Search

Health Disparities, Disasters, and Crises: Approaches for a Culture of Preparedness presents a roadmap to help guide the actions needed to address health disparities introduced as part of the pre-planning, planning, and mitigation phases of natural and technological disasters.With contributions from 30 scholars in disaster management in public health, this text explores how the intersectionality of health disparities of different socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups and how social determinants help shape exposure, and vulnerability to pandemic disasters and crises. Supported by examples from across the world, chapters are supplemented with case studies of best practices, graphs, and tables. Each of the seven parts address different topics, including how disasters affect the poor, medically underserved, and racial/ethnic groups, the impact of health disparities, and the growing link between global health, disaster planning/mitigation, and global security.Written for the benefit of undergraduate and graduate students, working professionals, and academics in the US and abroad, Health Disparities, Disasters, and Crises: Approaches for a Culture of Preparedness provides the best overall understanding of professional disaster management and safety for all citizens. It is also an ideal text for graduate and undergraduate courses in public health, public policy, medicine and nursing, healthcare administration, emergency management, emergency preparedness, homeland security, epidemiology, sociology, and medical sociology.

There is no shortage of criticisms of U.S. COVID-19 policy. This book argues that officials at the highest levels lied to the public or deliberately suppressed relevant information, shamelessly over-sold the efficacy of masks and vaccines, and enacted lock-down policies of unproven value that caused massive economic, educational, and psycho-social damage. In How to Respond Better to the Next Pandemic Allen Buchanan argues that, contrary to widespread opinion, the primary cause of flawed COVID-19 policy was not defective leadership, but rather institutional failure. Decisions were made through processes that lacked the most basic safeguards against the large-institution “yes-man” and group-think phenomena and included virtually no provisions for holding decision makers accountable. More fundamentally, policy makers did not fulfill the crucial duty to provide plausible public justifications for their decisions. They disguised the fact that scientific opinion was divided on the appropriateness of the policies they endorsed and labeled those who disagreed with them as anti-scientific. In some cases, they responded to criticism, not by engaging it on the issues, but by branding their critics as quacks.

The second edition of this leading textbook provides the definitive guide to disaster health management. From the key concepts, principles and terminology, to systems for mitigation, planning, response and recovery, it gives readers a comprehensive overview of every aspect of this emerging field. Split into eight parts, the book begins by drawing the parameters of disaster health management before outlining key elements such as communication, community engagement and legal issues. It then moves on to discuss preparing for potential disasters, managing and mitigating their impact, and then recovering in the aftermath. Offering key insights into evaluation, leadership and the psychosocial aspects of disaster health management, the new edition also features a range of international case studies, including those outlining the management of COVID-19.It is essential reading for both students and practitioners engaging in this important work.

The pandemic left disorder and crises in its wake everywhere it struck. Drawing on disciplines including public health, politics, and socioeconomics, this book tracks the spread of COVID-19 to weave a coherent picture that explains how scientists learnt about the virus, how authorities reacted around the world, and how different societies coped. Written by a leading team of public health, policy, and economics experts, this volume provides an in-depth analysis of various countries'responses to the onset of the pandemic, as well as suggestions to increase capacity and capability to fight future pandemics. The first part of the book provides an overview of global governance and international cooperation, economic and social consequences of the outbreak, and breakthroughs in mathematical modelling and COVID-19 vaccines. The second part of the book examines and compares specific countries and regions through the lens of good governance, social contract, and political trust. This book is essential for anyone seeking to learn from the impact of COVID-19, particularly professionals and policy-makers, as well as those with a general interest in governance and pandemics.

Los establecimientos de salud de la Región de las Américas sufren con frecuencia los efectos derivados de emergencias de salud y desastres, lo que supone un riesgo para su capacidad de prestar servicios a la población. La metodología STAR-H ayuda al personal responsable de la gestión del riesgo de emergencias de salud y desastres a detectar y evaluar los riesgos como parte de la planificación estratégica para mejorar la preparación de los establecimientos. Su propósito es ayudarlos a elaborar, desde un enfoque multiamenaza, un marco de respuesta con procedimientos operativos para hacer frente a amenazas de cualquier tipo, magnitud o frecuencia; determinar las funciones y responsabilidades; facilitar el uso efectivo de los recursos; emprender ejercicios de planificación estratégica, y mejorar la preparación de las instalaciones para dar respuesta a los impactos y recuperarse de ellos de manera efectiva.Esta metodología se ha diseñado para su utilización en establecimientos de salud de cualquier tamaño y capacidad, y permite generar informes históricos y perfiles de riesgo nacionales o subnacionales. Esa información puede emplearse para desarrollar un programa eficaz de gestión del riesgo de emergencias de salud y desastres.

