Examining Rural and Border Emergency Management Infrastructure: An East Palestine Case Study

The rural village of East Palestine, Ohio and its Surrounding Communities (EPSC) have faced an environmental disaster since February 2023 when a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed, releasing over 2,000,000 gallons of hazardous chemicals (including vinyl chloride) into the air, soil, and water. Emergency responders purposively ignited the volatile chemicals to prevent a potential explosion, in turn releasing even more carcinogenic toxicants arising from combustion into the community. The definitive extent of the derailment, including health impacts and repercussions from community and governmental response, remains to be seen. However, early evidence suggests that residents have faced economic hardships, ongoing health problems, and eco-psycho-social disruptions in the wake of the derailment. This research explores the disaster’s emergency management system and existing gaps within it to inform best practices for future disaster response in marginalized communities. NIEHS’ current strategic plan establishes advancing evidence-based health promotion interventions, expanding health-equity disaster research, and integrating social sciences for effective translational science as key themes and priorities necessary to progress health and the field of environmental health sciences; these priorities have informed this fellowship’s research design and training plan. This research design adopts a pragmatic explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. This study will provide insights as to how emergency management networks in rural and border communities adapt, or fail to adapt, during emergency response. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that differences between planned vs. actual organizational emergency response networks indicate beneficial or burdensome adaptations that should be reflected in policy. Aim I will create and analyze interorganizational social networks for both planned and observed emergency management in EPSC to reveal policy-to-practice gaps. Aim II investigates how the structure of the observed emergency response network evolved to reveal temporal shifts in disaster management efficiency. Aim III presents the network structures and analyses from previous aims to key stakeholders in the network to contextualize network differences and dynamics through key informant interviews. The expected outcomes of this research are: (1) a comprehensive understanding of how response organizations functioned before, during, and after the East Palestine train derailment; and (2) actionable recommendations for enhancing emergency response infrastructure in rural or border communities facing environmental disasters. The combined educational and research support from Case Western Reserve University, my multidisciplinary team of mentors, and my thorough training plan will prepare me to complete this translational research rural and border communities as well as provide the skills necessary for me to thrive as a disaster epidemiologist. Project Number: 1F31ES038016-01 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) | Principal Investigator: Anthony Orsino | Institution: CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, CLEVELAND, OH | Award Amount: $49,418 | Activity Code: F31 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZRG1 F16-D (21)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11244521