一些社区，如低收入或少数民族社区，受到灾害影响的比例过高，部分原因是他们可用于准备财产或生计损失或从中恢复的财政资源较少。联邦政府已经建立了几个赠款项目，如建设有弹性的基础设施和社区（BRIC）减灾赠款项目，这些项目提供资金支持灾前减灾和灾后恢复。然而，缓解和恢复资金的分配并没有公平地适用于所有社区，服务不足的社区获得的资金较少。联邦紧急事务管理局（FEMA）聘请了国土安全运营分析中心（HSOAC），这是一个由兰德公司为美国国土安全部运营的联邦资助的研发中心，帮助探索金砖四国减灾赠款计划如何解决社会公平问题。这份报告为金砖四国如何评估该项目的社会公平表现提供了初步方法。它还确定了与金砖四国赠款周期第一年（2020财年）次级申请的参与和成功相关的社区特征和自然灾害风险

Understanding public media channel preferences can inform preparedness plans, response strategies and long-term recovery. However, questions remain about how media consumption changes across pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis phases. Past theories argue that media use may change for several reasons, including during times of societal conflict and challenge. These theories point to the belief that, during a crisis, we expect media channel use to change because media preferences during a crisis will be fundamentally different compared with everyday routines. This paper takes advantage of a survey fielded to Texas residents soon after Hurricane Harvey. Here, we ask the following: (a) "what media channels are most prominent in each crisis phase?" and (b) "do media channel preferences change across crisis phases?". We use simple descriptive statistics and chi-square tests to describe media channel preferences across the three crisis phases by demographics. Additionally, we use alluvial diagrams to visualize media channel preferences over time. In total, 62% (n = 174) of respondents reported no changes in channel preferences. However, chi-square tests identified significant differences in media use changes related to a handful of demographic characteristics. These findings are explored alongside theories that would hypothesize likely media use changes across pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis phases.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, and oil spilled from the breached well-head for months, leading to an unprecedented environmental disaster with implications for behavioral health. Disasters are thought to affect behavioral health, and social capital is thought to ameliorate behavioral health impacts after disasters, though empirical evidence is mixed. One possible explanation for the discrepancy in findings relates to the activation of social capital in different contexts. In a disaster context, certain types of social capital may be more beneficial than others, and these relationships could differ between those directly affected by the disaster and those who are unaffected. The goal of this study is to assess the relationships between different forms of social capital (community engagement, trust, and social support) on different behavioral health indicators (depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse) using data from the first wave of the Survey of Trauma, Resilience, and Opportunity among Neighborhoods in the Gulf (STRONG), a probabilistic household telephone survey fielded 6 years after the onset of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DHOS). We employ a structural equation modeling approach where multiple social capital and behavioral health variables can be included and their pathways tested in the same model, comparing the results between those who reported experiencing disruptions related to the DHOS and those who did not. Among those who experienced the DHOS, social support was negatively associated with both depression (ß = –0.085; p = 0.011) and anxiety (ß = –0.097; p = 0.003), and among those who did not experience the DHOS, social support was positively associated with alcohol misuse (ß = 0.067; p = 0.035). When controlling for the other social capital variables, social support was the only form of social capital with a significant relationship to behavioral health, and these relationships differ based on whether or not a person experienced the disaster. This suggests that social capital does not have a uniformly ameliorative relationship with behavioral health in the aftermath of disasters.

美国环境保护局（USEPA）与其州和地方合作伙伴一起制定流域实施计划，旨在满足总最大日负荷（TMDL）水质标准。气候变化影响、未来土地利用、最佳管理实践的有效性和其他驱动因素的不确定性可能会使这些实施计划难以实现水质目标。但用于制定实施计划的方法和流程通常无法解决这些关键变革驱动因素中的不确定性。在这项研究中，兰德公司的研究人员探讨了稳健决策（RDM）方法如何帮助美国环保局及其合作伙伴制定对这种不确定性更稳健的实施计划。通过两个试点案例研究——一个在马里兰州的Patuxent河上，另一个在伊利诺伊河的North Farm Creek支流上——本研究展示了如何使用RDM分析方法来识别TMDL实施计划中的未来漏洞，并提出适当的应对措施。在这两个案例研究中，拟议的计划在当前假设下达到了其水质目标，但在许多气候和其他未来情况下没有达到水质目标。研究发现，修改计划和适应性管理方法往往可以减少这些漏洞。今后，美国环保局及其合作伙伴可以通过采用迭代风险管理流程和稳健灵活的TMDL实施计划，更好地管理未来的不确定性