A history of U.S. public health emergencies and how we can turn the tide. Despite enormous advances in medical science and public health education over the last century, access to health care remains a dominant issue in American life. U.S. health care is often hailed as the best in the world, yet the public health emergencies of today often echo the public health emergencies of yesterday: consider the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19 and COVID-19, the displacement of the Dust Bowl and the havoc of Hurricane Maria, the Reagan administration's antipathy toward the AIDS epidemic and the lack of accountability during the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Spanning the period from the presidency of Woodrow Wilson to that of Donald Trump, American Health Crisis illuminates how—despite the elevation of health care as a human right throughout the world—vulnerable communities in the United States continue to be victimized by structural inequalities across disparate geographies, income levels, and ethnic groups. Martin Halliwell views contemporary public health crises through the lens of historical and cultural revisionings, suturing individual events together into a narrative of calamity that has brought us to our current crisis in health politics. American Health Crisis considers the future of public health in the United States and, presenting a reinvigorated concept of health citizenship, argues that now is the moment to act for lasting change.

This book aims to provide a collection of early ideas regarding the results of applying risk and resilience tools and strategies to COVID-19. Each chapter provides a distinct contribution to the new and rapidly growing literature on the developing COVID-19 pandemic from the vantage points of fields ranging from civil and environmental engineering to public policy, from urban planning to economics, and from public health to systems theory. Contributing chapters to the book are both scholars and active practitioners, who are bridging their applied work with critical scholarly interpretation and reflection. The book's primary purpose is to empower stakeholders and decision-makers with the most recent research in order that they can better understand the systemic and sweeping nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as which strategies could be implemented to maximize socioeconomic and public health recovery and adaptation over the long-term.

This Open Access volume explains how major nuclear and radiological emergencies (NREs) can have implications at local, national and international level. The response to NREs requires a competent decision-making structure, clear communication and effective information exchange. National veterinary services have the responsibility to plan, design and manage animal production system in their countries. These activities cover animal health, animal movement control, production control and improvement, and control of the products of animal origin before their placement on the market. Release of radionuclides after NREs can cause substantial contamination in the animal production systems. Critical responsibility of veterinary authorities is therefore to prevent such contamination, establish early response mechanisms to mitigate the consequences and prevent placement of contaminated products of animal origin on the market for human consumption. This work summarizes the critical technical points for effective management of NREs for national veterinary services.

When communities face complex public health emergencies, state local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies must make difficult decisions regarding how to effectively respond. The public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system, with its multifaceted mission to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, is inherently complex and encompasses policies, organizations, and programs. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has invested billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of human capital to develop and enhance public health emergency preparedness and infrastructure to respond to a wide range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. Despite the investments in research and the growing body of empirical literature on a range of preparedness and response capabilities and functions, there has been no national-level, comprehensive review and grading of evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response practices comparable to those utilized in medicine and other public health fields. Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response reviews the state of the evidence on PHEPR practices and the improvements necessary to move the field forward and to strengthen the PHEPR system. This publication evaluates PHEPR evidence to understand the balance of benefits and harms of PHEPR practices, with a focus on four main areas of PHEPR: engagement with and training of community-based partners to improve the outcomes of at-risk populations after public health emergencies; activation of a public health emergency operations center; communication of public health alerts and guidance to technical audiences during a public health emergency; and implementation of quarantine to reduce the spread of contagious illness.

The Black Death. Cholera. Spanish flu. Swine flu. HIV/AIDS. COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2. Each of these pandemics has made (or, is making) a lasting impact on humanity. From the immediate mental image of the beaked masks worn in the Middle Ages (bubonic plague) and the birth of epidemiology (cholera) to recognizing the benefits of social distancing (1918 flu) and the harm of prejudice and misinformation (HIV/AIDS), pandemics have shown us how to survive infectious disease, as long as we heed their lessons.Preparing for Pandemics in the Modern World, edited by Christine Crudo Blackburn, brings together experts on pandemic preparedness and biosecurity to explore areas of weakness in pandemic prevention, preparedness, detection, and response. Even as COVID-19 makes its way around the world, leaders and policymakers are tasked with thinking ahead and preparing to effectively respond to the next such event—which experience shows us to be a matter of “when,” not “if.” Inside, chapters are divided into sections on the lessons learned from the 1918 influenza pandemic, the application of the One Health concept, and the role of the private sector in responding to potentially devastating disease outbreaks.A chapter on the impacts of supply chain disruption—in light of COVID-19—and an epilogue that discusses the current outbreak make Preparing for Pandemics in the Modern World a timely and accessibly written compilation on pandemic prevention, preparedness, detection, and response.

