Claire Richards, PhD, RN, assistant professor in the Washington State University College of Nursing, has published new research examining how organizations coordinate across sectors when energy infrastructure, wildfire and public health and safety intersect.
The article, “‘It Takes Two to Tango’: A Qualitative Study of Cross-Sectoral Collaboration at the Community-Wildfire-Energy Interface in Alaska,” is published online in Environmental Research: Health.
The article is an output from the National Science Foundation-funded FIREWALL project, a four-year, interdisciplinary effort led by Claire Richards, in collaboration with other primary investigators at University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and The George Washington University. The project brings together researchers and practitioners in power engineering, geophysics, epidemiology, the Ruckelshaus Center, IREACH, and nursing to help identify informational needs for wildfire, infrastructure risk and community needs.
Richards’ study focuses on Alaska, where remote communities and isolated energy systems can create planning challenges for residents, health care organizations, water systems, transportation networks and emergency response agencies.
The study draws on interviews with 23 practitioners from utilities, fire and emergency management, infrastructure and transportation, and public health and health care organizations serving Alaska communities.
The research found that organizations often coordinate during active response, but that coordination does not always extend into shared planning and mitigation or prevention. Further, organizations often planned for power outages and wildfire as single rather than interacting hazards and often anticipated and planned for hazards that they had prior experience with. There is a need to identify how to increase cross-sector collaboration with non-traditional partners such as public health and health care and electric utilities, as compounding and cascading impacts of climate change become more frequent. The findings also point to the importance of considering households with higher health or resource needs when developing emergency planning and energy resilience strategies.
For Richards, the work reflects the role nursing research can play beyond traditional clinical settings.
The FIREWALL project continues to explore how communities, utilities, emergency responders and health organizations can share information and strengthen planning around infrastructure risks that affect daily life, safety and health.