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ISC experts share their thoughts on current innovation, insights, and thought leadership on important industry topics and corporate responsibility.
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ISC Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy
4/29/2021
Mr. Clance Cook is an Emergency Preparedness Coordinator at ISC.
ISC Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy
4/29/2021
About the Blog
Mr. Clance Cook is an Emergency Preparedness Coordinator at ISC.
ISC is working with communities to ensure the equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine Hesitancy is a significant factor contributing to low uptake in COVID-19 vaccinations and ISC aims to ensure that everyone can get vaccinated.
Vaccine Hesitancy is a behavior “Influenced by a lack of trust in the medical community, concerns about vaccine safety, efficacy, necessity or convenience and other issues related to vaccination” (Nabet, Gable, Eder, & Feemster, 2017).
These concerns are widely shared within Black and Latinx communities, and their problems are historical in nature. The impacts of past medical experience and overall treatment of Black and Latinx communities have led to the vaccine hesitancy seen today.
ISC experts share their thoughts on current innovation, insights, and thought leadership on important industry topics and corporate responsibility.
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ISC is working to ensure that Black and Latinx communities are provided with the information they need to understand the importance of vaccinating against COVID-19.
Our efforts include vaccine education, equitable distribution, vaccination events targeting specific communities, and partnerships with organizations that promote equitable healthcare access. However, we cannot do it alone.
Local agencies and organizations also play a major role in promoting vaccines. Localities can host vaccine events and promote vaccination within targeted areas to ensure vaccine uptake in communities with the lowest vaccination rates.
Healthcare workers will be important partners in this effort. Doctors, primary care physicians, nurses, and others in the healthcare industry are trusted advisors to patients. Healthcare professionals play a pivotal role in ensuring the equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and combating vaccine hesitancy.
To get back to “normal,” we all need to ensure that everyone has access to the COVID-19 vaccine. ISC is working to make this a reality and will continue to work diligently for healthcare distribution and ensuring access to the vaccine within all communities.
Healthcare providers should:
- Address patients concerns about vaccines, answering questions and countering misinformation
- Explain mRNA vaccines and how vaccines are developed
- Underscore how the vaccine may impact the patient, addressing concerns about known side effects
- Clarify who should and should not take the vaccine
- Explain, as much as possible, Emergency Use Authorization
New Advancements in Evacuation Behavior Modeling
4/15/2021
With every summer comes the threat of hurricanes and, as a result, the necessity to evacuate large coastal populations out of harm’s way. Implementing an evacuation order is a complex operation that requires significant planning, analysis, and coordination to execute the order in an efficient and effective method. Communities cannot underestimate the importance of conducting a hurricane evacuation study and the value of evacuation clearance time modeling to help facilitate good decision-making and operational effectiveness.
Recent new advancements in technology will not only improve decision-making, but also serve as an invaluable tool to operationally visualize evacuation behavior patterns and improve evacuation operations.
Recent new advancements in technology will not only improve decision-making, but also serve as an invaluable tool to operationally visualize evacuation behavior patterns and improve evacuation operations.
Modeling Simulation of a 65,000-person Stadium
This solution not only can help model hurricane evacuation but also the social and time behavior evacuation modeling of special events.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS SERVICE- Hazards Analysis: Utilized to determine the probable worst-case effects from the various intensities and approaching direction of hurricanes that could strike the region.
- Vulnerability Analysis: Utilized to identify the areas, populations, and facilities that are potentially vulnerable to storm surge, flooding, and tremendous wind damage under a variety of hurricane threats.
- Behavioral Analysis: Forming assumptions that must be made regarding the manner in which the population in and around the vulnerable area will react to the threat, including the percentage that will evacuate, response times to evacuation orders, probable destinations, the number of vehicles that will be used (including the number that may be motor homes or towing boats/campers), the evacuation response of tourists, movement of evacuees from other jurisdictions into the area of study, and the percentage of evacuees who would require public assistance for emergency transportation.
- Shelter Analysis: Utilized to estimate the number of evacuees that will seek public shelter and the number of shelter spaces available and to provide information for use in determining the Evacuation Clearance Times in the transportation analysis.
- Transportation Analysis: Utilized to calculate the clearance times needed to conduct a safe and timely evacuation for a range of hurricane threats. Other purposes are to define the evacuation roadway network and to evaluate traffic control measures/highway improvements for improved traffic flow.
Sample Data Output of Evacuation Model - Hurricane Evacuation
Sample Data Output of Evacuation Model - Nuclear Facility Evacuation
In conducting a transportation analysis, a primary means of planning and preparing for evacuations involves the use of computer modeling to calculate evacuation clearance times. These traffic models have been used for a variety of emergency/evacuation/reentry scenarios by changing the appropriate network and traffic flow parameters. Evacuation Clearance Time is the estimated time necessary to safely evacuate people, from the time an evacuation order is given until the time when either the last evacuee leaves the evacuation zone (given various factors such as the type of hazard or threat, level of notice of the incident, population characteristics of the area at the time, and public behavior) or the remaining population is forced to shelter-in-place due to conclusion of operations as the hazard begins to impact the area. Clearance times are used by emergency management staff to determine the window of opportunity available to initiate an evacuation order, and ensure that evacuees have enough time to reach safety before the threat or hazard arrives.
Integrated Solutions Consulting is currently deploying new evacuation simulation modeling technologies to assist communities in not only estimating evacuation clearance times, but also simulate complex vehicle interactions on a macro and micro level, help to identify system bottlenecks, understand evacuation behaviors, and aid in evaluating traffic management strategies based on various operational and behavioral conditions and assumptions
There are a number of evacuation simulation modeling software tools available in the marketplace, all with varying capabilities and functionalities.
Integrated Solutions Consulting’s evacuation modeling experts have composed a list of recommendations for what factors should be included in an ideal model. While no model may be able to achieve every one of the recommendations listed, jurisdictions should work to ensure that as many of the factors as possible are incorporated into their planning efforts for the most accurate forecast outcomes.
- The model should incorporate the level of traffic congestion based on the currently evacuated Zones
- The model should have distinct evacuation clearance times for in-county, and out of county trips
- The model should be able to provide clearance times for geographic areas other than Storm Surge Zones
- The model should focus on evacuation clearance times utilizing local, state, and federal roadways and corridors
- The model should have the ability to account for increased roadway volume due to ESU operations
- The model should be able to incorporate multi-modal transportation into a simulation, including bus, light rail, heavy rail, aviation, and maritime transportation services as appropriate for the jurisdiction
- The model should factor in the socioeconomic demographics of the selected area to determine what percentage of the evacuation population will be using owned vehicles
- The model should have the ability to incorporate high traffic times/patterns
- The model should incorporate, based on hazard type, the ability for residents to digest mass communications of evacuation orders
Contact us at inquiry@i-s-consulting.com to learn more!