Nations and businesses across the globe have been working through the difficulties of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Industry, academia, NGOs, and governments have been'feverishly'searching for ways to address this deadly virus, which may continue to spread for at least the next year and perhaps beyond (in terms of a resurgence and different strains). From a business standpoint, there have been dramatic effects on logistics and supply chains, economic downfalls, bailouts of major industries and small businesses, and far-reaching calamities from around the world. Even though the COVID-19 story is still in its making, this book focuses on the business of pandemics as applied to COVID-19. The book brings together a global panel of experts across industries and NGOs to help guide business executives and managers through the complex array of issues affecting business in the time of a pandemic. Offering solutions to the business of pandemics as applied to COVID-19, the book is written for organizational decision makers and leaders, as well as those involved in crisis management, public health, and related fields. Its chapters focus on key areas that relate to the business of pandemics, including Lessons learned to date Big data and simulation Logistics and supply-chain management challenges Conducting global business virtually Global economic impact Media and risk communication IT infrastructure and networking Social impact Online learning and educational innovations The new work-from-home environment Re-opening markets and businesses Crisis decision making using analytics and intuition With chapters authored by experts from leading organizations, including the World Health Organization, the RAND Corporation, and various universities throughout the world, The Business of Pandemics: The COVID-19 Story provides high-level guidance and insight for business leaders who must deal with the complexities and challenges presented by this unprecedented crisis.

This book fills a major gap in academic research, by exploring ‘urban resilience measures'and ‘city management issues'during disruptive disease outbreak events. Based on the overarching concept of ‘resilience thinking', it addresses critical issues of preparedness, responsiveness and reflectiveness in the event of outbreak, focusing on cities and how they should prepare to combat a variety of adversities and uncertainties caused by outbreaks. This comprehensive book is an essential guide for decision-makers, city authorities, planners, healthcare and public health authorities, and those communities and businesses that face disease outbreak events. It also offers a set of practical measures to support the development of tailor-made strategies in the form of an action plan. These strategies should address outbreak control and containment measures, institutional rearrangements, management of urban systems, and healthiness of the society. Divided into sixchapters, this book explores important topics of ‘urban resilience'and ‘city management'for preparedness action plans and responsiveness planning. Further, it presents a comprehensive urban resilience approach used to support city management in the recent outbreaks in Chinese cities, which can be applied in cities around the globe to strengthen their resilience and maximise the practicality of urban resilience and minimise urban vulnerabilities during disease outbreaks. Highlighting topics such as maintaining societal well-being, community engagement, and multi-sectoral city management enhancement, this book offers a unique combination of research, practices and lessons learned to aid cities in need.

Public health policy prospectively and retrospectively addresses the consequences of events ranging from the commonplace to the catastrophic. Informing policymakers and stakeholders by enhancing their understanding of complex causation to justify remedial or precautionary actions is a critical science-policy task. In this book, the key aspects of catastrophes (regardless of their nature) and routine events are identified through a common framework for their analyses, and the analyses of the consequences associated with the potential occurrence of these events also are discussed. The book is not about disaster planning; instead, it is focused on analysis and causation in the context of informing – rather than formulating – public health policy. The author aggregates and fuses scientific information and knowledge in public health policy-science using alternative but complementary methods. The book first focuses on the analysis of catastrophes and commonplace events; the focus then shifts to causal models of multifactorial diseases, particularly at low doses or dose-rates, associated with these events. Topics explored among the chapters include:Policy and Legal Aspects of Precautionary ChoicesCatastrophes, Disasters, and Calamities: Concepts for Their Assessment Uncertainty: Probabilistic and Statistical AspectsAggregating Judgments to Inform Precautionary Decision-makingThe aim of the book is to show that the analyses of events are fundamentally similar, regardless of whether the concern is a global catastrophe or commonplace. Analysis of Catastrophes and Their Public Health Consequences is a text that should engage students, instructors, and researchers in public health, science policy, and preparedness research, as well as serve as a useful resource for policy analysts, practitioners, and risk managers.

This book documents how nurses have shown their dedication, courage, expertise and compassion in helping communities prepare for, respond to and recover from disastrous events. It aims to inspire and equip nurses and other health professionals to help people in disaster-affected areas and contribute to community resilience. The last decade (2005-2015) has been characterized by a number of overwhelming natural disasters - tropical storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis; and threats of emerging infectious diseases - SARS, MERSCoV and Ebola around the world. Countries from the Asia Pacific region, such as Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Nepal, Philippines, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Thailand and Vanuatu, have borne the brunt of the devastation caused by these catastrophic events. Nurses from these countries have stepped in providing emergency care in hospitals and in the field, addressing public health needs in evacuation centers, supporting epidemiologic surveillance and conducting health education, training and research, to help save lives and support communities build back better.

