Speaker: Robbie M. Parks, PhD

Robbie M. Parks, PhD
Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University

Title: G-TROPIC Network: A Tropical Cyclone Network for International Health and Resilience

Overview: In much of the tropics worldwide, tropical cyclones, such as hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical storms, have a devastating impact on the economy, environment, and human health. Trends in more active recent hurricane seasons, and stronger longer-lasting hurricanes indicate that tropical cyclone exposure is and will remain an important public health concern. However, beyond some recent studies, there remains a critical research gap in understanding the full extent of the impact of tropical cyclones on health, especially in countries where the impacts of tropical cyclones are the greatest. Here, I will highlight important new case studies emerging from G-TROPIC on the wide-varying and long-lasting impacts of tropical cyclones on health outcomes in several locations throughout the world. Each presentation will provide insights from a range of countries including Madagascar, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, the United States, and worldwide, and focus on the wide-ranging impacts of each on mental and physical health, and developmental outcomes. This talk will reveal and discuss critically important insights into the scope of health impacts from tropical cyclones. We aim to provide the audience with a better understanding of these health impacts, as well as potential pathways to resilience.

Location: 1311 Blockley & Zoom 

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