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“Since asthma surveillance data were not available at the census tract level for most of Louisiana, we estimated asthma burden using the inpatient discharge data available through LDH.”  (4)

“Case counts are not provided for CTs with a 2018 population of less than 800 to safeguard privacy.” (4)

“To minimize the need for suppression, inpatient discharge data was aggregated for the three most recent years available (2017–2019) and average annual crude rates were calculated for cases where asthma (ICD-10 code J45) was the primary diagnosis, as well as where asthma was any diagnosis.” (4)

“Spearman’s Rank Correlation was utilized to analyze the correlation between various social and environmental vulnerability factors, COVID-19 incidence, and the measures of asthma risk by CT.” (4)

“This was performed by first ranking the values in each dataset using RANK.AVG function in MS Excel 2016, followed by applying the PEARSON function to compare two datasets. Significance was set at alpha less than 0.05 (α < 0.05), with degrees of freedom (df) equal to two less than the total number of data points represented in both datasets” (4)

The research team works for the Section of Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology, Office of Public Health, Louisiana Department of Health in Baton Rouge. Team members included Arundhati Bakshi; Shanon Soileau; Collete Stewart; Kate Friedman; Collete Maser; Alexis Williams; Kathleen Aubin; and Alicia Van Doren. 

“Currently, much of the environmental focus of the pandemic remains on PM2.5 levels; however, we noted that higher levels of ozone was consistently associated with higher incidence rates of COVID-19, and it was the only environmental factor that appeared to have an additive effect over SVI on COVID-19 incidence (Fig 1).” (11)

“Specifically, our data show a moderately strong positive correlation between SVI due to minority status/language barrier and three health data variables: asthma hospitalization; estimated asthma prevalence; and cumulative COVID-19 incidence at 3 months (Table 2). Interestingly, SVI measures were either negatively or not significantly correlated COVID-19 incidence at the 9-and 12-month time points, indicating that social vulnerability factors may have played a greater role in COVID-19 spread early in the pandemic, but may have been of diminishing importance as the pandemic wore on (Fig 1 and Table 2).” (9)

Bakshi A, Van Doren A, Maser C, Aubin K, Stewart C, Soileau S, et al. (2022) Identifying Louisiana communities at the crossroads of environmental and social vulnerability, COVID-19, and asthma. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0264336. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264336. 

This document uses data resources from the Center for Disease Control/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

These data resources include the Social Vulnerability Index (2018 - CDC/ATSDR), the NATA Respiratory Hazard Index (EPA 2014), PM2.5level (average annual concentration in ug/m3, EPA 2016), ozone level (summer seasonal average of daily maximum 8-hour concentration in air in parts per billion, EPA 2016), indoor mold concerns reported to IEQES program (average annual number of calls, LDH 2017-2019), cumulative COVID-19 incidence rate at 3-, 6-, 9- and 12-month increments (LDH March 2020 - March 2021), asthma hospitalization (average annual crude rate, where asthma was a primary diagnosis among hospitalization cases, LDH 2017-2019), and estimated asthma prevalence (average annual crude rate, where asthma was any diagnosis among hospitalization cases, LDH 2017-2019).

This policy applies to any persons who are considered refugees. Because this was after the Second World War, it was at first limited to people fleeing within Europe. Since then, its scope has widened and applies to people fleeing persecution and can be used today with respect to the current refugee problem. 

This policy was drafted by the United Nations. 26 countries and/or states were represented during this convention, including: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, US, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. Cuba and Iran were also represented. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees participated, but was not given the right to vote on the matter. The International Labor Organization and the International Refugee Organization were also represented. Other NGOs were present as well. 

This policy is in reference to refugees seeking political asylum. Its initial aim was to define what a refugee is and outline how they should be treated and accepted. They acknowledge the problems relating to refugee travels and documents needed, problems regarding keeping family units together, as this is an essential right of a refugee. They also mention that refugees are a vulnerable group, and as such, require some degree of welfare services. They stress the importance of international cooperation and understanding that refugees need protection. Finally, they outline the treatment of refugees. This is an extensive document and policy, containing 46 Articles.  

The convention in 1951 was a response to WW2 and the vast amounts of refugees that existed as a result. States involved in the convention and the UN could decide to apply it to refugees not necessarily from WW2, but in 1967, the limits were removed and made it so that it could apply to any refugees, not just those from WW2. It has since been used during major refugee crises in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. 

While this policy doesn't directly address public health, it does concern the rights and protection of displaced persons. They recognize the stressful situations that refugees are in and that welfare resources will be needed to help them. They discuss housing rights and rights to public education. While these might not be medical treatments, they would help with public health and are associated with overall well-being of these refugees. 

The entirety of this document illustrates how vulnerable refugees are. They define refugee to be someone who has been persecuted for reasons of "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." They discuss the fear that refugees feel and that they should be treated favorably, sympathetically, and like other citizens of the contracting state. 

I can't find anything about how it was received back in the day, but with the current refugee problem facing the world, there is dispute about how to treat refugees and other immigration issues. Rhetoric used to describe refugees - especially those from Syria - has caused a lot of xenophobia around the world and various problems regarding immigration.