Desastres naturais: convivência com o risco

Estudos sobre riscos de desastres naturais têm-se aprimorado de uma abordagem fisicalista para uma perspectiva socioambiental. No entanto, planejamento e gestão ainda seguem o paradigma antropocêntrico da superioridade humana e do poder ilimitado da ciência e tecnologia. Evidencia-se uma incapacidade cognitiva, cultural e de ação por parte de especialistas, científicos e tomadores de decisão (claimmakers) para identificar e atuar sobre as causas sociais da produção de risco. Frente a uma ciência cartesiana e positivista na resolução de problemas, baseada na segurança e controle sobre o mundo natural, propõe-se uma ciência pós-normal que considera os riscos e incertezas do conhecimento científico e das problemáticas ambientais. Essa nova proposta também incide sobre a participação e o diálogo entre stakeholders como referência para ampliar a qualidade do saber científico e o entendimento da complexidade das questões ambientais. Este artigo discute a necessidade de se promover um salto epistemológico sobre a forma de pensar e produzir conhecimentos, bem como implementar a gestão dos riscos de desastres, tendo como objeto de estudo processos de comunicação e educação para prevenção de desastres.Studies on the risks of natural disasters have improved from a physicalist approach to a social and environmental perspective. However, planning and management still follow the anthropocentric paradigm of human superiority and the unlimited power of science and technology, evincing a cognitive, cultural and action inability on the part of experts, scientists and decision makers (or, rather, claim makers) to identify and act upon the social causes of risk production. In view of the Cartesian and Positivist science used to solve problems, based on security and on control over the natural world, a post-normal science has been proposed that considers the risks and uncertainties of scientific knowledge and environmental issues. This new approach encompasses participation and dialogue among stakeholders as a means to increase the quality of scientific knowledge and acknowledge the complexity of environmental issues. This article discusses the need for an epistemological leap on how we think and produce knowledge, as well as for implementing the management of disaster risk. Its objects of study are communication processes and education for disaster prevention

Agenda Nacional de Prioridades na Pesquisa em Saúde no Brasil (ANPPS): foco na subagenda 18 – Promoção da Saúde

A Agenda Nacional de Prioridades de Pesquisa em Saúde tem como pressuposto “respeitar as necessidades nacionais e regionais de saúde e aumentar a indução seletiva para a produção de conhecimentos...” A ANPPS está composta por 24 subagendas de pesquisa em saúde. O presente artigo narra o processo desenvolvido em 2010 para revisar a ANPPS publicada em 2006 no que concerne à subagenda 18 – Promoção da Saúde. Os resultados do processo de priorização são narrados de maneira incremental, buscando mostrar os passos trilhados por meio do relato dos fatos, acontecimentos e diálogos efetuados entre pesquisadores e gestores. Oitenta e seis pessoas foram convidadas a participar, das quais 34 pessoas não responderam e 52 aceitaram o convite e participaram. Foram desenvolvidos dez passos para o processo de priorização, sendo definidos cinco eixos temáticos e 34 linhas de pesquisa e 10 prioridades foram definidas. São analisadas as consequências em curto, médio e longo prazo desse processo de priorização

Openness in participation, assessment, and policy making upon issues of environment and environmental health: a review of literature and recent project results

Issues of environment and environmental health involve multiple interests regarding e.g. political, societal, economical, and public concerns represented by different kinds of organizations and individuals. Not surprisingly, stakeholder and public participation has become a major issue in environmental and environmental health policy and assessment. The need for participation has been discussed and reasoned by many, including environmental legislators around the world. In principle, participation is generally considered as desirable and the focus of most scholars and practitioners is on carrying out participation, and making participation more effective. In practice also doubts regarding the effectiveness and importance of participation exist among policy makers, assessors, and public, leading even to undermining participatory practices in policy making and assessment

