Disaster Plan News

February 24, 2025

Top Headlines

Advances in AI Can Help Prepare the World for the Next Pandemic, Global Group of Scientists Find

Feb. 19, 2025 — Scientists across Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Europe outline for the first time how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can transform the landscape of infectious disease research and improve ...

We Are No Longer Living Longer: Study Across Europe

Feb. 18, 2025 — The rise in human life expectancy has slowed down across Europe since 2011, according to new research. A new study reveals that the food we eat, physical inactivity and obesity are largely to blame, as well as the Covid pandemic. Of all the ...

Tigers in the Neighborhood: How India Makes Room for Both Tigers and People

Jan. 31, 2025 — In India, tigers haven't just survived they're making a comeback. Despite a growing population and increasing pressure on their habitats, the number of wild tigers is rising. The reason? According to a new study, it's a combination of ecological ...

Earth Scientists Study Sikkim Flood in India to Help Others Prepare for Similar Disasters

Jan. 30, 2025 — Experts from the global Earth science community have pieced together what happened during the massive Sikkim flood to try to help others prepare for similar ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:56pm EST

To Mitigate Impact of Wildfires on Communities' Water, Report Fills Gaps in Guidance to Public Drinking Water System Staff

Jan. 13, 2025 — Wildfires increasingly threaten public drinking water systems, but guidance on how to address damage to these systems from a wildfire has been ...

States Struggle to Curb Food Waste Despite Policies

Jan. 9, 2025 — Current state policies aren't enough to curb food waste. Study shows states are falling short of the reduction goals set by the U.S. Environmental Protection ...

How We Classify Flood Risk May Give Developers, Home Buyers a False Sense of Security

Jan. 6, 2025 — Traditional methods of communicating how likely an area is to flood focus on designating which zones are 'high risk.' This study suggests that this ...

Modeling Tool Affirms Critical Role of Testing in Pandemic Response

Jan. 3, 2025 — A study found public-private partnerships to develop, produce and distribute COVID-19 diagnostic tests saved approximately 1.4 million lives and prevented an estimated 7 million patient ...

Adoption of 'Hospital-at-Home' Programs Remains Concentrated Among Larger, Urban, Not-for-Profit and Academic Hospitals

Dec. 23, 2024 — Hospitals that have adopted the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) 'hospital-at-home' program, which serves as an alternative to admission to ...

Scientists Urged to Pull the Plug on 'Bathtub Modeling' of Flood Risk

Dec. 6, 2024 — Recent decades have seen a rapid surge in damages and disruptions caused by flooding. Experts call on scientists to more accurately model these risks and caution against overly dramatized reporting ...

Climate-Driven Hazards Increases Risk for Millions of Coastal Residents, Study Finds

Nov. 21, 2024 — A new study estimates that a 1-meter sea level rise by 2100 would affect over 14 million people and $1 trillion worth of property along the Southeast ...

How Flood Risk Affects Home Values

Nov. 19, 2024 — Houses for sale in a flood zone are around 10% cheaper than surrounding areas, according to new research. However, the reduced price tag is not worth the extra risk and can burden buyers with ...

Some of the World's Least Polluting Populations Are at Much Greater Risk of Flooding Fueled by Climate Change

Nov. 7, 2024 — A new study has exposed for the first time how inhabitants of the smallest countries globally, contributing least to climate change, already bear the ...

Coastal Flooding During Hurricanes Helene and Milton Tracked

Oct. 29, 2024 — A web-based application that gathers crowdsourced data to identify flooding and inform policy in coastal communities provided scientists with essential data from hurricanes Helene and Milton. The app ...

Reducing Teens' Psychological Stress Could Save Billions for U.S. Budget, Study Suggests

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study suggests that boosting adolescent mental health is linked with long-term economic benefits. In contrast to similar findings from prior studies, these estimated relationships could be ...

Land-Use Policy Rethink Vital to Hit Net Zero

Nov. 14, 2024 — Changing how land-use subsidies are implemented would give UK taxpayers better value for money and improve chances of meeting environmental targets such as Net ...

How Prisons Fall Short in Protecting the Incarcerated from Climate Disasters

Nov. 8, 2024 — A new study paints a grim picture of how blistering heat, wildfire smoke and other extreme weather events impact Colorado's jail and prison ...