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. International Disaster Health Care: Preparedness, Response, Resource Management, and Education provides a complete image of the needs, concerns, and insights that relate to disaster preparedness from an international health-care perspective. The United Nations has recognized the devastating consequences of'unpredictable, unpreventable and impersonal'disasters—at least US $2 trillion in economic damage and more than 1.3 million lives lost from natural disasters in the last two decades alone. In many disasters (both natural and man-made) hundreds—and in major earthquakes, thousands—of lives are lost in the first days following the event because of the lack of medical/surgical facilities to treat those with potentially survivable injuries. Disasters disrupt and destroy not only medical facilities in the disaster zone but also infrastructure (roads, airports, electricity) and potentially local healthcare personnel as well. To minimize morbidity and mortality from disasters, medical treatment must begin immediately, within minutes ideally, but certainly within 24 hours (not the days to weeks currently seen in medical response to disasters). Edited by emergency health professionals, this valuable compendium is broken into five sections, which describe the following topics: disaster-related health care disaster preparedness and resilience effective medical responses to disasters managing resources during disasters how medical staff can be better educated to handle disasters This volume brings together a wealth of information that will be valuable to disaster management professionals and others responsible for providing emergency services.

Disasters and Public Health: Planning and Response, Second Edition, examines the critical intersection between emergency management and public health. It provides a succinct overview of the actions that may be taken before, during, and after a major public health emergency or disaster to reduce morbidity and mortality. Five all-new chapters at the beginning of the book describe how policy and law drive program structures and strategies leading to the establishment and maintenance of preparedness capabilities. New topics covered in this edition include disaster behavioral health, which is often the most expensive and longest-term recovery challenge in a public health emergency, and community resilience, a valuable resource upon which most emergency programs and responses depend. The balance of the book provides an in-depth review of preparedness, response, and recovery challenges for 15 public health threats. These chapters also provide lessons learned from responses to each threat, giving users a well-rounded introduction to public health preparedness and response that is rooted in experience and practice. Contains seven new chapters that cover law, vulnerable populations, behavioral health, community resilience, preparedness capabilities, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and foodborne threats Provides clinical updates by new MD co-author Includes innovative preparedness approaches and lessons learned from current and historic public health and medical responses that enhance clarity and provide valuable examples to readers Presents increased international content and case studies for a global perspective on public health

Over the past decade, preparedness and response capacities of government agencies, hospitals and clinics, public health agencies, and academic researchers in the United States and abroad have been challenged by a succession of public health emergencies, ranging from radiological threats to pandemics to earthquakes. Through After Action Reports, each of these emergencies has yielded important information and lessons learned that can inform future disaster response and recovery efforts. However, important information that needs to be collected during and immediately following these emergencies is often missed because of barriers and obstacles to gathering such data, such as varying institutional review board restrictions in different states, no sustainable funding network for this type of work, uncertainty on who should be involved in research response, and a lack of knowledge around how best to integrate research into response and recovery frameworks. Taking action to enable medical and public health research during disasters was the focus of a workshop held on June 12 and 13, 2014, coordinated and supported jointly by the Institute of Medicine Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Library of Medicine, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Invited speakers and participants from federal, state, and local government, academia, and community and worker organizations came together to discuss how to integrate research into existing response structures; identify critical research needs and priorities; identify obstacles and barriers to research; discuss structures and strategies needed for deployment of a research study; share ideas, innovations, and technologies to support research; and explore data collection tools and data-sharing mechanisms for both rapid and longitudinal research. Enabling Rapid and Sustainable Public Health Research During Disasters summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

When disaster strikes, it rarely impacts just one jurisdiction. Many catastrophic disaster plans include support from neighboring jurisdictions that likely will not be available in a regional disaster. Bringing multiple stakeholders together from sectors that do not routinely work with each other can augment a response to a disaster, but can also be extremely difficult because of the multi-disciplinary communication and coordination needed to ensure effective medical and public health response. As many communities within a region will have similar vulnerabilities, a logical step in planning is to establish responsibilities and capacities, and be able to work toward common goals to address all-hazards when the entire region is affected. To explore these considerations, the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events organized a series of three regional workshops in 2014 to explore opportunities to strengthen the regional coordination required in response to a large scale multijurisdictional disaster. The purpose of each regional workshop was to discuss ways to strengthen coordination among multiple jurisdictions in various regions to ensure fair and equitable treatment of communities from all impacted areas. Regional Disaster Response Coordination to Support Health Outcomes summarizes the presentation and discussion of these workshops.

'We have to adapt to the impacts that, unfortunately, we can no longer avoid', said President Obama at the UN Climate Summit in September 2014. Adaptation and resilience are now a must in both academic research and international bodies. A fashionable concept, resilience's polysemy sparks many debates on its uses and operational relevance. This book bridges the increasing divide between academic research and the latest planning innovations, offering practical and conceptual insights for practitioners, researchers and students. Magali Reghezza-Zitt and Samuel Rufat present a cross-disciplinary, state-of-the-art debate and critical analysis of the social, spatial, practical and political implications of resilience. Offers a critical approach of resilience, based on a wide range of case studies Provides insights ranging from the most recent theoretical issues to the most practical engineering innovations Links the latest cross-disciplinary academic insights with the up-to-date, practical innovations

