Aging in Flood-Prone Coastal Areas: Discerning the Health and Well-Being Risk for Older Residents
Aging in Flood-Prone Coastal Areas: Discerning the Health and Well-Being Risk for Older Residents
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DOI：
10.3390/ijerph15122900
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发表时间：
2018-12-01
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Suggs, Jessica
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bukvic, Anamaria;Gohlke, Julia;Suggs, Jessica
沿海社区越来越容易遭受更强烈和更频繁的飓风、海平面加速上升和长期潮汐淹没，但它们往往是容易遭受洪水和极端天气事件影响的老年人的首选退休目的地。 65 岁及以上老年人口所面临的独特的身体和心理社会挑战可能会影响他们的准备水平、应对能力以及应对灾害事件和从灾害事件中恢复的能力。尽管与年轻的沿海人口相比，生活在高风险地区的老年居民明显脆弱，但缺乏对沿海地区这一人群的综合洪水风险的实证研究。本文通过测量沿海县老年人口遭受海平面上升和风暴潮的影响，对美国东海岸这一新出现的问题进行了全面评估。它使用案例研究方法以及地理空间和统计分析，进一步评估了农村和城市环境中与年龄相关的脆弱性有何不同。该论文还对科学文献进行了回顾，以找出当前对沿海社区老龄化人口健康和福祉风险的理解差距。结果显示，美国东海岸的老年人口分布不均匀，一些州和县的 65 岁及以上居民居住在海岸线的比例明显较高。许多老年人口较多的地方还有其他属性，进一步影响了该年龄组的脆弱性，例如住房陈旧、残疾和收入较低，而且这些属性在农村和城市环境中往往有所不同。最后，我们的研究发现，绝大多数关于高风险沿海地区老龄化的研究都是针对重大灾害进行的，而几乎没有针对已经影响许多沿海社区的反复出现的令人讨厌的洪水。
Coastal communities are increasingly exposed to more intense and frequent hurricanes, accelerated sea-level rise, and prolonged tidal inundation, yet they are often a preferred retirement destination for older adults vulnerable to flooding and extreme weather events. The unique physical and psychosocial challenges of older population age 65 and over may affect their level of preparedness, capacity to cope with, and ability to respond and recover from a hazard event. Despite the clear vulnerabilities of older residents living in high-risk areas when compared to younger coastal populations, there is a lack of empirical research on the integrated flood risks to this population group in the coastal context. This paper provides a holistic assessment of this emerging problem along the U.S. East Coast by measuring the exposure of older population to sea level rise and storm surge in coastal counties. It further evaluates how age-related vulnerabilities differ between rural and urban settings using the case study approach and geospatial and statistical analysis the paper also conducts a review of scientific literature to identify gaps in the current understanding of health and well-being risks to aging populations in coastal communities. The results show that older populations are unevenly distributed along the U.S. East Coast with some states and counties having significantly higher percent of residents age 65 and older living along the shoreline. Many places with larger older populations have other attributes that further shape the vulnerability of this age group such as older housing stock, disabilities, and lower income and that often differ between rural and urban settings. Lastly, our study found that vast majority of research on aging in high-risk coastal locations has been conducted in relation to major disasters and almost none on the recurrent nuisance flooding that is already affecting many coastal communities.