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Generating categories and classifications is a common function in life science research; however, categorizing the human population based on “race” remains controversial. There is an awareness and recognition of social-economic disparities with respect to health which are sometimes impacted by someone’s ethnicity or race. This work describes an endeavor to develop a computable ontology model to represent a standardization of the concepts surrounding culture, race, ethnicity, and nationality - concepts misrepresented widely. We constructed an OWL ontology based on reliable resources with iterative human expert evaluations and aligned it to existing biomedical ontological models. The effort produced a preliminary ontology that expresses concepts related to classes of ethnic, racial, national, and cultural identities and showcases how health disparity data can be linked and expressed within our ontological framework. Future work will explore automated methods to expand the ontology and its utilization for clinical informatics.

Master's thesis Global development and planning UT505 - University of Agder 2018 The aim of this thesis has been to assess perceptions on vulnerability to natural disasters and disaster risk reduction efforts among women in Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka. Batticaloa is one of the poorest districts in Sri-Lanka with vulnerabilities linked to linked to several factors; the impact of the war, the tsunami, and water related climate variability which again affects health and safety, water resources, agriculture and fisheries, access to services and livelihood/economic development of families and communities (Humanity & Inclusion, n. d.). Disasters are often considered the “antithesis of human development” and referred to as natural disasters. This despite the fact that there are no such thing as natural disasters, only natural hazards that turn into disasters when vulnerable populations “get in the way” of hazards. The impact of disasters is hampering development and is unevenly distributed, with especially women being disproportionally affected. Therefore, in order to achieve sustainable development a greater emphasis must be put on disaster risk reduction efforts. To achieve these goals a more comprehensive understanding of perceptions on vulnerability and risk, and why people live in areas associated with risk are necessary and would provide valuable contributions to research on disaster risk reduction. Failing to understand and recognize contextual and cultural factors can lead to failing or inappropriate disaster risk reduction implementations. There is also a recognized gap in research to fully understand why the impact of natural disasters is gendered. Especially psychological issues are more frequent reported amongst women and adolescent girls. This thesis has attempted to provide more information on a recognized gap in research on why women are disproportionally affected and experience more stress in regards to natural disasters. This thesis will claim that perceptions on vulnerability and risk in regards to natural disasters are shaped by the context and culture, and especially the impact of nearly three decades of civil war have made natural disasters appear less threatening than war. It will also point toward the importance of houses in regards to perceptions of vulnerability among the women, and suggest that temporary housing, dislocation and inappropriate and culture-insensitive housing-schemes are factors adding to understanding of why women face more psychological stress in the aftermath of disasters. This is of particular interest in Batticaloa district where matrilocal inheritance-laws traditionally have provided the women with strong ownership over land, house and assets and traditional matrilocal settlement-patterns have provided the women with “safety-nets” and increased their social capital. Key words Vulnerability, Women, Natural disasters, Vulnerability, DRR, Culture, Context, Housing