Factors determining vulnerability to diarrhoea during and after severe floods in Bangladesh

This paper identifies groups vulnerable to the effect of flooding on hospital visits due to diarrhoea during and after a flood event in 1998 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The number of observed cases of cholera and non-cholera diarrhoea per week was compared to expected normal numbers during the flood and post-flood periods, obtained as the season-specific average over the two preceding and subsequent years using Poisson generalised linear models. The expected number of diarrhoea cases was estimated in separate models for each category of potential modifying factors: sex, age, socio-economic status and hygiene and sanitation practices. During the flood, the number of cholera and non-cholera diarrhoea cases was almost six and two times higher than expected, respectively. In the post-flood period, the risk of non-cholera diarrhoea was significantly higher for those with lower educational level, living in a household with a nonconcrete roof, drinking tube-well water (vs. tap water), using a distant water source and unsanitary toilets. The risk for cholera was significantly higher for those drinking tube-well water and those using unsanitary toilets. This study confirms that low socio-economic groups and poor hygiene and sanitation groups were most vulnerable to flood-related diarrhoea.

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NEA – Sampling and Data presentation

No doubt you have by now spent considerable time considering the different methods you will use to collect data. This is valuable and important as methods are the salient factor in determining the accuracy of the data and subsequent conclusion therefore weaknesses in the methods reduce the certainty of the conclusions. The blog post here looks at some techniques you may wish to use to present your data amongst other important pieces of information. There are also further pieces of information to be found below: Barcelona Field Studies Centre Field studies council General data presentation

Alaska’s top-heavy glaciers are approaching an irreversible tipping point

The melting of one of North America’s largest icefields has accelerated and could soon reach an irreversible tipping point. That’s the conclusion of new research colleagues and I have published on the Juneau Icefield, which straddles the Alaska-Canada border near the Alaskan capital of Juneau. In the summer of 2022, I skied across the flat, smooth and white plateau of the icefield, accompanied by other researchers , sliding in the tracks of the person in front of me under a hot sun. From that plateau, around 40 huge, interconnected glaciers descend towards the sea, with hundreds of smaller glaciers on the mountain peaks all around. Read the full article here!

Carbon catch-22 : the pollution in our soil Bad behaviour doesn’t usually have good consequences but our fossil fuel and fertiliser habits may have had some “good” environmental side-effects. Our new research suggests that the last 200 years of pollution have increased the carbon stored in soils across natural ecosystems in Britain. And this locking in of carbon in soils provides an offset for some of our carbon emissions. But the catch-22 is if we kick our polluting habits, this carbon is at risk of returning to our atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Read the rest of the article here!

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