Catastrophic disasters can have enduring consequences on environments and societies. Remarkably little is known, however, about the long-term outcomes of disaster response, including whether efforts intended to improve human well-being instead inflate or bias risks by influencing socioecological reassembly. In this study, we examined perceptions of policy-driven socioecological disparities across post-Katrina New Orleans. Our aim was to determine whether perceptions of rodent-borne disease risk correspond to disparities in rodent abundance and pathogen distributions across the city. We also examined whether risk perceptions and the strength of associations with risk factors varied according to exposure history, policy-driven land use, and sociodemographic factors.
Variation in rodent abundance was characterized from three years of quantitative trapping, which also provided a basis for estimating the prevalence of associated pathogens like Bartonella, Leptospira, and Trypanosoma. Risk perceptions were characterized from a multi-year survey of ~6000 households through a structured questionnaire containing closed-ended questions regarding perceptions of hurricane risk, flood risk, mosquito-associated disease risk, rodent-associated disease risk, and individual-level independent variables. Additional sociodemographic data derived from the US Census was coupled with data from municipal archives and high-resolution satellite imagery to characterize land use outcomes of policies that have shaped post-Katrina resettlement and redevelopment.
Results/Conclusions
Hurricane Katrina-related flooding has reshaped the socioecology of New Orleans. Public policies intended to spur return and rebuilding have instead amplified legacy asymmetries that track ethnicity and income across the city. Our work illustrates, for example, that the prevalence and management of abandoned property have intensified pre-existing disparities, and that ‘greening’ resulting from abandonment favors commensal rodents and increases pathogen exposure risk. Survey results based on response rates of ≥20% illustrate that risk perceptions similarly mapped onto the social geography of the city. Flood risk perception, for example, was positively associated with exposure history and inversely related to income. Greater concern about flooding also was expressed by black than white residents. Rodent-associated disease risk perception reflected past experience (i.e., rodent sitings) and was higher in lower-income areas that experienced greater Katrina-related flooding. However, residents were consistently more concerned about quality of life issues (e.g., crime) and storm-related flooding than disease risk. Parallels between disease risk perception and 311 municipal complaint archives nonetheless suggest that concerns translate into action. These findings suggest that comparisons of risk factors, risk perceptions and call archives can offer decision-makers a basis for improving post-disaster recovery to better ensure human well-being, especially in historically marginalized communities.