From Space to Front Porch

Connecting Earth Observations to Health Outcomes with An Environmental Exposure Modeling System

Funded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Applied Sciences Program Grant #80NSSC18K1594.

How does weather (and climate) affect human health? Every year, we are seeing increasingly harsher weather, including bigger and more frequent hurricanes, stronger heatwaves, wildfires, and more. Are some people more vulnerable than others? How do geography, the built environment, and human activity patterns affect vulnerability? In this project, developed a prototype system to enhance the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index, which identifies vulnerable communities following disasters to improve health hazard mitigation planning. This system incorporates estimates of rainfall, temperature, power outages, and flood water derived from GPM, MODIS, VIIRS, and the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellite, while utilizing health outcomes in greater Houston from pre- and post- Hurricane Harvey as a case study. A synthetic population constructed from multiple data sources is used to model the effects of mobility and time-varying exposures. Working with project partners at CDC and the Houston Health Department, results from this work demonstrate the utility of Earth observation data and population modeling for emergency management decisions.

Team

Julia Gohlke, Virginia Tech
Benjamin Zaitchik, Johns Hopkins University
Samarth Swarup, University of Virginia
Meredith Jagger, Independent Consultant
Elaine Hallisey, CDC GRASP
Danielle Sharpe, CDC GRASP
John Fleming, Houston Health Department
Biru Yang, Houston Health Department

Students

Balaji Ramesh, Virginia Tech
Bianca Corpuz, Johns Hopkins University
Lauren Deanes, Johns Hopkins University
Anna Brower, University of Virginia

Data Products

A Dynamic Social Vulnerability Index generated from a synthetic population.

Publications

Flooding and emergency department visits: Effect modification by the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A. Jagger, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Korine N. Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Lauren Deanes, Elaine J. Hallisey, J. Danielle Sharpe, Julia M. Gohlke
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 76, 102986, 2022.
Estimating changes in emergency department visits associated with floods caused by Tropical Storm Imelda using satellite observations and syndromic surveillance
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A Jagger, Benjamin F Zaitchik, Korine N Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Biru Yang, Bianca Corpuz, Julia M Gohlke
Health and Place 74, 102757, March 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102757
Incorporating Fairness in Large-scale Evacuation Planning
Kazi Ashik Islam, Da Qi Chen, Madhav Marathe, Henning Mortveit, Samarth Swarup and Anil Kumar Vullikanti
Proceedings of the Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), 2022.
Data-driven Agent-based Models for Optimal Evacuation of Large Metropolitan Areas for Improved Disaster Planning (Extended Abstract) (pdf)
Kazi Ashik Islam, Madhav Marathe, Henning Mortveit, Samarth Swarup, Anil Vullikanti
Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Virtual, 2022.
Emergency Department Visits Associated with Satellite-observed Flooding During and Following Hurricane Harvey (online)
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A. Jagger, Benjamin Zaitchik, Korine N. Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Lauren Deanes, Julia Gohlke
Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology 31, 832-841, 2021.
Improved Travel Demand Modeling with Synthetic Populations (pdf)
Kaidi Wang, Wenwen Zhang, Henning Mortveit, Samarth Swarup
In, Swarup, S.; Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (Eds.), Multi-Agent-Based Simulation XXI, 94-105, Springer International Publishing, 2021.
On the Use of Synthetic Populations to Assess Health Risks of Complex Disasters (pdf)
Samarth Swarup, Julia M. Gohlke, James R. Bohland
In, James M. Shultz and Andreas Rechkemmer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Complex Disaster Risks and Resilience, Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190466145.013.7, Online Dec 2020.
Creating Realistic Power Distribution Networks Using Interdependent Road Infrastructure (pdf)
Rounak Meyur, Madhav Marathe, Anil Vullikanti, Henning Mortveit, Samarth Swarup, Virgilio Centeno, Arun Phadke
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Dec 10-13, 2020 (Virtual conference).
A Simulation-based Approach for Large-scale Evacuation Planning (pdf)
Kazi Ashik Islam, Madhav V. Marathe, Henning S. Mortveit, Samarth Swarup, Anil K. S. Vullikanti
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Dec 10-13, 2020 (Virtual conference).
Model Thinking: An Approach for Coping with an Increasingly Complex World (pdf)
Saikou Diallo, Samarth Swarup
Proceedings of the Spring Simulation Conference (SpringSim), Fairfax, VA, USA, May 19-21, 2020.
Live Simulations (pdf)
Samarth Swarup and Henning Mortveit
Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Auckland, NZ, May 2020.
Honorable Mention for the Blue Sky Ideas best paper award.
A Behavior-Based Population Tracker Can Parse Aggregate Measurements to Differentiate Agents
Jason Rife, Samarth Swarup, Nasim Uddin
Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security (IEEE HST), Woburn, MA, USA, Nov 5 - 6, 2019.

Presentations

Agent-based Simulations for Disaster Preparedness
Samarth Swarup
Invited talk at the Center for Complex Systems Studies, Utrecht University, Mar 24, 2022.
Healthcare visits during and following flooding events using satellite-derived inundation data to estimate exposure (pdf)
Julia M. Gohlke, Balaji Ramesh, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Samarth Swarup
102nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Jan 2022.
Comparison of health symptoms associated with flooding estimated using remotely sensed flood exposure to self-reported home flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey (pdf)
Balaji Ramesh, Rashida Callender, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Samarth Swarup, Julia M. Gohlke
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, Dec 2021.
Use of syndromic surveillance and satellite observations in assessing the health risks associated with flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda (pdf)
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A Jagger, Benjamin F Zaitchik, Korine N Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Bianca Corpuz, Biru Yang, Julia M Gohlke
The APHA Annual Meeting, Denver and Online, Oct 24-27, 2021.
Multiscale Data Integration and Modeling for Understanding Vulnerability During Disasters (pdf)
Anna Brower, Julia Gohlke, Benjamin Zaitchik, Samarth Swarup
The Workshop on Agent-Based Modeling of Urban Systems (ABMUS), held in conjunction with AAMAS, Virtual, May 2021.
Estimating health risks associated with flooding using earth observations and the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (pdf)
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A Jagger, Benjamin F Zaitchik, Korine N Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Lauren Deanes, Elaine Hallisey, Danielle Sharpe, Julia M Gohlke
The Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Virtual, April 7-11, 2021.
Combining the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) with Earth Observations to Explain Social Outcomes from Four Major U.S. Hurricanes (pdf)
Lauren N. Deanes, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Balaji Ramesh, Samarth Swarup, Elaine Hallisey, Danielle Sharpe, and Julia M. Gohlke
101st American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Virtual, Jan 2021.
Leveraging earth observations for estimating health risks associated with flooding precipitated by heavy rains (pdf)
Balaji Ramesh, Meredith A. Jagger, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Lauren Deanes, Korine N. Kolivras, Samarth Swarup, Julia M. Gohlke
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, Dec 2020.
Presentation available through: Earth and Space Science Open Archive, 22, 2021. DOI: 10.1002/essoar.10506831.1
Evidence of association between flooding during and following Hurricane Harvey and reported illness (pdf)
Balaji Ramesh, Benjamin F Zaitchik, Lauren Deanes, Samarth Swarup, Julia M Gohlke
The 32nd Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, August 2020.
Combining the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) with Earth Observations to predict social outcomes from an extreme weather event: a study of Hurricane Harvey (pdf)
Lauren N. Deanes, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Samarth Swarup, Danielle Sharpe, Elaine Hallisey, Julia M. Gohlke
100th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA, Jan 2020.