Enhancing Weather Hazard Fluency in Northeastern NC
Since the fall of 2021, the team has been collaborating with Albemarle Regional Health Services (ARHS) on weather hazard and health-related projects.
The goals of this partnership include:
assessing the needs of the community
identifying linkages between weather hazards and health stressors (e.g., harmful algal blooms, heat, and drought)
developing a communication and response plan
Key project activities include:
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We have produced and distributed educational materials on harmful algal blooms in order to increase public awareness and promote public reporting of possible algal bloom sightings on the North Carolina Division of Water Resources website.
Materials available for download:
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We have designed and distributed a weather hazard fluency survey among ARHS staff to understand how public health leaders are currently thinking about and incorporating extreme weather preparedness into their work. We will use these survey results to inform a train-the-trainer session this fall so that ARHS staff can serve as trusted messengers to doctors, pharmacists, and other public health officials.
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We created and distributed weather hazard education kits to increase the capacity of local K-12 schools to teach weather and preparadness and to support regional weather hazard literacy.
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We have distributed 25 precipitation gauges to augment environmental monitoring efforts, such as monitoring of mosquito populations, and to engage stakeholders in making precipitation observations. These observers are reporting to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and have increased the density of observations in rural Northeastern North Carolina.