New Study Traces Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Movement and Evolution of Seasonal Flu

Nov. 7, 2024 — Increased capabilities for genomic surveillance have offered new insights into global viral evolution. Seasonal flu showed a 'remarkable' bounce back to pre-pandemic levels once ...

Geography: Improving Our Understanding of Complex Crises

Oct. 23, 2024 — Researcher presents a new model for risk research which takes interactions into account and brings together various ...

A 'Worrying Confluence' of Flood Risk, Social Vulnerability and Climate Change Denial

Oct. 23, 2024 — In certain parts of the United States, especially Appalachia, New England and the Northwest, the ability of residents to prepare for and respond to flooding is being undercut on three different ...

When Hurricanes Hit, Online Chatter Drowns out Safety Messaging

Oct. 17, 2024 — Research shows, during four recent major hurricanes, important public safety messaging was drowned out by more trivial social content--including people tweeting about pets, sharing human-interest ...

One-Time Cooperation Decisions Unaffected by Increased Benefits to Society

Oct. 8, 2024 — Until now, it was considered certain that people are more likely to cooperate if the benefits from cooperation are higher. A recently published, large-scale study has now called this finding into ...

Hurricanes Linked to Higher Death Rates for 15 Years After Storms Pass

Oct. 2, 2024 — U.S. tropical cyclones, including hurricanes, indirectly cause thousands of deaths for nearly 15 years after a storm. Researchers estimate an average U.S. tropical cyclone indirectly causes 7,000 to ...

Where Flood Policy Helps Most -- And Where It Could Do More

Sep. 30, 2024 — A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program provides important flood insurance relief, researchers say. But due to its design, it's used more in communities with greater means to ...

Growing Divide: Rural Men Are Living Shorter, Less Healthy Lives Than Their Urban Counterparts

Sep. 25, 2024 — With an aging population and fewer physicians available, the burden on rural communities is set to ...

Outbreak Detection Under-Resourced in Asia, Study Finds

Sep. 24, 2024 — A new study has revealed that despite the recent pandemic, outbreak detection efforts remain under-resourced in South and Southeast Asia, with only about half the countries reviewed having integrated ...

Nonfatal Opioid Overdoses in Youth Spiked During Pandemic

Sep. 19, 2024 — Drug overdose mortality has risen faster among adolescents than the general population in recent years, largely due to fentanyl, a potent opioid pain medication. A new study sheds light on trends in ...

Dams Built to Prevent Coastal Flooding Can Worsen It

Sep. 13, 2024 — The common practice of building dams to prevent flooding can actually contribute to more intense coastal flood events, according to a new study. By analyzing data and measurements from Charleston ...

Traditional Infrastructure Design Often Makes Extreme Flooding Events Worse

Sep. 4, 2024 — Much of the nation's stormwater infrastructure, designed decades to a century ago to prevent floods, can exacerbate flooding during the severe weather events that are increasing around the ...

H5 Influenza Vaccines: What Needs to Be Done to Reduce the Risk of a Pandemic

Sep. 4, 2024 — As the global threat of H5N1 influenza looms with outbreaks across species and continents including the U.S., three international vaccine and public health experts say it is time to fully resource ...

COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates Boosted Uptake Among Health Care Workers, Study Finds

Sep. 3, 2024 — A new study has found that state-level COVID-19 vaccination mandates successfully increased vaccine rates among health care workers, a finding that, while perhaps unsurprising, provides evidence of ...

Lackluster Prioritization of the Health Sector in Government Spending and Dwindling Donor Contributions Drive Slow Growth in Health Spending in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aug. 28, 2024 — Slow growth in health sector spending is projected in Sub-Saharan Africa as reported in a study. The decline is expected to continue to 2050, according to the authors, and is driven by tepid growth ...

Engineers Develop AI System for Real-Time Sensing of Flooded Roads

Aug. 28, 2024 — Roadway-related incidents are a leading cause of flood fatalities nationwide, but limited flood-reporting tools make it difficult to evaluate road conditions in real ...

Coastal Cities Must Adapt Faster to Climate Change

Aug. 27, 2024 — Coastal cities play a key role in the global economy and have important functions for society at large. At the same time, they are severely affected by the impact of climate change. That is why their ...