A Randomized Trial of Convalescent Plasma in Covid-19 Severe Pneumonia

BACKGROUND:Convalescent plasma is frequently administered to patients with Covid-19 and hasbeen reported, largely on the basis of observational data, to improve clinical outcomes.Minimal data are available from adequately powered randomized, controlled trials. METHODS:We randomly assigned hospitalized adult patients with severe Covid-19 pneumoniain a 2:1 ratio to receive convalescent plasma or placebo. The primary outcome wasthe patient?s clinical status 30 days after the intervention, as measured on a six-pointordinal scale ranging from total recovery to death. RESULTS:A total of 228 patients were assigned to receive convalescent plasma and 105 toreceive placebo. The median time from the onset of symptoms to enrollment inthe trial was 8 days (interquartile range, 5 to 10), and hypoxemia was the mostfrequent severity criterion for enrollment. The infused convalescent plasma had amedian titer of 1:3200 of total SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (interquartile range, 1:800 to1:3200]. No patients were lost to follow-up. At day 30 day, no significant differencewas noted between the convalescent plasma group and the placebo group in thedistribution of clinical outcomes according to the ordinal scale (odds ratio, 0.83(95% confidence interval [CI], 0.52 to 1.35; P=0.46). Overall mortality was 10.96%in the convalescent plasma group and 11.43% in the placebo group, for a risk difference of −0.46 percentage points (95% CI, −7.8 to 6.8). Total SARS-CoV-2 antibodytiters tended to be higher in the convalescent plasma group at day 2 after the intervention. Adverse events and serious adverse events were similar in the two groups. CONCLUSIONS:no significant differences were observed in clinical status or overall mortality between patients treated with convalescent plasma and those who received placebo.(PlasmAr ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04383535.)Fil: Simonovich, Ventura A.. Hospital Italiano. Departamento de Medicina. Servicio de Clinica Medica.; ArgentinaFil: Burgos Pratx, Leandro D.. Hospital Italiano. Departamento de Medicina. Servicio de Clinica Medica.; ArgentinaFil: Scibona, Paula. Hospital Italiano. Departamento de Medicina. Servicio de Clinica Medica.; ArgentinaFil: Beruto, Maria Valeria. No especifíca;Fil: Vallone, Miguel Gabriel. No especifíca;Fil: Vázquez, C.. No especifíca;Fil: Savoy, N.. No especifíca;Fil: Giunta, Diego Hernan. No especifíca;Fil: Pérez, L.G.. No especifíca;Fil: Sánchez, M.L.. No especifíca;Fil: Gamarnik, Andrea Vanesa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Ojeda, D.S.. No especifíca;Fil: Santoro, D.M.. No especifíca;Fil: Camino, P. J.. No especifíca;Fil: Antelo, S.. No especifíca;Fil: Rainero, K.. No especifíca;Fil: Vidiella, G. P.. No especifíca;Fil: Miyazaki, E. A.. No especifíca;Fil: Cornistein, W.. No especifíca;Fil: Trabadelo, O. A.. No especifíca;Fil: Ross, F. M.. No especifíca;Fil: Spotti, M.. No especifíca;Fil: Funtowicz, G.. No especifíca;Fil: Scordo, W. E.. No especifíca;Fil: Losso, M. H.. No especifíca;Fil: Ferniot, I.. No especifíca;Fil: Pardo, P. E.. No especifíca;Fil: Rodriguez, E.. No especifíca;Fil: Rucci, P.. No especifíca;Fil: Pasquali, J.. No especifíca;Fil: Fuentes, N. A.. No especifíca;Fil: Esperatti, M.. No especifíca;Fil: Speroni, G. A.. No especifíca;Fil: Nannini, Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Matteaccio, A.. No especifíca;Fil: Michelangelo, H.G.. No especifíca;Fil: Follmann, D.. No especifíca;Fil: Lane, H. Clifford. No especifíca;Fil: Belloso, Waldo Horacio. Hospital Italiano. Departamento de Medicina. Servicio de Clinica Medica.; Argentin

Socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptation to environmental risk: A case study of climate change and flooding in Bangladesh

In this article we investigate the complex relationship between environmental risk, poverty, and vulnerability in a case study carried out in one of the poorest and most flood-prone countries in the world, focusing on household and community vulnerability and adaptive coping mechanisms. Based upon the steadily growing amount of literature in this field we develop and test our own analytical model. In a large-scale household survey carried out in southeast Bangladesh, we ask almost 700 floodplain residents living without any flood protection along the River Meghna about their flood risk exposure, flood problems, flood damage, and coping mechanisms. Novel in our study is the explicit testing of the effectiveness of adaptive coping strategies to reduce flood damage costs. We show that, households with lower income and less access to productive natural assets face higher exposure to risk of flooding. Disparity in income and asset distribution at community level furthermore tends to be higher at higher risk exposure levels, implying that individually vulnerable households are also collectively more vulnerable. Regarding the identification of coping mechanisms to deal with flood events, we look at both the ex ante household level preparedness for flood events and the ex post availability of community-level support and disaster relief. We find somewhat paradoxically that the people that face the highest risk of flooding are the least well prepared, both in terms of household-level ex ante preparedness and community-level ex post flood relief. © 2007 Society for Risk Analysis

