How Do We Build Community Resilience to Disasters in a Changing Climate? A review of interventions to improve and measure public health outcomes in the Northeastern United States

Climate change-related natural disasters, including wildfires and extreme weather events, such as intense storms, floods, and heatwaves, are increasing in frequency and intensity. These events are already profoundly affecting human health in the Northeastern United States and globally, challenging the ability of communities to prepare, respond, and recover. This paper examines the peer-reviewed literature on community resilience interventions and metrics that may apply to the Northeastern region of the United States. The overarching goal of this document is to inform local public health practitioners and planners about the availability of evidence-based strategies to strengthen and measure community resilience to climate change-related disasters. We were interested in metrics that were derived from publicly available data sources and that were developed for use by communities at a local scale, and accessible to more modestly resourced municipalities and county health agencies. We searched the literature for papers describing the strategies employed to increase community resilience and the metrics used to measure resilience as an outcome of those strategies. Specifically, we looked for those strategies or interventions that aimed to meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s standards for building community resilience as part of reaching the United States’ National Preparedness Goal. Our search revealed 205 articles on community resilience in the Northeast: of those, five described evidence-based strategies. This paper discusses the five selected strategies, their applicability at a local public health level, and the metrics used to measure the extent to which community resilience had been strengthened. The paper shares two relevant case studies: 1) in Los Angeles County, to demonstrate the use of metrics in a multi-year community resilience intervention; and 2) in New Hampshire, to show how an intervention emerged through the development of a climate and health adaptation plan. We recommend the COAST project, COPEWELL Rubric for self-assessment, and Ready CDC intervention as examples of strategies that could be adapted by any community engaged in building community resilience

The Lantern Vol. 54, No. 2, Spring 1988

• Burning the Christmas Guests • A Song in Time • I Ask a Question • As If Raggedy Anne • One Man\u27s Escape • Gypsy Caravan • Apartment 14B • The College Inferno • Somewhere Under Manhattan • Trumped • Sunday • In Quest of Creativity • Imperfect Healing • The Game • The Hunger • Peanuts on the Beach • Battlefield Prom • Confessions of the Untrained Eye • Animal Attraction • Street Lamps • Hey, Old Man • In Search of Self-Actualization • Cousin Joe Bob\u27s First Visit to Pulsationshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1132/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, April 16, 1991

Alcohol Policy Changes Discussed • Reimert Fire Breaks Up Sorority Rush: Deliberate or Accidental Still Unknown • Faculty Evaluates Frat Pledges Performance • Economics Conference Held • U.S.G.A. Minutes • Conflict and Creativity: ProTheatre Does it Again • Is Rock and Roll Really Dead? • REM: Out of Time • The Cider House Rules, Revisited • Religious Significance of David • Plaza Suite in Wismer • Jack Spinella Named New Basketball Coach • Men\u27s Track Falls to Hopkins • Men\u27s Lax Goes 1 and 1 This Week • Women Run Over Muhlenberg • Softball Splits • Golf Below Par • Student Input on Alcohol Policy Inadequate • Schafer Demands Opinion • Hold on to Your Key Money? • Letters: Apathy Dialog Proposed; Sorry, Harley; Thanks, Judd!; Weakly not Weekly • The Cutting Edge of Surgery • Electron Microscope to be Purchased With Kresge Grant • Help for Chronic Fatigue Sufferershttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1276/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, March 26, 1991

First Dance Marathon for Leukemia a Success • U.S.G.A. Proposes S.A.C. Reorganization • Student Debate on Use of Force Held • College Fax for Official College Use • Residential Village Centralized • New Materials to Recycle • Financial Aid Update • The Soviets: An Inside Portrait • Communication Arts Career Night • Lange Promoted to Assistant Dean of Continuing Education • 1990 Fall Dean\u27s List • Symposium at Berman • Men\u27s Track Runs Well Despite Conditions • Women\u27s Track Makes a Splash at Greyhound Invitational • Women Win ECAC Title • Men\u27s Lacrosse Upsets Penn State Del. Co. • Women\u27s Lacrosse Hopes for Third NCAA Title • Golf Opens With a Win • Derstine First Swimming All-American • Softball Swings into Season • Men\u27s Tennis Nets Good Results • Letter: Student Apathy, Who Cares! • The New Drugstore: Nature\u27s Pharma-Sea • Don\u27t Can Your Aluminumhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1274/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, March 19, 1991

