Quality of Life of Persons Injured on 9/11: Qualitative Analysis from the World Trade Center Health Registry
Conclusions
In this study we were able to identify serious long-term health and mental health effects related to the WTCD. Among those injured, quality of life was seriously and negatively affected. Public health and disaster response efforts have a responsibility to aid survivors and community members both immediately following a disaster event and, importantly, in the long-term. Because both natural and human-caused disasters are increasing in frequency and severity, communities and government agencies should prepare now with respect to the provision of short and long-term assessment and treatment for victims of these ty...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - October 27, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: lgargano1 Source Type: research
Developing the Philippines as a Global Hub for Disaster Risk Reduction – A Health Research Initiative as Presented at the 10th Philippine National Health Research System Week Celebration
Conclusion
As a consequence of its disaster incidence, especially with regards to the frequency and intensity of climate-related extreme events, the Philippines is widely recognised as one of the most at-risk countries in the world, with a developed strength and experience in DRR. This conference demonstrated the emergence of commitment towards using these experiences to strengthen DRR at Barangay, local, regional and national levels. The equal commitment demonstrated towards sharing these outputs with other at-risk countries globally is the driving force behind developing a global hub in the Philippines. The event also hi...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - October 25, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Nicola Banwell Source Type: research
Education and Training of Emergency Medical Teams: Recommendations for a Global Operational Learning Framework
Conclusions
Multiple attempts to standardise the education and training of disaster and emergency responders have been made; these focused mainly on an individual’s professional development rather than improved team operational performance. No agreed overarching framework currently guides EMTs through the principles of training or recommends suitable training methodologies. Since a systematic approach is needed, this report suggests a three-step operational learning framework for EMTs that could be implemented by EMT organizations globally. In addition, the importance of the training modalities used is highlighted; inclu...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - October 21, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: nievesamat Source Type: research
Laboratory Diagnosis for Outbreak-Prone Infectious Diseases after Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), Philippines
In conclusion, our findings can be applied to infectious disease surveillance in a resource-limited setting which will contribute to management and control of disease outbreaks.
Supporting Information
Supplemental table 1: Primers and probes used in this study Supplement table 1_Primer
Supplemental table 2: Cross table used for McNemar’s test Supplement table 2_cross table
Competing Interests
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Data Availability Statement
All relevant data are available within the paper.
Corresponding Author
Hitoshi Oshitani (oshi...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - October 21, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Mariko Source Type: research
Measuring Outcomes in a Community Resilience Program: A New Metric for Evaluating Results at the Household Level
Conclusion
This analysis illustrates how to assess disaster resilience at the community level. Using the LACCDR community resilience index, we describe baseline neighborhood measures that can be used to track changes over time. These factor scores supplement qualitative evaluations that have been conducted throughout the course of the intervention. Once follow-up data is collected, we can use this index to investigate the impact of the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience initiative.
Corresponding Author
David P Eisenman, MD MSHS, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - September 28, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: David P. Eisenman Source Type: research
Mass Casualty Decontamination in a Chemical or Radiological/ Nuclear Incident: Further Guiding Principles
Conclusion
This research programme can be used to inform best practice for managing casualties during mass decontamination. However, as noted in Cibulsky et al. (2016)1, there is a need for further research in this area to optimise casualty management strategies for mass decontamination. Ongoing work related to the development of optimal management strategies for mass decontamination is being carried out as part of the NIHR Emergency Preparedness and Response Health Protection Research Unit (EPR HPRU) (http://epr.hpru.nihr.ac.uk/). This research includes a qualitative study of factors which affect perceived public acceptab...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - September 15, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: hollycarter Source Type: research
Resilience and Disaster Trends in the Philippines: Opportunities for National and Local Capacity Building
Conclusion
This paper assessed the extant research and practice of resilience and disaster preparedness in the Philippines, which serves as a good model on how to strengthen resilience and promote disaster risk reduction at the local level. Research and interventions are already identifying examples of best practice in disaster preparedness, response and recovery; however, important underlying drivers of disaster risk, such as a degrading environment and inequality, still remain over looked. With the frequency and intensity of disasters set to increase, communities are going to have to prepare more for worse events. This p...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - September 14, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tilly Alcayna Source Type: research
The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit Report Card: Both Failing Marks and Substantive Gains for an Increasingly Globalized Humanitarian Landscape
The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit Report Card
