Search

Recent experiences in disaster medicine in Japan have shown the importance of preventing post-disaster health deterioration among citizens during the evacuation and recovery phases. The effective involvement of various medical, social welfare, and nursing organizations is necessary to mitigate these health problems. This study explored the effectiveness of a time-tracking evaluation method for functional exercises in analyzing the communication and joint task-processing capabilities of various medical and social welfare organizations in response to a citywide heavy-rain disaster. Each exercise inject was analyzed in advance to create a task-processing chain according to the emergency medical response plan. The actions of the exercise players were then compared with the expected tasks in the processing chain. The exercise created overload for some player groups. The completion rates and average execution times of the tasks were compared across task types and player groups, indicating the potential weaknesses of the current emergency operation plan. Responses of local medical associations to similar exercise injects were compared to analyze the range of diversity in responses and the merits of past exercise participation. Although the results of this time-tracking evaluation need to be carefully interpreted by combining the results regarding the quality of players' exercise actions, this method provides a new perspective for evaluating emergency operation plans through functional exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the use of mobile devices has become ubiquitous, allowing users to access and share information in almost real-time through various social media platforms. This has provided an edge in emergency communication and disaster handling. Mobile emergency apps have emerged as key technologies in emergency communication. Mining the content of users' reviews of mobile emergency apps has the potential to learn about users' behavior and uncover unforeseen events in the emergency management process. This paper focused on emergency apps present in Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, and Norway). User feedback was collected for every app from the Google/Apple store, and appropriate text mining techniques were employed to mine the discussion content for a given emergency communication ontology. Next, we investigated the contexts that generate either positive or negative sentiment, highlighting the main factors that impact user behavior most by leveraging the Empath Categorization technique. Finally, we constructed a word association by considering different ontological vocabularies related to mobile applications and emergency response and management systems. The study's findings can help develop early warning systems that trigger alarms whenever a critical event requiring special attention is identified. It also paves the way for developing a more tailored communication strategy that considers the identified community behavior concerning emergency apps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk communication is a cross-sectional (Communication inter organizational, media and community level) and long-term process that plays a very important role in disaster management. Past disasters have showen that the health management system has not performed well in this area; it has taken a passive approach and had late and inadequate response. Therefore, the present qualitative study was conducted to identify the components of health system preparedness in disaster risk communication in Iran. The present study employed the qualitative content analysis method with the Graneheim approach and was conducted from October 2021 to March 2022. Twenty-one participants with practical experience or theoretical knowledge in the field of risk and public communication were purposefully selected. Participants took part in in-depth semi-structured to interviews data saturation. In the first version, 452 initial codes were identified. After removal of duplicate codes and purification 190 codes ultimately remained. The components of disaster risk communication were classified into 5 categories and 19 subcategories: Situational analysis (information situation assessment, risk monitoring and warning, Functional and process situation, audience analysis), Establishment and risk communication management (Risk information, communication, planning and policy making, Process management and implementation, content of information), Education and training (senior and middle managers training, Expert training, training of media owners, public education), Monitoring and evaluation (monitoring and control, documentation), Logistic (human resources, funds, infrastructure, coordination and organization) The findings of this study show that the management of disaster risk communication and improvement of its process are critical for Iran and it should be considered as the first steps to disaster risk reduction based on the disaster management cycle. This dynamic process has various and board dimensions such as communication, planning, and coordination, which have been discussed in detail. This one-dimensional view of risk communication should be removed and all its dimensions considered by policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency and severity of disaster occurrence and emergency situations, and the importance of disaster risk communication of relief organizations to increase the readiness of societies in the case of disaster are increasing around the world. This study aimed to identify relief organizations' strategies to improve disaster risk communication in Iran. This qualitative study was conducted with the participation of 25 managers, relief workers, and people who had experiences in response to one of the disasters. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using conventional content analysis. The analysis of the data of this study led to the identification of 3 categories and 9 sub-categories regarding strategies of relief organizations to improve risk communication. These categories are 1) management of information and educational communication 2) management of communication barriers, and 3) Inter-organizational communication management. Relief organizations use different strategies to improve disaster risk communication, and communication barrier management is vital for improving organizations' communication with people. Developing risk communication improvement strategies can help planners and managers design and implement effective risk management programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psycholinguistics is a field in behaviorism science that was established by George Miller to study the psychological impact of languages on the human mind. Specific research and application of psycholinguistics in emergency communication are limited, where it is often purely analyzed under language barriers. The main objective of this study is to develop new knowledge about Psycholinguistic in emergency communication through highlighting some of the communication gaps that are usually overlooked in emergency planning, and provide some recommendations in order to improve the overall emergency communication systems by reconsidering the way we look at language as an important psychosocial factor that impacts vulnerable communities. Previous research studies in psychology, linguistics, and emergency communication were critically analyzed, and a qualitative methodology, involving semi-structured interviews with ten subjects from Gainesville, Florida, who speak English as a second language, was chosen in order to provide a flexible approach to broadly explore the phenomenon that is being studied. This study provided insights into one main research question: how can different languages influence our understanding of emergency notification? 5 main themes were found; gaps in direct translation, variations in emotional impact, variations in grammatical language structure, fusion attitudes, and lack of technical terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]