Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement: Urban Environmental Geography, Public Health, and Pest Animals in US Cities, 1850-Present

近年来，生态学家和环境政策制定者对城市生态系统越来越感兴趣，其中社会和自然系统的界面对改革工作提出了独特的挑战。探索这些相互作用的一个肥沃领域是被认定为“害虫”的动物与生活与它们纠缠在一起的人类之间复杂而不断变化的关系。有害动物与多种健康风险有关，其中包括从斑疹伤寒到西尼罗病毒等传染病，接触用于控制害虫的杀虫剂，以及室内过敏原，如节肢动物粪便。该项目将研究贫困、自然环境和害虫控制策略如何塑造1850年至今美国城市人类与害虫相互作用的历史地理。主要目的是解释城市有害动物的分布；评估过去对有害生物问题的干预措施的效果；并展示社区如何应对与害虫问题相关的政治挑战。人口和卫生数据的空间分析将显示贫穷、住房和城市发展如何影响害虫种群的分布。研究人员将分析档案资料、过去的科学研究和访谈，以重建害虫控制计划，并根据城市生态系统和流行病学了解它们是如何失败或成功的。这项研究还将在人们对环境和城市动物态度转变的背景下，追踪有关害虫控制的想法。这项研究将揭示政治争议如何影响害虫数量高的社区；初步调查结果表明，社区已经抵制了虫害的空间耻辱，并且在实施虫害防治措施方面面临困难。初步结果还表明，低收入的城市内社区和郊区边缘地区都经历了意想不到的生态后果，例如，在本世纪中叶的城市更新地点和今天的细分区域周围，害虫种群的增长，以及在努力防止害虫传播疾病的过程中暴露于有毒杀虫剂。对人类社区、城市自然环境和城市野生动物种群之间的历史关系的分析将有助于解释当前的城市环境和健康问题。通过追踪公共、私人、科学和激进机构过去应对害虫的失败、不公正和成功，研究人员将能够为当今保护城市社区免受害虫相关疾病侵害的努力提供信息。该项目还对目前在城市中培育健康生态系统的努力具有启示意义：城市动物和新出现的疾病媒介对城市生态计划提出了伦理和实践上的挑战，本项目将研究过去，作为解决这些问题的指导。

Ecologists and environmental policymakers have in recent years become increasingly interested in urban ecosystems, where the interface of social and natural systems poses unique challenges for reform efforts. One fertile domain for exploring these interactions is the complex and changing relationship between animals identified as "pests" and the human beings whose lives are entangled with them. Pest animals have been implicated in many kinds of health risks, among them infectious diseases ranging from typhus to West Nile virus, exposure to pesticides used to control vermin, and indoor allergens such as arthropod feces. This project will examine how poverty, the physical environment, and pest control strategies have shaped the historical geography of human-pest interactions in US cities from 1850 to the present. The main objectives are to explain distributions of urban pest animals; to assess the effects of past interventions in pest problems; and to show how communities navigated political challenges related to pest problems. Spatial analysis of demographic and health data will show how poverty, housing, and urban development influenced the distribution of pest populations. The researchers will analyze archival materials, past scientific research, and interviews to reconstruct pest control programs and understand how they failed or succeeded with reference to urban ecosystems and epidemiology. The study will also trace ideas about pest control in the context of shifting attitudes toward the environment and urban animals. The study will reveal how political controversies affected neighborhoods with high pest populations; preliminary findings show that communities have resisted the spatial stigma of infestation, and have faced difficulties implementing preventive approaches to pest control. Initial results also suggest that both low-income, inner-city communities and suburban fringe areas have experienced the ecology of unintended consequences, for example the growth of pest populations at urban renewal sites mid-century and around subdivisions today, and exposure to toxic pesticides in the course of efforts to protect against pest-borne illness. The analysis of historical relationships among human communities, the urban physical environment, and populations of urban wildlife will help to explain current urban environmental and health problems. By tracing failures, injustices, and successes in past responses to vermin by public, private, scientific, and activist institutions, the researchers will be able to inform present-day efforts to protect urban communities from pest-related disease. The project also bears implications for current efforts to cultivate healthy ecological systems in cities: urban animals and emerging disease vectors pose both ethical and practical challenges for urban ecology programs, and this project will examine the past as a guide to addressing these problems.