Seafood consumption has drawn the attention of researchers from a variety of disciplines. One of the concerns is whether fish consumption is healthy or risky. While fish is considered a component of a healthy diet, the EPA and FDA issued advisories regarding the consumption of certain species of fish due to possibility of methylmercury contamination. Using a sample of people living in the coastal counties of Alabama and Mississippi who engage in recreational fishing, this study uses multivariate analysis to assess the effects of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal variables on high-risk fish consumption. Previous research has revealed phenomenon known as the white male effect, which is associated with risky behavior. Our study shows that white males in the deep-South are indeed more likely than women and African-Americans to consume high- risk fish. We also find that that knowledge of government risk advisories regarding methylmercury and fish consumption actually increases, rather than decreases, the consumption of high-risk fish.

In 2008, three years after Hurricane Katrina cut a deadly path along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, researchers J. Steven Picou and Keith Nicholls conducted a survey of the survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi, receiving more than twenty-five hundred responses, and followed up two years later with their than five hundred of the initial respondents. Showcasing these landmark findings, Caught in the Path of Katrina: A Survey of the Hurricane's Human Effects yields a more complete understanding of the traumas endured as a result of the Storm of the Century. The authors report on evacuation behaviors, separations from family, damage to homes, and physical and psychological conditions among residents of seven of the parishes and counties that bore the brunt of Katrina. The findings underscore the frequently disproportionate suffering of African Americans and the agonizingly slow pace of recovery. Highlighting the lessons learned, the book offers suggestions for improved governmental emergency management techniques to increase preparedness, better mitigate storm damage, and reduce the level of trauma in future disasters. Multiple major hurricanes have unleashed their destruction in the years since Katrina, making this a crucial study whose importance only continues to grow.