Offers the most current, evidence-based information for helping specific populations affected by disastersVulnerable populations such as children, older adults, and people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by large-scale disasters. This hands-on resource for students and professionals in social work, counseling, nursing, and mental health encompasses the best and most current evidence-based interventions for effectively responding to the needs of vulnerable populations following disasters. Using an all-hazards perspective, the book also provides a dedicated section containing population-specific personal preparedness considerations and discusses the role of preparedness in mitigating negative consequences. The resource is unique in its provision of vital information for locating requisite assessment tools, preparedness checklists, and forms. It also provides a list of mobile applications offered through national organizations.The resource addresses the specific psychosocial needs of vulnerable populations after a disaster. It delivers best practices for crisis intervention with specific populations including children, older adults, people with disabilities, people with mental health issues, and people with substance abuse issues. The authors present a theoretical foundation for understanding disasters, response systems, common guidelines for preparedness, and basic crisis theory. This is a resource that will be valuable not only to practitioners in a great variety of health disciplines, but also to volunteer professionals and paraprofessionals involved in disaster preparedness and response. Case vignettes are included in each chapter to illustrate issues particular to each populationKey Features: Offers the highest quality, best available evidence for choosing appropriate interventionsFocuses on vulnerable populations including children, older adults, and people with disabilities, mental health issues and substance abuse issuesComprises a practical, hands-on manual for mental health and medical professionals and volunteers regarding disaster preparedness and responseProvides assessment tools and preparedness checklists and formsIncludes case vignettes to illustrate issues specific to each population

Preparedness, Response and Recovery Considerations for Children and Families is the summary of a workshop convened in June, 2013 by the Institute of Medicine Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events to discuss disaster preparedness, response, and resilience relative to the needs of children and families, including children with special health care needs. Traditional and non-traditional medical and public health stakeholders from across federal, state, and local government health care coalitions, community organizations, school districts, child care providers, hospitals, private health care providers, insurers, academia, and other partners in municipal planning met to review existing tools and frameworks that can be modified to include children's needs; identify child-serving partners and organizations that can be leveraged in planning to improve outcomes for children; highlight best practices in resilience and recovery strategies for children; and raise awareness of the need to integrate children's considerations throughout local and state emergency plans. Communities across the United States face the threat of emergencies and disasters almost every day, natural and man-made, urban and rural, large and small. Although children represent nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population, current state and local disaster preparedness plans often do not include specific considerations for children and families. The preparedness and resilience of communities related to children will require a systems framework for disaster preparedness across traditional and non-traditional medical and public health stakeholders, including community organizations, schools, and other partners in municipal planning. This report examines resilience strategies that lead to successful recovery in children after a disaster and discusses current approaches and interventions to improve recovery in children.

Natural disasters traumatize individuals, disrupt families, and destabilize communities.Surviving these harrowing events calls for courage, tenacity, and resilience. Professional planning requires specific types of knowledge of how people meet and cope with extreme challenges.Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective examines three major earthquakes occurring in Italy over a fourteen - year period for a well-documented analysis of populations'responses to and recovery from disaster, the social variables involved, and the participation of public agencies. This timely volume reviews sociological definitions and models of disaster, identifying core features of vulnerability and multiple levels of individual and social resilience. The analysis contrasts the structural and supportive roles of Italy's civil protection and civil defense services in emergency planning and management as examples of what the author terms professional resilience. And testimony from earthquake survivors and volunteers gives voice to the social processes characteristic of disaster. Among the areas covered:Social context for concepts of disaster, vulnerability, risk, and resilienceTypes of resilience: a multidimensional analysis, focused on a physical, ecological, and ecosystem perspectiveFindings from three earthquakes: loss, hope, and community.Two systems of organizational response to emergenciesToward a relational approach to disaster resilience planning Plus helpful tables, methodological notes, and appendicesFor researchers in disaster preparedness, psychology, and sociology, Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective raises--and addresses--salient questions about people and communities in crisis, and how studying them can improve preparedness in an uncertain future.

