Organizations and communities learn by collecting information both from their direct, experiences and by observing others. Information is translated into knowledge, which is disseminated and used to inform subsequent planning, decisions and actions. Among the experiences and observations of organizations and communities that can be translated into knowledge are crises and disasters, including infections disease outbreaks, water contamination events and natural disasters. Organizational and community learning occurs when knowledge generated in response to crises is applied and when previous events serve as the basis for informing responses to an anticipated risk or emerging crisis.
Trial-and-error learning is an ongoing process of experimentation, assessment and evaluation. Through trial and error, it is possible to determine that an activity does not produce desired outcomes, allowing for strategies to be adjusted and refined. Communities and organizations also benefit from observing others facing similar threats and learn from their failures and successes. Vicarious learning is bolstered through publicly available information, such as media reports and web presence, and access to networks of similar organizations.
Crises can provide opportunities to re-evaluate fundamental assumptions, norms, processes, structures, plans, technologies, and overall performance. This session provides an overview of learning from crises and presents cases from the COVID-19 pandemic response, water contamination events, and natural disasters. The COVID-19 response in the City of Detroit offers important lessons about public health disparities, community engagement, and sustained responses. Cases studies of learning from the Flint Water Crisis and the Toledo Water Crisis illustrate how organizations and communities can translate experience into knowledge. Natural disasters can reveal systemic vulnerabilities and deficiencies in knowledge. Winter Storm Uri impacted Texas in mid-February 2021, bringing cold temperatures, record-levels of snow, and damaging ice and devastating the electrical grid, prompting widespread boil water notices. This case provides lessons about informing the public about emerging risks and about how they respond. These cases show how organizational learning may help organizations and communities prevent the repetition of a similar crisis, plan and respond more effectively.
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Rapid Research and Assessment on COVID-19 and Climate in New York City
In May 2020, the New York City (NYC) Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency (MOCR) began convening bi-weekly discussions, called the Rapid Research and Assessment (RRA) Series, between City staff and external experts in science, policy, design, engineering, communications, and planning. The goal was to rapidly develop authoritative, actionable information to help integrate resiliency into the City’s COVID response efforts. The situation in NYC is not uncommon. Extreme events often require government officials, practitioners, and citizens to call upon multiple forms of scientific and technical assistance from rapid data collection to expert elicitation, each spanning more or less involved engagement. We compare the RRA to similar rapid assessment efforts and reflect on the nature of the RRA and similar efforts to exchange and co-produce knowledge. The RRA took up topics on social cohesion, risk communication, resilient and healthy buildings, and engagement, in many cases strengthening confidence in what was already known but also refining the existing knowledge in ways that can be helpful as the pandemic unfolds. Researchers also learned from each other ways to be supportive of the City of New York and MOCR in the future. The RRA network will continue to deepen, continue to co-produce actionable climate knowledge, and continue to value organizational sensemaking as a usable climate service, particularly in highly uncertain times. Given the complex, rare, and, in many cases, unfamiliar context of COVID-19, we argue that organizational sensemaking is a usable climate service.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2029918
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10283238
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Extreme Events
- ISSN:
- 2345-7376
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2150010
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)We examine the uneven social and spatial distributions of COVID-19 and their relationships with indicators of social vulnerability in the U.S. epicenter, New York City (NYC). As of July 17th, 2020, NYC, despite having only 2.5% of the U.S. population, has [Formula: see text]6% of all confirmed cases, and [Formula: see text]16% of all deaths, making it a key learning ground for the social dynamics of the disease. Our analysis focuses on the multiple potential social, economic, and demographic drivers of disproportionate impacts in COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as population rates of testing. Findings show that immediate impacts of COVID-19 largely fall along lines of race and class. Indicators of poverty, race, disability, language isolation, rent burden, unemployment, lack of health insurance, and housing crowding all significantly drive spatial patterns in prevalence of COVID-19 testing, confirmed cases, death rates, and severity. Income in particular has a consistent negative relationship with rates of death and disease severity. The largest differences in social vulnerability indicators are also driven by populations of people of color, poverty, housing crowding, and rates of disability. Results highlight the need for targeted responses to address injustice of COVID-19 cases and deaths, importance of recovery strategies that account for differential vulnerability, and provide an analytical approach for advancing research to examine potential similar injustice of COVID-19 in other U.S. cities. Significance Statement Communities around the world have variable success in mitigating the social impacts of COVID-19, with many urban areas being hit particularly hard. Analysis of social vulnerability to COVID-19 in the NYC, the U.S. national epicenter, shows strongly disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on low income populations and communities of color. Results highlight the class and racial inequities of the coronavirus pandemic in NYC, and the need to unpack the drivers of social vulnerability. To that aim, we provide a replicable framework for examining patterns of uneven social vulnerability to COVID-19- using publicly available data which can be readily applied in other study regions, especially within the U.S.A. This study is important to inform public and policy debate over strategies for short- and long-term responses that address the injustice of disproportionate impacts of COVID-19. Although similar studies examining social vulnerability and equity dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak in cities across the U.S. have been conducted (Cordes and Castro 2020, Kim and Bostwick 2002, Gaynor and Wilson 2020; Wang et al. 2020; Choi and Unwin 2020), this study provides a more comprehensive analysis in NYC that extends previous contributions to use the highest resolution spatial units for data aggregation (ZCTAs). We also include mortality and severity rates as key indicators and provide a replicable framework that draws from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability indicators for communities in NYC.more » « less
