Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-18-2026

Abstract

BACKGROUND: LSU Health New Orleans Libraries are conducting a scoping review to map the health sciences literature written on the topic of Hurricane Katrina for inclusion in an institutional archive. A pilot review was first conducted by the team to become more familiar with the process and gain better knowledge of the existing literature.

METHODS: Articles by LSU Health New Orleans-affiliated authors were retrieved from the LSU Health Digital Scholar Hurricane Katrina Archive and health sciences literature databases. Impacts on medical education, health sciences research, healthcare delivery, long term impacts on all dimensions of health, and accounts of personal experiences were included; engineering and environmental studies, and veterinary medicine studies were excluded. Reviewers followed PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines and used Covidence to screen articles and extract data. The team met monthly to discuss the review process for professional development. A protocol was registered with OSF, DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/BT983

RESULTS: Data was extracted and mapped to analyze eight bibliometric factors: publication distribution over time, keywords, article focus, research location and methodology, inclusion of other relevant events, health sciences discipline focus, and article type. Results show almost half of the articles were published between 1 and 5 years after the event, nearly all articles include descriptions of immediate Hurricane Katrina response efforts, relatively few articles include other events, and medicine is the primary health discipline represented.

CONCLUSIONS: The pilot review project was highly valuable by informing the team of the screening and extraction process, revealing data-extraction gaps to correct for the full scoping review, providing data to compare with the future expanded review, and providing professional development to improve the libraries’ systematic review services.

DATA:
Figure 1. A line graph comparing the publication dates of 52 articles in terms of years since the Hurricane Katrina event. Results show 9 articles were published within 1 year, 25 articles were published in 1 to 5 years, 11 articles were published in 6 to 10 years, 4 articles were published in 11 to 15 years, 3 articles were published in 16 to 20 years.
Figure 2. A group of four bar graphs where bar 1 shows the number of articles where the lead author is LSUHSC-NO affiliated is 68% of 50, bar 2 shows the number of articles where other authors are LSUHSC-NO affiliated is 53% of 113, bar 3 shows the number of articles where authors were impacted by the event is 56% of 50, and bar 4 shows the number of research articles that included participants in either New Orleans or Baton Rouge is 91% of the 23.
Figure 3. A word cloud showing author keywords where a total of 98 words make up the cloud. “Hurricane”, “Katrina”, “natural”, “disaster”, “medical”, and “education” are most prominent, followed by “health”, “care’, “coordination”, “asthma”, “Rita”, and “intervention.
Figure 4. A column graph showing article focus for 52 articles where multiple responses are allowed. Results show 43 articles focus on disaster response, 31 are healthcare delivery, 23 are research, 13 are medical education, 13 are mental health, 12 are healthcare facilities, 10 are policy, and 10 are public health.
Figure 5. A grouping of four bar graphs where bar 1 shows the number of articles that include other events is 11% of 52, bar 2 shows the number of articles that include research is 44% of 52, bar 3 shows the number of research articles that use primary data is 75% of 23, and bar 4 shows the number of research articles that use quantitative methodology is 80% of 23.
Figure 6. A donut graph of the health sciences disciplines featured in 52 articles where multiple answers can be given. Results show 38 of 52 articles feature medicine, 11 of 52 articles feature public health, 5 of 52 articles feature nursing, 2 of 52 articles feature dentistry, 1 of 52 articles features allied health, and 1 of 52 articles features other.
Figure 7. A donut graph of article type of 52 articles where multiple answers can be given. Results show 23 are research studies, 12 are personal narratives, 8 are editorial, 6 are expository, 2 are abstracts, and 1 is a policy paper.

Comments

Poster presentation at the South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association (SCC/MLA) Annual Meeting, Fort Worth, TX, October 17-20, 2026

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