Pandemics. The word conjures up images of horrific diseases sweeping the globe and killing everyone in their path. But such highly lethal illnesses almost never create pandemics. The reality is deadly serious but far more subtle. In Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on how the immune system recognizes virus-infected cells, offers an essential guide to one of the truly life-or-death issues of our age. In concise, question-and-answer format, he explains the causes of pandemics, how they can be counteracted with vaccines and drugs, and how we can better prepare for them in the future. Doherty notes that the term'pandemic'refers not to a disease's severity but to its ability to spread rapidly over a wide geographical area. Extremely lethal pathogens are usually quickly identified and confined. Nevertheless, the rise of high-speed transportation networks and the globalization of trade and travel have radically accelerated the spread of diseases. A traveler from Africa arrived in New York in 1999 carrying the West Nile virus; one mosquito bite later, it was loose in the ecosystem. Doherty explains how the main threat of a pandemic comes from respiratory viruses, such as influenza and SARS, which disseminate with incredible speed through air travel. The climate disruptions of global warming, rising population density, and growing antibiotic resistance all complicate efforts to control pandemics. But Doherty stresses that pandemics can be fought effectively. Often simple health practices, especially in hospitals, can help enormously. And research into the animal reservoirs of pathogens, from SARS in bats to HIV in chimpanzees, show promise for our prevention efforts. Calm, clear, and authoritative, Peter Doherty's Pandemics is one of the most critically important additions to the What Everyone Needs to Know® series. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Influenza pandemics overwhelm health care systems with thousands or hundreds of thousands of sick patients, as well as those worried they may be sick. In order to ensure a successful response to the patient swell caused by a pandemic, robust planning is essential to prepare for challenges public health officials may face. This includes the need to quickly distribute and dispense antiviral medications that can reduce the severity and duration of disease to large numbers of people. In response to a request from the Centers for Disease Control, the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events held a series of workshops that explored the public's perception of how to facilitate access to antiviral medications and treatment during an influenza pandemic. To help inform potential strategies still in the development stages at the CDC, workshops were held in Fort Benton, Montana; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Los Angeles, California during February and March 2012 to consider the usefulness of several alternative strategies of delivering antiviral medication to the public. Participants considered how the normal systems for prescribing and dispensing antiviral medications could be adjusted to ensure that the public has quick, safe, and equitable access to both potentially life-saving drugs and information about the pandemic and treatment options. This document summarizes the workshops.

Die dritte Ausgabe des Jahrbuchs HealthCapital Berlin-Brandenburg widmet sich dem Thema Telemedizin, das sowohl in Hinsicht auf wirtschaftliche Aspekte als auch unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Verbesserung der Versorgung eine wichtige Rolle in der Gesundheitsregion Berlin-Brandenburg spielt. Ausgewiesene Fachleute aus Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Praxis geben in vier Schwerpunktkapiteln einen Einblick in aktuelle Entwicklungen und zukunftsweisende Verbundprojekte aus der Region. Darüber hinaus werden die Rahmenbedingungen für telemedizinische Anwendungen diskutiert; deren Erfolgsfaktoren aber auch deren Grenzen.

If terrorists released Bacillus anthracis over a large city, hundreds of thousands of people could be at risk of the deadly disease anthrax-caused by the B. anthracis spores-unless they had rapid access to antibiotic medical countermeasures (MCM). Although plans for rapidly delivering MCM to a large number of people following an anthrax attack have been greatly enhanced during the last decade, many public health authorities and policy experts fear that the nation's current systems and plans are insufficient to respond to the most challenging scenarios, such as a very large-scale anthrax attack. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response commissioned the Institute of Medicine to examine the potential uses, benefits, and disadvantages of strategies for repositioning antibiotics. This involves storing antibiotics close to or in the possession of the people who would need rapid access to them should an attack occur. Prepositioning Antibiotics for Anthrax reviews the scientific evidence on the time window in which antibiotics successfully prevent anthrax and the implications for decision making about prepositioning, describes potential prepositioning strategies, and develops a framework to assist state, local, and tribal public health authorities in determining whether prepositioning strategies would be beneficial for their communities. However, based on an analysis of the likely health benefits, health risks, and relative costs of the different prepositioning strategies, the book also develops findings and recommendations to provide jurisdictions with some practical insights as to the circumstances in which different prepositioning strategies may be beneficial. Finally, the book identifies federal- and national-level actions that would facilitate the evaluation and development of prepositioning strategies. Recognizing that communities across the nation have differing needs and capabilities, the findings presented in this report are intended to assist public health officials in considering the benefits, costs, and trade-offs involved in developing alternative prepositioning strategies appropriate to their particular communities.

The Causes and Behavioral Consequences of Disasters brings a public health perspective to the literature, reflecting the increasing importance of the field in both disaster preparedness and disaster response. Arguing that a disaster is not only the event but its aftermath as well, the authors apply salient local content to the study of scenarios ranging from the Cuzco, Peru, earthquake of 1950 to the Columbine school shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11. These case studies form the basis for models of vulnerabilities to disasters and population behavior following disasters, illustrating how careful pre-event planning and coordinated post-event response strategies can minimize the initial damage and negative aftereffects. The Causes and Behavioral Consequences of Disasters will further professional discussion and understanding among a wide range of professionals and students across public health, mental health, education, health administration and policy, social work, and the social sciences.

This book is a collection of various health related issues with the crisis management perspective in Chinese contexts. Crisis management has been well discussed in many disciplines, but in health care settings little literature has been found to address how crisis management is being conceptualized and implemented with a Chinese cultural sensitivity. This book serves to address the above inadequacy and discuss how health care professionals can respond to these crises in a timely and effective manner

Problems contacting emergency services and delayed assistance are not unusual when incidents occur in rural areas, and the consequences can be devastating, particularly with mass casualty incidents. The IOM's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events held a workshop to examine the current capabilities of emergency response systems and the future opportunities to improve mass casualty response in rural communities.

