WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a road map for improving the health and resilience of communities in the Gulf of Mexico, and recommends the U.S. create a national strategy for funding community resilience, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A national effort is also needed to fill critical gaps in regional data that pose a major challenge to the government’s ability to understand and address local needs.  

Social challenges such as the historical burden of health inequities, poverty, limited access to education, and unemployment, combined with repeated natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and the COVID-19 pandemic, have uniquely challenged and stressed communities in the Gulf of Mexico region — and have created disparities in health and resilience compared to other regions of the U.S., says the report.   

Hurricanes and storms not only damage infrastructure but also adversely impact communities’ physical and mental health. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas have all experienced major natural disasters in recent years, and climate change is fueling more frequent, larger, and longer lasting severe weather events. Gulf populations that are historically disadvantaged or marginalized — such as African American and Native people, immigrants, low-income households, and youth — face additional obstacles and worse impacts.  

The report identifies four major roadblocks to progress in health and resilience efforts in the Gulf region:  insufficient financial and human resources reaching communities in need; the failure of current systems to account for structural inequities; incomplete data and resulting lack of understanding of community needs; and the lack of a holistic approach to developing and delivering services and resources to the region.  

“Prioritizing the needs of people living and working in the Gulf of Mexico is key to the success of health and resilience efforts in the region,” said Maureen Lichtveld, chair of the committee that wrote the report and dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. “These communities are the ultimate experts in what they need — sustained progress in community resilience can only be achieved if we build systems and structures tailored to those needs.” 

A National Strategy  

A large-scale national funding strategy should be developed to support health and community resilience in the Gulf region, which should be led by FEMA and the CDC, the report recommends. A successful funding strategy will address the social determinants that impact a community’s overall health, such as education, housing, and financial stability. 

The report says government leadership at the state, federal, and local levels has not ensured that the infrastructure supporting community health and resilience is capable of withstanding disaster, and bottlenecks consistently limit the flow of resources and funding to communities. This is true both for physical infrastructure such as hospitals and transportation, as well as for social systems that undergird health and resilience.  

Meeting financial needs in the Gulf will require collaboration between government and nongovernment entities, the report says. The strategy should include organizational components, such as building the capacity of communities to receive and manage funding from the government, and operational components, such as direct funding to local historically Black colleges and universities and community-based foundations to facilitate their engagement in resilience work. 

The report also recommends state and local governments designate a senior official responsible for health and community resilience efforts, even in cases in which responsibility for those efforts spans multiple offices or agencies. Government should also prioritize public participation, designed around specific community needs and priorities and integrated with existing community resilience activities. 

Critical Data Gaps 

The report says state legislators and agency leaders should prioritize collecting data to inform policy and decision-making. The committee found substantial gaps in the quality and robustness of health data in Gulf states and concluded that improving the incomplete, ineffective, and uncoordinated collection of data on health and resilience in the Gulf is critical for any effort to make improvements. The lack of consistent data limits the ability of government to characterize and address local needs in a meaningful and sustainable way. Data limitations also hamper tracking the progress of ongoing programs, assessing success, and making adjustments, and hinder governance and accountability efforts.  

A national effort is needed to fill these critical data gaps, both in the Gulf and beyond, the report says. The secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should convene HHS agencies and professional organizations to develop and promulgate a national strategy for the collection and use of health and resilience data. 

This data strategy should include a consistent set of standards for collecting community-level health and resilience data; methods for improving quality data collection especially in marginalized communities; best practices for engaging diverse collaborators; and a strategy for supporting data-sharing efforts across federal and state governments.  

The study was funded by the Gulf Research Program, a science-based program founded in 2013 as part of legal settlements with the companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. It seeks to enhance offshore energy system safety and protect human health and the environment by catalyzing advances in science, practice, and capacity to generate long-term benefits for the Gulf of Mexico region and the nation.   

The study was undertaken by the Committee on the Progress Towards Human Health and Community Resilience in the Gulf of Mexico Region. The National Academies are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. 

Contact:
Megan Lowry, Media Relations Manager
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202-334-2138; email news@nas.edu