogs. More than 57.7% of homes kept dogs. Not all the dogs received vaccinations for rabies (41.6%), even though 28.2% of households had had a household member bitten by a dog. Although the “owned” dog population had decreased as a result of the earthquake in January 2010, the number of roaming dogs appeared to have been uninfluenced by the disaster. Given that 64.8% of dogs probably had access to the street and only 6.0% of the females were spayed, to humanely contain the dog population will require both confinement and neutering. Although roaming dogs were considered a nuisance by 63.3% of respondents, 42.6% of households fed dogs they did not own.

Nonprofit Organizations and Community Disaster Recovery: Assessing the Value and Impact of Intersector Collaboration

AbstractA 2009 flooding disaster in Alaska produced a unique intersector operational collaborative model between voluntary nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies. This article inves...

Perioperative risk factors for postoperative respiratory failure

The study aimed to identify the risk factors for respiratory failure after surgery. Postoperative respiratory failure (PRF) was defined as prolonged intubation after surgery or reintubation after unsuccessful extubation. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the following risk factors: age, obesity as reflected by body mass index (BMI), gender, patient admitted to hospital (in-patient status) vs. outpatient surgery, smoking, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, abnormal liver function, anaemia, respiratory infection, physical condition as reflected by ASA class, case type (elective or emergency), anaesthesia type, and surgical duration. The incidence of PRF was found to be 2.4%. Independent risk factors were older age, inpatient status, hypertension, COPD, elective procedure, surgical duration >2 hours, and ASA class ≥3. The study concludes that PRF results in significant postoperative complications. Minimising these risks is essential in improving PRF and subsequently surgical outcomes.

Independent risk factors for surgical site infection after cesarean delivery in a rural tertiary care medical center

BackgroundWe aimed to determine the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) after cesarean delivery (CD) and identify the risk factors in a rural population.MethodsWe identified 218 SSI patients by International Classification of Disease codes and matched them with 3131 parturients (control) from the electronic record database in a time-matched retrospective quality assurance analysis.Results and discussionThe incidence of SSI after CD was 7.0xa0%. Risk factors included higher body mass index (BMI) [40.30xa0±xa010.60xa0kg/m2 SSI (95xa0% CI 38.73–41.87) vs 34.05xa0±xa08.24xa0kg/m2 control (95xa0% CI 33.75–34.35, Pxa0<xa00.001)], years of education [13.28xa0±xa02.44xa0years SSI (95xa0% CI 12.9–13.66) vs 14.07xa0±xa02.81xa0years control (95xa0% CI 13.96–14.18, Pxa0<xa00.001)], number of prior births [2 (1–9) SSI vs 1 (1–11) control (Pxa0<xa00.001)], tobacco use (OR 1.49; 95xa0% CI 1.06–2.09, Pxa0=xa00.03), prior diagnosis of hypertension (OR 1.80; 95xa0% CI 1.34–2.42, Pxa0<xa00.001), gestational diabetes (OR 1.59; 95xa0% CI 1.18–2.13, Pxa0=xa00.003), and an emergency/STAT CD (OR 1.6; 95xa0% CI 1.1–2.3, Pxa0=xa00.01).ConclusionsRisk factors for SSI after CD included higher BMI, less years of education, higher prior births, tobacco use, prior diagnosis of hypertension, gestational diabetes, and emergency/STAT CD. The presence of ruptured membranes was protective against SSI.

Gay and Lesbian Cops: Diversity and Effective Policing by Roddrick A. Colvin

One very noteworthy struggle in the history of the United States has been to create social equity. The last two decades have seen a marked upswing in studies of diversity, marking the importance of this struggle (for example, see Bearfield 2009). However, even with leading journals replete with studies of bureaucratic representation, investigations into how this important concept affects members of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) community are woefully underrepresented. Promising to help fill this void, Roddrick A. Colvin offers his book, Gay and Lesbian Cops: Diversity and Effective Policing. There are many roots causing the dearth of research addressing LGBT issues in law enforcement. Issues of sexual identification have not been afforded the legal status of many other forms of diversity more traditionally addressed in the literature (Noga-Styron 2012). More importantly, though, is the fact that this research is just plain difficult. Unlike many more mainstream focuses of diversity research, the public sector does not collect uniform records of gender identity and sexual orientation; thus, large N empirical studies are very difficult with this target population. In contrast to biological gender, race, and ethnicity, identifiers of sexual orientation and gender identity are not as obvious (and even those more standard identifiers are not always obvious), making study far more challenging. To complicate matters, individuals with non-traditional gender identities or sexual orientation often face considerable barriers in the workplace in traditionally ‘‘masculine’’ occupations such as law enforcement (Colvin 2012) and the military (Bianco 1996), reducing the probability of identifying individuals to comprise a sample frame. If for no other reason than his willingness to face these obstacles to research, Colvin deserves regard for attempting this work. International Public Management Journal