Joshua G. Behr

Old Dominion University

Contact Info
jbehr@odu.edu

Joshua G. Behr is research associate professor at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center at Old Dominion University. Behr conducts studies, performs modeling, and publishes insights related to community resilience, catastrophic events, evacuation behavior, recurrent flooding, and the disposition of medically fragile and vulnerable populations in the post-event recovery process. Much of this involves connecting both modeling and data from several systems to produce actionable, policy-relevant knowledge and forecasts. For example, this entails leveraging natural systems data to model storms and flooding, built environment data to characterize the physical structures in our communities, and social-behavioral data related to population perceptions and behavioral response. These are integrated by Behr to forecast storm damage, displaced populations, recovery times, wellbeing of populations, and cost pressure on health systems. Behr has developed indicators of household and community vulnerability in the modeled recovery processes. In addition, Behr has studied the dependencies among critical infrastructures. Further, Behr analyzes various health and wellbeing returns stemming from investments relating to resilient-promoting building code and planning practices. His work is of much interest to housing officials, emergency planners, city planners, and homeland security officials. Of interest to clinicians and public health officials, Behr has published articles addressing drivers of emergency department utilization, asthma, and health service utilization.