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Children and families vulnerable to asthma

Cattle ranchers

CALTrans

Almond farmers

NOAA

EPA

SJV Air Pollution Control

Kern River Oil Field

Central California Asthma Collaborative

 Teve Brown of NOAA said the valley suffers from cows + cards. At Harris Ranch a large industrial cattle farm trucks drive 6,000miles/day for 60 loads of feed producing nitrogen oxides (NOx). NOx combines with the ammonia from cow manure and urine to from ammonium nitrate which accounts for more that 1/2 of the areas most polluted days of PM2.5.

In addition, Interstate is a major thorough bringing more traffic pollution and farming practices including nitrogen fertilizer contributes 1/3 of NOx in California air.  The SJV also holds 9000 oil wells and because all the light oil has been drilled, the current production is described as the "thickest, dirtiest petroleum" in the nation.

Intersecting factors: landscape (bowl shape of the Valley); economic (agriculture that contributes to PM2.5); transportation corridor that add more traffic pollution; and state-wide wildfires that bring more particulate pollution which is trapped; and political environment in which area elects representatives  (ex: Devin Nunes) who deny global warming and reject environmental protection.

Air pollution--the result of cows+cars--is the focus of this multimedia article. One in six children in the SJV suggest from asthma. It is estimated that air pollution costs SJV as much as $11 billion annually the result of emergency room visits, lost school days, and other public health impacts.

The setting for this article is the San Joaquin Valley which encompasses 2/3rds of the Central Valley CA. Because of it's fertle farmland, it supplies 1/4 of the food to "American plates."

In terms of setting, like other valley's in CA (ex: San Gabriel Valley) and the whole LA Basin, the SJV's bowl-like landscape (mountain ranges on 3-sides) results in temperature inversion that traps smo closer to the ground during Wintertime.

This study sought to establish the prevelance and corelation of intimate partner violance victimization in the six months before and after Hurricane Katrina. The studies conducted showed the following results:

The percentage of women reporting psychological victimization increased from 33.6% to 45.2 %.

The percentage of men reporting psychological victimization increased from 36.7% to 43.1%

Reports of physical victimization increased from 4.2% to 8.3% for women, but were unchanged for men.

The studies also showed that various socioeconomic standings from before the storm had significant impacts on how intimate partner violance increased after the storm.

This article was published throught the National Institute of Public Health's Public Access database. The NIH makes all of the peer reviewed articles and studies that it funds available to the public on this platform "to advance science and improve public health." 

The data for this study were collected as part of a larger, population-based, representative study of persons living in the 23 southernmost counties of Mississippi prior to Hurricane Katrina. This is not a new or inventive way of studying this issue, as a representitive study of a population is one of the classic ways social research is conducted.

According to Google Scholar, this study has been cited 21 times in various papers on the topics of mental health in the face of disaster and studies on domestic violance.

Data from this study could be an indicator to public health officials of a new, possibly overlooked, aspect to health in the aftermath of a major disasterm and could be used to create new programs or policies to combat this in the future.

This study is primarily about vulnerable populations, showing that in areas where people have been effected by major disasters, domestic violance increases, especially in households with lower overall socioeconomic status.