Unequal respiratory health risk: using GIS to explore hurricane-related flooding of schools in Eastern North Carolina.

This cross-sectional study investigated whether schools serving populations at high risk of developing respiratory infections in the state of North Carolina (USA) were disproportionately burdened by flooding from Hurricane Floyd. We used geographic information systems (GIS) to overlay a satellite-derived image of the flooded land with school locations. We identified 77 flooded schools and 355 schools that were not flooded in 36 counties.