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Background The surge of telemedicine use during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented. However, scarce evidence considers the use of telemedicine in the subsequent period. Objective This study aims to evaluate use patterns of video-based telemedicine visits for ambulatory care and urgent care provision over the course of recurring pandemic waves in 1 large health system in New York City (NYC) and what this means for health care delivery. Methods Retrospective electronic health record (EHR) data of patients from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2022, were used to longitudinally track and analyze telemedicine and in-person visit volumes across ambulatory care specialties and urgent care, as well as compare them to a prepandemic baseline (June-November 2019). Diagnosis codes to differentiate suspected COVID-19 visits from non–COVID-19 visits, as well as evaluating COVID-19–based telemedicine use over time, were compared to the total number of COVID-19–positive cases in the same geographic region (city level). The time series data were segmented based on change-point analysis, and variances in visit trends were compared between the segments. Results The emergence of COVID-19 prompted an early increase in the number of telemedicine visits across the urgent care and ambulatory care settings. This use continued throughout the pandemic at a much higher level than the prepandemic baseline for both COVID-19 and non–COVID-19 suspected visits, despite the fluctuation in COVID-19 cases throughout the pandemic and the resumption of in-person clinical services. The use of telemedicine-based urgent care services for COVID-19 suspected visits showed more variance in response to each pandemic wave, but telemedicine visits for ambulatory care have remained relatively steady after the initial crisis period. During the Omicron wave, the use of all visit types, including in-person activities, decreased. Patients between 25 and 34 years of age were the largest users of telemedicine-based urgent care. Patient satisfaction with telemedicine-based urgent care remained high despite the rapid scaling of services to meet increased demand. Conclusions The trend of the increased use of telemedicine as a means of health care delivery relative to the pre–COVID-19 baseline has been maintained throughout the later pandemic periods despite fluctuating COVID-19 cases and the resumption of in-person care delivery. Overall satisfaction with telemedicine-based care is also high. The trends in telemedicine use suggest that telemedicine-based health care delivery has become a mainstream and sustained supplement to in-person-based ambulatory care, particularly for younger patients, for both urgent and nonurgent care needs. These findings have implications for the health care delivery system, including practice leaders, insurers, and policymakers. Further investigation is needed to evaluate telemedicine adoption by key demographics, identify ongoing barriers to adoption, and explore the impacts of sustained use of telemedicine on health care outcomes and experience.more » « less
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Foliar chemistry values were obtained from two important native tree species (white oak (Quercus alba L.) and red maple (Acer rubrum L.)) across urban and reference forest sites of three major cities in the eastern United States during summer 2015 (New York, NY (NYC); Philadelphia, PA; and Baltimore, MD). Trees were selected from secondary growth oak-hickory forests found in New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Baltimore, MD, as well as at reference forest sites outside each metropolitan area. In all three metropolitan areas, urban forest patches and references forest sites were selected based on the presence of red maple and white oak canopy dominant trees in patches of at least 1.5 hectares with slopes less than 25%, and well-drained soils of similar soil series within each metropolitan area. Within each city, several forest patches were selected to capture the variation in forest patch site conditions across an individual city. All reference sites were located in protected areas outside of the city and within intermix wildland-urban interface landscapes, in order to target similar contexts of surrounding land use and population density (Martinuzzi et al. 2015). Several reference sites were selected for each city, located within the same protected area considered representative of rural forests of the region. White oaks were at least 38.1 cm diameter at breast height (DBH), red maples were at least 25.4 cm DBH, and all trees were dominant or co-dominant canopy trees. The trees had no major trunk cavities and had crown vigor scores of 1 or 2 (less than 25% overall canopy damage; Pontius & Hallett 2014). From early July to early August 2015, sun leaves were collected from the periphery of the crown of each tree with either a shotgun or slingshot for subsequent analysis to determine differences in foliar chemistry across cities and urban vs. reference forest site types. The data were used to invstigate whether differences in native tree physiology occur between urban and reference forest patches, and whether those differences are site- and species-specific. A complete analysis of these data can be found in: Sonti, NF. 2019. Ecophysiological and social functions of urban forest patches. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, MD. 166 p. References: Martinuzzi S, Stewart SI, Helmers DP, Mockrin MH, Hammer RB, Radeloff VC. 2015. The 2010 wildland-urban interface of the conterminous United States. Research Map NRS-8. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: Newtown Square, PA. Pontius J, Hallett R. 2014. Comprehensive methods for earlier detection and monitoring of forest decline. Forest Science 60(6): 1156-1163.more » « less
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Purpose: To examine how federal/state-level policy guidance and local context have influenced district and school leader responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how these external/internal factors might provide a window into K-12 crisis leadership and policy sensemaking more broadly. Research: Investigating two districts over two years (2020–2022), data gathered include 39 hours of interviews with K-12 leaders (n = 41) and teachers (n = 18), federal/state-level policy documents (N = 64) governing these districts, and school staff responses to the Comprehensive Assessment of Leaders for Learning survey (N = 111). Drawing theoretically upon sensemaking, crisis leadership/management, law/policy implementation, and organizational theory, these data were analyzed using both inductive and deductive coding over several phases. Findings: In tracing the confluence of federal/state-level guidance and local capacities, we find both influenced K-12 leaders’ sensemaking and subsequent responses to COVID-19. However, districts that possessed adequate expertise and organizational resources were better positioned to respond to the crisis, whereas those lacking such capacities experienced increased anxiety/stress. Conclusion: We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic provides a new window into the critical external/internal factors influencing K-12 leader sensemaking and subsequent responses to crises more broadly. We also discuss the potential role intermediate service agencies might play in the development of a stronger crisis response infrastructure for associated districts and schools. Finally, we point out how principal preparation programs and professional development efforts could prospectively address such crisis-related challenges faced by K-12 leaders.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1142/S234573762150010X