Marginality: Addressing the Root Causes of Extreme Poverty

The need to address extreme poverty from the perspective of marginality arises from the frustration that the number of the poorest and hungry remains unacceptably high. This triggered the call for an innovative approach from the side of science and action. The conceptual and analytical framework developed here views marginality as a root cause of extreme poverty. We define marginality as an involuntary position and condition of an individual or group at the edge of social, economic, and ecological systems, preventing the access to resources, assets, services, restraining freedom of choice, preventing the development of capabilities, and causing extreme poverty. Causal complexes tie the marginalized poor in systems from which they want to escape or in which they want to improve their lives. The rural and agricultural context is of particular relevance here, as we assume that large segments of the extreme poor live in rural areas. The poorest themselves have described their situation, for instance, as being trapped in a 'complex knot which can lead to further knots if the wrong threads are pulled.' While poverty is objectively a matter of absolute deficiencies, we explain why the way in which poverty is perceived by the poor themselves requires looking at poverty as a relative, subjective, dynamic and systemic phenomenon. We conceptualize marginality as patterns of causal complexes in societal and spatial dimensions. These causal complexes can, for instance, comprise different types of livelihood systems or different types of poverty traps. They include proximate as well as underlying causes of extreme poverty and specifically address social exclusion, restrained access to assets, opportunities and transport, communication and public services infrastructure. An analytical framework is developed, outlining the various steps required for the analysis of marginality in a systematic, re]iterative and participatory manner, involving those affected by extreme poverty themselves. From each causal complex of marginality, leverage points can be identified which match with specific intervention packages, relevant for livelihood management, policy formulation and implementation. The approach to the investigation of extreme poverty is applied and relevant for managing change towards inclusive development. Points of entry for public and private investments are being identified

Citizen science breathes new life into participatory agricultural research : A review

Participatory research can improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and scope of research processes, and foster social inclusion, empowerment and sustainability. Yet despite four decades of agricultural research institutions exploring and developing methods for participatory research, it has never become mainstream in the agricultural technology development cycle. Citizen science promises an innovative approach to participation in research, using the unique facilities of new digital technologies, but its potential in agricultural research participation has not been systematically probed. To this end, we conducted a critical literature review. We found that citizen science opens up four opportunities for creatively reshaping research: i) new possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration, ii) rethinking configurations of socio-computational systems, iii) research on democratization of science more broadly, and iv) new accountabilities. Citizen science also brings a fresh perspective on the barriers to institutionalizing participation in the agricultural sciences. Specifically, we show how citizen science can reconfigure cost-motivation-accountability combinations using digital tools, open up a larger conceptual space of experimentation, and stimulate new collaborations. With appropriate and persistent institutional support and investment, citizen science can therefore have a lasting impact on how agricultural science engages with farming communities and wider society, and more fully realize the promises of participation

Storylines: an alternative approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change

As climate change research becomes increasingly applied, the need for actionable information is growing rapidly. A key aspect of this requirement is the representation of uncertainties. The conventional approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change is probabilistic, based on ensembles of climate model simulations. In the face of deep uncertainties, the known limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent. An alternative is thus emerging which may be called a ‘storyline’ approach. We define a storyline as a physically self-consistent unfolding of past events, or of plausible future events or pathways. No a priori probability of the storyline is assessed; emphasis is placed instead on understanding the driving factors involved, and the plausibility of those factors. We introduce a typology of four reasons for using storylines to represent uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change: (i) improving risk awareness by framing risk in an event-oriented rather than a probabilistic manner, which corresponds more directly to how people perceive and respond to risk; (ii) strengthening decision-making by allowing one to work backward from a particular vulnerability or decision point, combining climate change information with other relevant factors to address compound risk and develop appropriate stress tests; (iii) providing a physical basis for partitioning uncertainty, thereby allowing the use of more credible regional models in a conditioned manner and (iv) exploring the boundaries of plausibility, thereby guarding against false precision and surprise. Storylines also offer a powerful way of linking physical with human aspects of climate change