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Systemic Trends in Disaster Vulnerability: Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers in North Carolina
Author(s) -
Montz Burrell E,
Allen Thomas R,
Monitz Gary I
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
risk, hazards and crisis in public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.634
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 1944-4079
DOI - 10.2202/1944-4079.1070
Subject(s) - vulnerability (computing) , work (physics) , globe , geography , natural disaster , social vulnerability , population , geocoding , emergency management , socioeconomics , economic growth , environmental planning , business , political science , sociology , psychological resilience , demography , engineering , medicine , computer security , psychology , economics , cartography , mechanical engineering , meteorology , computer science , ophthalmology , psychotherapist
Although researchers from a number of disciplines have long recognized that marginalized groups are at increased risk to the impacts of disasters, it took Hurricane Katrina to bring this to the forefront of policy discussions. An equally insidious problem exists among migrant and seasonal farm workers (MSFWs), yet there is very little work on the nature and range of their vulnerability. In North Carolina, more than ninety per cent of MSFWs are Latino, with the rest being mostly African‐American males. These individuals are particularly vulnerable because of the nature of their work, the poor housing in which they live, and the lack of access to social networks, among other factors. The magnitude of the problem depends on the locations of fields and housing in hazardous areas. Utilizing GIS and Google Earth virtual globe, registered migrant worker camps are mapped using address geocoding with respect to several natural hazards. The results of this work illustrate a compelling need for emergency management to focus on the needs of MSFWs when an event is impending and for policy‐makers to address the factors that put this segment of the population that is so critical to the agricultural economy at such high risk.