2024 NCSA Presidential Address: Back to the Future: The Past and Potential Future Impacts of Natural Disasters

ABSTRACT

The 2024 NCSA Presidential Address discusses the past and potential future impacts of natural disasters, including COVID-19, on the American people. This NCSA conference talk is based on two edited volumes previously published by Lexington Books in 2021 and 2023. Relevant theories, such as critical demography and historical categorical inequality, are introduced as starting points in the narrative. Next, descriptions of contributions to the volumes are provided, which covered topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by economic and social class in the United States. Contributors also discussed specific dynamics related to COVID-19, including media responses to COVID-19, differential impacts on the poor, specific impacts on college students through technology, and how the intersection of race, class, and gender matter for natural disaster research. This talk examines social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief, and then offers potential solutions to the accelerating inequality in America.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• natural disasters
• social inequality

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geoffrey L. Wood

Geoff L. Wood, 2023–2024 NCSA president, is chair of the Behavioral Sciences Division, associate professor of sociology, and director of the Center for Applied Research (CFAR) at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg. He earned a PhD in sociology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. His research examines categorical inequality, critical demography, and social stratification. He has two edited volumes on how natural disasters and COVID-19 impact political dynamics and social inequality in the U.S. Dr. Wood is serving as editor with Lexington Books on a new series, Contemporary Perspectives on Social Inequalities in the United States.