Natural and human-made disasters appear to be increasing in frequency and scope, commanding extensive media attention. Growing sensitivity to issues of preparedness and community response has created a greater interest among academics and practitioners.The Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, mudslides in Brazil, earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan, Turkey, China, and other countries have garnered worldwide notice. Human-made disasters, such as terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center or in Oklahoma City, Spain, England, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan, and various other countries, or attacks on schoolchildren in places such as Columbine and various communities in China, send shockwaves throughout societies.This book addresses the development of long-term interventions following disasters, emphasizing disadvantaged communities. Attention is given to the role of change agents, such as local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and psychosocial professionals, to ensure that the window of opportunity is realized, generating immediate help and sustained community development.

With an emphasis on practical preparedness, this book covers influenza epidemiology, vaccinology, virology and immunology, pharmaceutical and public health countermeasures, policy issues, biomathematical modelling, ethics and communication between health professionals and the public, promoting better understanding to help battle future pandemics.

In the event of a disaster or public health emergency, individual agencies and hospitals cannot always effectively act alone. In order to provide a collaborative, comprehensive system of planning and response a Healthcare Emergency Response Coalition (HERC) is needed. This book introduces the concept of a HERC and demonstrates why and how a HERC is among the most effective tools for health emergency response and preparedness. Establishing a Healthcare Emergency Response Coalition addresses all matters related to instituting and developing a successful HERC. This Guide is based on Palm Beach County's experiences during the formation and implementation of their tried and tested HERC_now a national model_and can serve to direct your community in establishing its own HERC. It addresses the most fundamental questions of starting a HERC, such as - What is a HERC? - Why do we need a HERC? - How do we start a HERC - How should a HERC be structured? It also provides guidance for developing and sustaining a successful HERC by outlining the steps and activities needed to begin and providing a list of policies and procedures that can be implemented and resources that can be consulted. This information can be applied and customized to any community's specific needs and resources to implement a program that will address any size disaster or healthcare emergency that presents itself. This book provides myriad benefits to everyone invested in emergency preparedness for a community, from health officials and emergency response teams to government officials and fire and police departments, along with anyone else involved with preparing his or her community for disasters and public health emergencies.

While it has aided far many more than it has harmed, radiation is forever etched in the public's mind as an indiscriminate and particularly pernicious killer. Consequently, it is especially critical in this age of terrorist threats that we equip ourselves with accurate information and practical tools that will serve us in the rare chance that we find ourselves in a radiation crisis.Radiation Threats and Your Safety: A Guide to Preparation and Response for Professionals and Community offers a calm and authoritative approach to crisis preparation. Written by a health physicist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the book informs us about what we should know ahead of time, how to prepare, and the best ways to respond to a nuclear or radiological incident either as an emergency responder or community/family member. Organized to serve both as a preparation guide and as a reference in a crisis, this book -Uses common language while avoiding unnecessary scientific jargon -Details protocols for both accidental and intentional radiation emergencies such as nuclear explosions and dirty bombs-Shows how to prepare a family emergency plan-Covers medical responses to radiation emergencies including radiation drugs -Provides an emergency supply list -Discusses radiation from microwaves and cellular phones as well as food irradiation There is no reason why we should feel helpless when faced with a radiation emergency. We can take action to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities. How we react to a radiation emergency will determine its true final impact. To this end, we need information and leaders we can depend upon.

Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, pestilence, and warfare are no strangers to our experience. Once, we sought to placate the gods who brought these evils upon us. Today, clinicians, engineers, and politicians replace priests, prophets, seers, and shamans, and we_Americans in particular_think to impose our will upon the world. In times of catastrophe, issues of good and evil surrender to rapid, nearly automatic, operational response. Yet the catastrophic event poses unavoidable moral choices, ones that are more politically and emotionally complex since 9/11 and our'War on Terrorism.'This book benefits from the emergence of bioethics as it has evolved from its clinical roots to address policy, politics, and social practice far removed from that origin. At the same time, the clinical focus on narratives and cases provides a tangible center for ethical reflection. It reminds us that ethics is about persons and their choices, a perspective often lost to abstraction when ethics is left to the ministrations of academe. By treating the catastrophic event as both a category and a genre, Bioethics connects to aesthetics and so enables us to enrich ethical inquiry by ranging from pandemic, hurricane, and flood to terrorist attack.

A nuclear attack on a large U.S. city by terrorists—even with a low-yield improvised nuclear device (IND) of 10 kilotons or less—would cause a large number of deaths and severe injuries. The large number of injured from the detonation and radioactive fallout that would follow would be overwhelming for local emergency response and health care systems to rescue and treat, even assuming that these systems and their personnel were not themselves incapacitated by the event. The United States has been struggling for some time to address and plan for the threat of nuclear terrorism and other weapons of mass destruction that terrorists might obtain and use. The Department of Homeland Security recently contracted with the Institute of Medicine to hold a workshop, summarized in this volume, to assess medical preparedness for a nuclear detonation of up to 10 kilotons. This book provides a candid and sobering look at our current state of preparedness for an IND, and identifies several key areas in which we might begin to focus our national efforts in a way that will improve the overall level of preparedness.

