Claim to Flame#
Joan Casey, Lauren Wilner, Vivian Do, Heather McBrien, David Coomes, and Karen Chen
This project plans to integrate data on wildfires and wildfire boundaries, FEMA household claims, and demographics, with CalEnviroScreen data to ask several questions about FEMA assistance for wildfire disasters: What are the population characteristics of those actively applying for FEMA assistance for wildfire disasters? Within this group, what are the individual- (e.g., owner vs. rental status, level of disaster preparedness, reliance on electrical medical equipment) and area-level (e.g., neighborhood poverty) factors associated with successfully receiving FEMA aid or the amount of FEMA aid? Do the factors associated with successfully receiving FEMA aid vary by disaster type (i.e., wildfire disaster vs. wildfire disaster co-occurring with extreme heat)?
Working Repository > github.com/d4hackweek/d4-claim-to-flame
Datasets#
High resolution wildfire boundaries for all wildfires in California 2017-2023 (e.g., fire boundaries and burn dates)
FEMA national household survey claims 2017-2023 by ZIP code
CalEnviroScreen 4.0 data by census tract (CalEnviroScreen overall score)
Census tract SES indicators by ZIP code (e.g., median income, home ownership, education)
Linkage will be by ZIP code and census tract identifiers, with the aim to identify characteristics of populations likely to get FEMA claims funded.
Team Bios#
Joan Casey, University of Washington: Joan A. Casey received her doctoral degree from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014. Dr. Casey is an environmental epidemiologist who focuses on environmental health, environmental justice, and sustainability. Her research uses large secondary health datasets, such as electronic health records, to study the relationship between emerging environmental exposures and population health across the lifecourse. She also considers vulnerable populations, joint social and environmental exposures, and health disparities, particularly in an era of climate change. Dr. Casey investigates a range of exposures including wildfires, power outages, ambient temperature, the built environment, fossil fuel infrastructure, and concentrated animal feeding operations. From 2014-2016, Dr. Casey was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar, and from 2019-2022, she was the co-chair of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology North American chapter. She also serves as an editorial board review member for Environmental Health Perspectives. Dr. Casey also holds a BS in Biological and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University and an MA in Applied Physiology from Teachers College at Columbia University.
Lauren Wilner: Lauren Wilner is a 2nd-year Epidemiology PhD student at the University of Washington. Lauren holds a BA and MPH from Tufts University. She previously participated in the Allan Rosenfield Fellowship in Global Health at the CDC in the Center for Global Health. After that, she worked at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle for 5 years as a researcher and Managing Research Scientist on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. Lauren recently developed an R package that generated walk bouts from GPS and accelerometry data with Dr. Steve Mooney. She also teaches courses on the use of GitHub for research. Lauren’s dissertation focuses on two FEMA programs: the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Individuals and Households Program (IHP) program in relation to flood mortality. Lauren enjoys backpacking with her two outerspace themed dogs: Sally and Orion.
Vivian Do: Vivian Do is a 5th year PhD student. She began her PhD at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the Fall of 2020. She was born and raised in San Francisco, CA but moved to Northfield, MN for her BA in Mathematics/Statistics and American Studies at Carleton College. After working as a healthcare policy analyst, Vivian continued her public health training at Columbia where she received an MPH in epidemiology with a certificate in Climate & Health. Up until this point, she did projects on substance use at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, evaluated mental health programs at the NYC Department of Mental Health & Hygiene, and conducted air pollution research with the University of Hong Kong. As a PhD student at Columbia, Vivian is interested in environmental epidemiology, climate change, and the built environment through a health equity lens. Fun fact: She unironically likes discussing the weather and its underlying science.
Heather McBrien, Columbia University:
Heather McBrien is a 3rd year PhD student in the Environmental Health Sciences department at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Her research uses large datasets and novel methods to evaluate the impacts of population-level climate-related exposures, including climate-related disasters. Her current projects evaluate the impacts of wildfire smoke and wildfire disaster exposure on perinatal health outcomes, and the impacts of power outage and co-occurring disaster exposure on vulnerable groups. Her interests include environmental and research justice, reproducibility, and research that informs climate policy.David Coomes, University of Washington:
David Coomes is a PhD candidate in the Epidemiology department at the University of Washington. His research interests include the role of migration in shaping population health outcomes, in particular the rural mortality penalty. David also studies health impacts of wildfire smoke, with a focus on mental health outcomes and health disparities. Methodologically, David is particularly interested in social and spatial epidemiology, and the intersection of these two methods.Karen Chen, University of Washington:
Karen Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning and the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington, where she is also affiliated with the Data Science program. Dr. Chen finds great interest in the synergy of machine learning and satellite imagery analysis. Her recent research primarily focuses on urban environmental change and its implications for public health and health inequality. Currently, Dr. Chen is leading two projects: one exploring the relationship between urban form and mental health, and the other investigating the intersection of urbanization and climate-related hazards, such as flooding, extreme heat, and landslides. Dr. Chen’s expertise includes developing publicly available and innovative frameworks using deep learning to reconstruct high-resolution urban form information across time. Her recognitions include the Leading Women in Machine Learning for Earth Observation in 2022, as well as an Early Career Award from NASA’s Earth Science (2024-2027).