Managing Disasters and Measuring Resilience
From the 2018 edition of Healthviews
Managing Disasters and Measuring Resilience Heading link
Apostolis Sambanis, PhD is an adjunct assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences. He is also a curriculum director for the Emergency Management and Continuity Planning Certificate, which offers interdisciplinary leadership training through a collaboration between UIC’s School of Public Health and College of Business Administration. For more than ten years, Sambanis has focused on practicing risk management and regulatory compliance in Chicago. His work has included environmental assessments, emergency response, business continuity, resilience characterization, and remediation for a variety of private sector clients.
Sambanis’ academic work includes being a program expert for Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance (SADA), and Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazus program, which supports risk-informed decision making efforts by estimating potential losses from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis and visualizing the effects of such hazards. His current research involves risk visualization and decision support content for managing disasters or measuring resilience.
His past research includes evaluation of a geospatial health risk computer program funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He implemented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) climate change adaptation framework for the state of Illinois. He also developed a Private Sector Integration Plan for the creation of logistical inventory software to be used during a disaster response event.
Sambanis is currently working with other researchers at UIC, Drs. Michael Cailas, Kristin Osecki, and Sage Kim to conduct a study in the City of Galesburg, Illinois of its lead service line replacement project.
With support from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Galesburg is expected to replace approximately 500 service lines. Sambanis and his colleagues intend to divide the homes into control groups to compare the results and address lead remediation in the future. While the exact control groups have not been determined yet, an example could be comparing homes with lead paint and a lead water service line with homes that only have a lead service line. Sambanis would like to focus the study on households that have children ages 6 and younger.