New U.S.G.A Officers Appointed • Pennsylvania Pro-Life Convention Held • Rare Israeli Exhibition Arrives Safely • Village Idiots Compete at Pitt • Tenure Candidates Approved for Next Year • Alcohol Recovery Group to Start • Seniors Prepare for Graduation • Just Do It -- The Nautilus Connection • Flags: The Collegeville Connection • U.S.G.A Minutes • The Knack is Bnack! • Ursinus Students in Indonesia for a Day • Julian\u27s House • Meistersingers • Talking With Betty Boop • Bowie: Something Old and Something New • City of David at Berman • Men\u27s Lacrosse Club Wins Season Opener • Tennis Teams Begin Season • Five Named to MAC Honor Roll • Softball Starts Season • Baseball World Tour \u2791 • Indoor Track Finishes Season • Letter: On Teaching Catalan • Student Apathy is Growing • Consider Women\u27s Studies Next Semesterhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1273/thumbnail.jp

Rational design and rapid screening of antisense oligonucleotides for prokaryotic gene modulation

Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (oligos) are widely used for functional studies of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes. However, the identification of effective target sites is a major issue in antisense applications. Here, we study a number of thermodynamic and structural parameters that may affect the potency of antisense inhibition. We develop a cell-free assay for rapid oligo screening. This assay is used for measuring the expression of Escherichia coli lacZ, the antisense target for experimental testing and validation. Based on a training set of 18 oligos, we found that structural accessibility predicted by local folding of the target mRNA is the most important predictor for antisense activity. This finding was further confirmed by a direct validation study. In this study, a set of 10 oligos was designed to target accessible sites, and another set of 10 oligos was selected to target inaccessible sites. Seven of the 10 oligos for accessible sites were found to be effective (>50% inhibition), but none of the oligos for inaccessible sites was effective. The difference in the antisense activity between the two sets of oligos was statistically significant. We also found that the predictability of antisense activity by target accessibility was greatly improved for oligos targeted to the regions upstream of the end of the active domain for β-galactosidase, the protein encoded by lacZ. The combination of the structure-based antisense design and extension of the lacZ assay to include gene fusions will be applicable to high-throughput gene functional screening, and to the identification of new drug targets in pathogenic microbes. Design tools are available through the Sfold Web server at

Development of a National Pain Management Competency Profile to Guide Entry-Level Physiotherapy Education in Canada

Background National strategies from North America call for substantive improvements in entry-level pain management education to help reduce the burden of chronic pain. Past work has generated a valuable set of interprofessional pain management competencies to guide the education of future health professionals. However, there has been very limited work that has explored the development of such competencies for individual professions in different regions. Developing profession-specific competencies tailored to the local context is a necessary first step to integrate them within local regulatory systems. Our group is working toward this goal within the context of entry-level physiotherapy (PT) programs across Canada. Aims This study aimed to create a consensus-based competency profile for pain management, specific to the Canadian PT context. Methods A modified Delphi design was used to achieve consensus across Canadian university-based and clinical pain educators. Results Representatives from 14 entry-level PT programs (93% of Canadian programs) and six clinical educators were recruited. After two rounds, a total of 15 competencies reached the predetermined endorsement threshold (75%). Most participants (85%) reported being “very satisfied” with the process. Conclusions This process achieved consensus on a novel pain management competency profile specific to the Canadian PT context. The resulting profile delineates the necessary abilities required by physiotherapists to manage pain upon entry to practice. Participants were very satisfied with the process. This study also contributes to the emerging literature on integrated research in pain management by profiling research methodology that can be used to inform related work in other health professions and regions