The World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul took place on May 23-24, 2016 with 9000 attendees from humanitarian aid and disaster relief organizations, crisis-affected countries and governments. It was in part prompted by the terrific flow of refugees from the Middle East to Europe, the growing gap in being able to meet the needs of displaced peoples affected by conflict and disasters and the realization that broad reform is essential to move forward.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) conducted pre-WHS consultations with non-governmental or...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 30, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Deon Canyon Source Type: research
Mass Casualty Decontamination Guidance and Psychosocial Aspects of CBRN Incident Management: A Review and Synthesis
Introduction
The likelihood of incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents has increased in recent years, due to advances in technology, and the increased willingness of terrorists to use unconventional weapons (1,2,3). While such incidents are still relatively low probability, evidence suggests that if an incident of this type were to occur, it would have a high impact on society. CBRN agents are invisible, consequences of exposure are often unknown, and there is the potential for delayed effects from contamination (4,5,6); they therefore score highly in terms of so-called dread risk (define...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 27, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: hollycarter Source Type: research
The Effect of Emotional Closeness and Exchanges of Support Among Family Members on Residents ’ Positive and Negative Psychological Responses After Hurricane Sandy
This study examines how changes in emotional closeness and exchanges of support with all adult family members affected both the positive and negative dimensions of psychological responses after a significant disaster. It is interesting that instrumental support received from family members increased psychological distress and improved emotional closeness with family members increased post traumatic growth. Although it is generally expected that social support will be beneficial for individuals’ psychological well-being, previous literature has shown possible negative effects of social support. For example, the task speci...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 24, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Zhen Cong Source Type: research
Qualitative Analysis of Surveyed Emergency Responders and the Identified Factors That Affect First Stage of Primary Triage Decision-Making of Mass Casualty Incidents
CONCLUSION
Based upon this survey analysis, respondents both with and without direct disaster triage experience identified and ranked triage attributes that support the MUCC guidelines. What appears to best support a balanced disaster mass casualty triage system and considered the most important factors among the surveyed respondents are ‘neurological/cardiovascular’ condition, ‘resource availability’, and the personal attribute of ‘gut instinct’. In addition, decision making in primary triage of a MCI scenario is multifactorial and encompasses life saving interventions, patient mobility, situational instincts ...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 19, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Kelly Klein Source Type: research
Surgical Care Required for Populations Affected by Climate-related Natural Disasters: A Global Estimation
Discussion
As climate extremes increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters, hundreds of millions of people will be affected and millions will need surgical care beyond baseline needs. Currently, countries with insufficient surgical capacity are expected to have the most need for surgical care for persons affected by climate-related natural disasters. Estimates of surgical need are important as they inform national policy, humanitarian assistance programs, and implementing partners, as well as support surgical advocacy. Such estimates are particularly important for low- and middle-income countries, which are le...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 10, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Eugenia Lee Source Type: research
Coordinating the Provision of Health Services in Humanitarian Crises: a Systematic Review of Suggested Models
In conclusion, five coordination models have been implemented worldwide in different disasters in order to coordinate the delivery of health services. These results should serve policymakers, and administrators of entities delivering health services during and post-humanitarian crises to choose from a number of options on how to coordinate their efforts. It is challenging to provide specific guidance on which model to use. However, we suggest that decision makers prioritize models that, based on the presented case studies, have been used in settings similar to theirs, such as the type of disaster or the countries in which ...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - August 3, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: tamaralotfi88 Source Type: research
Coping Strategies for Landslide and Flood Disasters: A Qualitative Study of Mt. Elgon Region, Uganda
Conclusion
This study reveals that failure to overcome the effects to landslides and floods in disaster prone communities of Uganda are mainly due to deep rooted links to poverty, culture and unsatisfactory knowledge. Good farming practices and support from the government and implementation partners were shown to be effective in enabling the community to resist the effects disasters. This calls for support in designing more focused interventions targeting reduction of these underlying factors as well as involvement of all stakeholders in scaling the effective coping strategies in order to build resilience in this community...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - July 11, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: josuret Source Type: research
Codified Hashtags for Weather Warning on Twitter: an Italian Case Study
Conclusions
This paper presents some findings about effective use of codified hashtags on Twitter during emergencies by analyzing a dataset of tweets based on three regional codified hashtags for weather warning in Italy. It is an exploratory work to assess if codified hashtags may contribute in aligning formal and informal sources of information during emergencies. In particular we wanted to investigate: the propagation of codified hashtags in the three different regions (Liguria, Tuscany and Piedmont); the responsive use of the hashtag by classes of users playing a role during emergencies; the hashtagging practices emerg...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - July 5, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: valentinagrasso Source Type: research
