Thread by @DrWendyRocks

Spending the morning at the National Press Club for the “Science During a Crisis” event. Interested to hear about the new report and the call to action. #science

Here the agenda

“Science has a key role to play in the immediate hours after a crisis.” - David Oxtoby

“Science during a crisis-conditions are rapidly changing, time frame for response is narrow and immediate. Scientific training and knowledge need to be brought to bear in a very short time.” - Dr Rita Colwell

We have to understand the cascading consequences that are happening in real time. (Paraphrased) from Colwell

As a scientist you have to willing to speak truth to power. - Colwell

Best practices: set aside emergency funds, joint training btw emergency response and scientific communities, central clearinghouse should be created at crisis onset. #scienceduringcrisis

Research agenda: how do we ID baseline info before future disasters? What are best methods for quickly synthesizing findings and uncertainties? Ethical, moral, legal considerations during crisis?

You must deliver scientific information with the related uncertainties. You need evidence and uncertainty to make an information decision. How do we do this well? - Gary Machlis

Policy recommendations: create positions at state level to facilitate science communication (!), fed agencies and unis should expedite admin requirements for #sciencesuringcrisis, @fema should refine language in the 2017 NIMS.

“The one thing you can not get back in a disaster is time” - Brad Kieserman

“Think about how the resources that we’re doing and the technologies we have can get people suffering from a disaster what they need, when they need it and where they need it.” - Kieserman

Where is there risk? Where is the Vulnerability? Who will be impacted?

Marsha McNutt asks a question from the audience “How can @theNASciences help?” She suggests @theNASEM could help assemble the clearinghouse discussed earlier.

Dr Lenny Marcus’ Science changed the way the Red Cross operates during disaters. Need to look him up! (Note to self)

During the Ebola epidemic @sciencemag and @nature said anyone who withheld their data would NOT be published in those journals. Other journals followed suit. Researchers put data into public domain (and still got published) and disaster responders got the data they needed.

Ooooh! A question about #citizenscience! “How does citizen science fit in to science during disaster?”

A: “We need to make science part of people’s daily lives.”

Gary Machlis is telling an excellent science story about the Haiti #earthquake and I am reminded once again about the POWER of stories.

“Science is civics.”

Alright friends, that’s a wrap! Back to the office I go to read the report.

The report can be viewed here, if you want to read it for yourself. amacad.org/publication/sc…