Journal Article

Adverse Health Outcomes Following Hurricane Harvey: A Comparison of Remotely‐Sensed and Self‐Reported Flood Exposure Estimates

Zaitchik, Benjamin F., Callender, Rashida, Gohlke, Julia M., Swarup, Samarth, Ramesh, Balaji, Jagger, Meredith

2023

Overview

Remotely sensed inundation may help to rapidly identify areas in need of aid during and following floods. Here we evaluate the utility of daily remotely sensed flood inundation measures and estimate their congruence with self‐reported home flooding and health outcomes collected via the Texas Flood Registry (TFR) following Hurricane Harvey. Daily flood inundation for 14 days following the landfall of Hurricane Harvey was acquired from FloodScan. Flood exposure, including number of days flooded and flood depth was assigned to geocoded home addresses of TFR respondents (N = 18,920 from 47 counties). Discordance between remotely‐sensed flooding and self‐reported home flooding was measured. Modified Poisson regression models were implemented to estimate risk ratios (RRs) for adverse health outcomes following flood exposure, controlling for potential individual level confounders. Respondents whose home was in a flooded area based on remotely‐sensed data were more likely to report injury (RR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.27–1.77), concentration problems (1.36, 95% CI: 1.25–1.49), skin rash (1.31, 95% CI: 1.15–1.48), illness (1.29, 95% CI: 1.17–1.43), headaches (1.09, 95% CI: 1.03–1.16), and runny nose (1.07, 95% CI: 1.03–1.11) compared to respondents whose home was not flooded. Effect sizes were larger when exposure was estimated using respondent‐reported home flooding. Near‐real time remote sensing‐based flood products may help to prioritize areas in need of assistance when on the ground measures are not accessible. Plain Language Summary Flood maps that are prepared using satellites monitoring the earth surface may help to rapidly identify areas in need of aid during and following flooding events. In this study, we quantified the risk of self‐reported health outcomes that are associated with home flooding measured using either satellite‐derived flood maps or self‐reported exposure to floodwaters during and following Hurricane Harvey. Responses from 18,920 participants in the Texas Flood Registry included home location of the responders, reported adverse health symptoms, reported hospitalization, flooding of home, contact with flood water, and demographic variables. Respondents whose homes were flooded as per the flood maps were more likely to report injury, concentration problems, skin rash, illness, headaches, and runny nose compared to respondents whose homes were not flooded. The estimated strength of association was larger when exposure was estimated using respondent‐reported home flooding. Flood maps prepared from satellite data may help to prioritize areas in need of assistance in real‐time when on the ground measures are not available. Key Points Remote sensing identified exposure to floods was associated with self‐reported flood related adverse health symptoms, illness, and injury Self‐reported illness and injury increased with increase in proximity to the flood waters The association estimated using self‐reported exposure to flood were stronger than those estimated using remote sensing

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc,John Wiley and Sons Inc,American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Subject: Abrupt/Rapid Climate Change / adverse health outcomes / Air/Sea Constituent Fluxes / Air/Sea Interactions / Atmospheric / Atmospheric Composition and Structure / Atmospheric Effects / Atmospheric Processes / Avalanches / Benefit‐cost Analysis / Biogeosciences / Censuses / Climate and Interannual Variability / Climate Change and Variability / Climate Dynamics / Climate Impact / Climate Impacts / Climate Variability / Climatology / Computational Geophysics / Cryosphere / Datasets / Debris Flow and Landslides / Decadal Ocean Variability / Demographics / disaster recovery / Disaster Risk Analysis and Assessment / Drought / Drownings / Earth System Modeling / Earthquake Ground Motions and Engineering Seismology / Effusive Volcanism / Emergency medical care / Estimates / Ethnicity / Explosive Volcanism / flood exposure assessment / Floods / General Circulation / Geodesy and Gravity / Geohealth / Geological / Global Change / Global Change from Geodesy / Gravity and Isostasy / Hispanic people / Hurricane Harvey / Hurricanes / Hydrological / Hydrological Cycles and Budgets / Hydrology / Illnesses / Impacts of Climate Change: Human Health / Impacts of Global Change / Infections / Informatics / Land/Atmosphere Interactions / Marine Geology and Geophysics / Mass Balance / Modeling / Mud Volcanism / Natural Hazards / Numerical Modeling / Numerical Solutions / Ocean influence of Earth rotation / Ocean Monitoring with Geodetic Techniques / Ocean/Atmosphere Interactions / Ocean/Earth/atmosphere/hydrosphere/cryosphere interactions / Oceanic / Oceanography: General / Oceanography: Physical / Oceans / Paleoceanography / Physical Modeling / Policy Sciences / Polls & surveys / Pregnancy complications / Radio Oceanography / Radio Science / Recovery and Reconstruction after Disaster / Regional Climate Change / Regional Modeling / Remote Sensing / Remote Sensing and Disasters / Remote Sensing of Volcanoes / Risk / Satellites / Sea Level Change / Sea Level: Variations and Mean / Seismology / Self report / self‐reported versus remote‐sensed flood exposure / Solid Earth / Space Geodetic Surveys / Surface Waves and Tides / The Three Major Hurricanes of 2017: Harvey, Irma and Maria / Theoretical Modeling / Tsunamis and Storm Surges / Volcanic Effects / Volcanic Hazards and Risks / Volcano Monitoring / Volcano Seismology / Volcano/Climate Interactions / Volcanology / Water Cycles