Das vorliegende Buch bietet einen detaillierten Einblick in den deutschen Telemedizinmarkt sowie einen Überblick über wichtige europäische und außereuropäische Märkte. Die Arbeit dient Marktteilnehmern und Entscheidungsträgern als Leitfaden in einer neuen Branche. Die Analyse erfolgt mit der folgenden Zielsetzung: · Darstellung der Branche anhand quantitativer sowie qualitativer Parameter · Abbildung gegenwärtiger Marktcharakteristika und ihrer zukünftigen Bedeutung · Erkennung und Bewertung wichtiger Trends und Aktivitäten in Gegenwart und Zukunft · Evaluation der deutschen Telemedizinbranche durch Vergleich mit ausgewählten internationalen Märkten · Unternehmensbewertung von Telemedizinunternehmen · Handlungsempfehlungen an Teilnehmer der Telemedizinwertkette in Deutschland Das Buch richtet sich sowohl an Hochschulen (im Bereich Wirtschaft und Medizin) als auch an die Praxis wie Banken, Entscheider im Medizinbereich, Anwaltskanzleien, Politiker, Patienten, Krankenkassen, Krankenhäuser und Ärzte, aber auch an Verbände, Stiftungen und Institute im medizinischen Bereich.

In recent public workshops and working group meetings, the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has examined a variety of infectious disease outbreaks with pandemic potential, including those caused by influenza (IOM, 2005) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (IOM, 2004). Particular attention has been paid to the potential pandemic threat posed by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is now endemic in many Southeast Asian bird populations. Since 2003, the H5N1 subtype of avian influenza has caused 185 confirmed human deaths in 11 countries, including some cases of viral transmission from human to human (WHO, 2007). But as worrisome as these developments are, at least they are caused by known pathogens. The next pandemic could well be caused by the emergence of a microbe that is still unknown, much as happened in the 1980s with the emergence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and in 2003 with the appearance of the SARS coronavirus. Previous Forum meetings on pandemic disease have discussed the scientific and logistical challenges associated with pandemic disease recognition, identification, and response. Participants in these earlier meetings also recognized the difficulty of implementing disease control strategies effectively. Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.

In a wide-ranging, timely discussion of urgent issues, this volume examines the health consequences of the recent terrorist attacks in the United States and systematically reviews information on explosives, incendiaries, and small arms, as well as biologic, chemical, nuclear, radiologic and other radioactive weapons that may be used by terrorists. In a constructive approach, the authors discuss what needs to be done to improve the public health and medical care systems in preparation for possible future terrorist attacks and threats and for addressing widespread public health problems more effectively. They also explore the origins of terrorism and discuss the civil rights and human rights issues related to government responses to terrorism. Well-written, well-organized, and up-to-date, the book should be essential reading for many health professionals, students, and others concerned with terrorism and its health consequences.

In the wake of September 11th and recent anthrax events, our nation's bioterrorism response capability has become an imminent priority for policymakers, researchers, public health officials, academia, and the private sector. In a three-day workshop, convened by the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Emerging Infections, experts from each of these communities came together to identify, clarify, and prioritize the next steps that need to be taken in order to prepare and strengthen bioterrorism response capabilities. From the discussions, it became clear that of utmost urgency is the need to cast the issue of a response in an appropriate framework in order to attract the attention of Congress and the public in order to garner sufficient and sustainable support for such initiatives. No matter how the issue is cast, numerous workshop participants agreed that there are many gaps in the public health infrastructure and countermeasure capabilities that must be prioritized and addressed in order to assure a rapid and effective response to another bioterrorist attack.

Thermal harm is one of the most traumatizing assaults on man and his environment. Whether suffered by living beings as burn injury, or sustained by societal structures as fire damage, the resulting physical pain and material loss can be extremely distressing both to the person and to society. The health professions and in particular burn specialists have been continually developing effective means of combating burn disease and promoting rehabili­ tation of the victims, especially in mass casualty situations. In parallel, various levels of the community have been mobilizing fire prevention and fire-fighting mechanisms that protect society and the environment from the ever-increasing hazards of fire disasters. It is therefore surprising that, while aiming at the same objective, the two sectors have rarely come together; doctor has rarely worked with fire chief. Yet both disciplines have so much to learn from and contribute to each other's efforts. The Mediterranean Burns Club is a professional organization that brings together persons concerned with burn therapy and fire safety in all forms, especially in the countries of the Mediterranean basin. It is honoured to have been identified by the United Nations as a premier scientific body in its field within the programme of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. It is therefore natural that it should have initiated an international gathering of specialists engaged in burns as a surgical, clinical problem, and of counterparts dealing with fires as a societal, disaster management problem.