Why They Stay: The Challenges with Evacuating Communities in an Emergency

September 17, 2018 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Social Determinants, Environmental Health, Emergency Preparedness

As I write this, Hurricane Florence is devastating the Carolinas on the east coast of the United States and, as with previous storms, there are questions flying about why people in the evacuation zone have chosen to remain in their homes and “shelter in place.” Although many people leave when local authorities declare their home inside an evacuation zone, there are always some people who remain despite the warnings. Why do they stay? Don’t they know they’re in danger? Don’t they care?

The short answer is that evacuating is complex and can be very, very expensive for the person leaving. Paying for gas (if you can get it before the stations are emptied), booking hotels, renting a car (if you don’t have one), and getting time off work are all major financial concerns for many, many Americans. Whether you shelter in place or evacuate, you may need to buy food, water, and supplies like batteries. If you have pets (as most Americans do), that’s another expense to accommodate since the hotels which take pets (not all do) generally charge a hefty fee for each night they stay.

It’s not possible for me to share all the personal and structural challenges to evacuating communities from disaster zones, but my hope is that this post provides some insight into why so many individuals remain in the path of natural disasters.

MNÁwesome: What Happens When We Legalise Abortion?

July 13, 2018 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Health & Healthcare, Social Determinants, Health Equity, Reproductive Health

If you follow me (or probably any other Irish person) (or read Irish news) (or are passingly aware of when Ireland makes foreign headlines), you probably heard that the Republic of Ireland voted last month to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution (Bunreacht na hÉireann). It was a massive, multiyear campaign that took off running after the tragic—and completely preventable—death of Irish dentist Savita Halappanavar.

I know that this topic is hard for many people and that there are a lot of very strong emotions. As a devout Roman Catholic, I’m familiar with both sides of the issue. I’m not going to dig into the intricacies of the philosophy on when life begins, but I will say this: I desperately wish that I lived in a world without abortion. I wish that I lived in a world in which every pregnancy was planned and healthy and no one ever had to make the decision whether to terminate their pregnancy. I wish I lived in that world, but it doesn’t exist. It is not my place to tell someone else what they need to do with their body and in no other instance do we insist that it is.

Reframing Violence as a Community Epidemic

February 17, 2018 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Injury and Violence Prevention, Social Determinants, Health Equity

In a previous post, I discussed the intergenerational effects of violence and trauma, but today I’d like to dig a bit more into violence as a disease in communities. We often think of violence as something that one person does to another—and that is certainly accurate—but the individuals who commit that violence have often experienced it themselves. Like influenza spreads through a community from person-to-person, family-to-family, violence also spreads through the spaces we inhabit.

We model what we see and what we live and then pass on the love and pain we experience to others. Please be warned that some of what I’ll discuss may be upsetting or trigger memories of abuse that you may have suffered. Please be gentle with yourself.

We Carry Them With Us: How the Health of our Great-Grandparents Shapes Our Own

October 17, 2017 by Dr Amanda Dylina Morse, PhD MPH in Health & Healthcare, Social Determinants, Health Equity, Injury and Violence Prevention

Last week was both Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day in the United States. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. These days remind me of the stories I heard in school as a child about the “discovery” of America and the “first people” to come here. As an immigrant family, the stories of these holidays weren’t a part of our home life, but they certainly appeared at school each autumn. I remember being told to memorise a poem about Columbus in first grade and the narrative of the first thanksgiving appearing in each US history course I took.

While having time off from school and work is nice (I certainly enjoy that part of civil service), these days are also wonderful opportunities to talk about the health disparities we see between Native American/Alaska Native (AIAN) and other groups in the US. Native writers have spoken and written and researched this far better than I will here, but it’s important for all public health practitioners to discuss the ways that the health of the people who grew us and raised us shapes our own health.