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Successful and early distress communication at sea is critically important for improving the survivability of marine accidents. A wide range of communication methods is available for seafarers to make distress calls. In particular, emergency radio beacons (i.e. emergency position indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs) and personal locator beacons (PLBs)) provide a reliable, commercially available means by which distress notification and incident location can be provided, particularly if time is not available to establish communication by radio or telephone. Given the importance of these devices, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) provides guidance for flag states to incorporate radio distress beacons within legal and search and rescue (SAR) frameworks. National regulations in Canada stipulate additional performance requirements for radio frequency transmission, operation and use. The governance structure for emergency radio beacons in Canada is comprehensive and complex, and worldwide accident statistics show that when EPIRBs and PLBs are used, the rescue rate increases. Still, in Canada, a significant proportion of maritime activities (e.g., fish harvesting) do not require the use of these devices, and it is in these sectors where the greatest number of fatalities is occurring. Our paper explores the governance structure for the development and use of EPIRBs and PLBs in Canada, identifying where challenges and gaps exist and considering ways to close these gaps. Discussion is provided on the flexibility and adaptability of the governance system to incorporating new information and changes in technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The impact of heat waves on mortality and health inequalities is well documented. Very few studies have assessed the effectiveness of heat action plans (HAPs) on health, and none has used quasi-experimental methods to estimate causal effects of such programs. Objectives: We developed a quasi-experimental method to estimate the causal effects associated with HAPs that allows the identification of heterogeneity across subpopulations, and to apply this method specifically to the case of the Montreal (Quebec, Canada) HAP. Methods: A difference-in-differences approach was undertaken using Montreal death registry data for the summers of 2000-2007 to assess the effectiveness of the Montreal HAP, implemented in 2004, on mortality. To study equity in the effect of HAP implementation, we assessed whether the program effects were heterogeneous across sex (male vs. female), age (≥ 65 years vs. < 65 years), and neighborhood education levels (first vs. third tertile). We conducted sensitivity analyses to assess the validity of the estimated causal effect of the HAP program. Results: We found evidence that the HAP contributed to reducing mortality on hot days, and that the mortality reduction attributable to the program was greater for elderly people and people living in low-education neighborhoods. Conclusion: These findings show promise for programs aimed at reducing the impact of extreme temperatures and health inequities. We propose a new quasi-experimental approach that can be easily applied to evaluate the impact of any program or intervention triggered when daily thresholds are reached. Citation: Benmarhnia T, Bailey Z, Kaiser D, Auger N, King N, Kaufman J. 2016. A difference-indifferences approach to assess the effect of a heat action plan on heat-related mortality, and differences in effectiveness according to sex, age, and socioeconomic status (Montreal, Quebec). Environ Health Perspect 124:1694-1699; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP203 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following an earthquake, urban agriculture has been shown to improve recovery by increasing food security and providing numerous community and social benefits. However, many communities often do not consider urban agriculture within their earthquake or disaster preparedness programs. This work explores the intersection between those two realms, considering how their integration may increase food security and improve resilience following an earthquake. Through a case study focusing on the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, this research involved a four-step strategic scan of planning and earthquake management documents to determine whether Vancouver has captured the benefit of urban agriculture for earthquake recovery. Results revealed that this benefit has yet to be realized, however there is ample opportunity to do so given the City's advances in urban agriculture. This research seeks to provide planners, city officials and emergency management with insight into the potential of urban agriculture for earthquake preparedness. More broadly, this work seeks to add to the discussion by exploring a tangible integration of two realms that are often planned in isolation, yet could have positive impacts if combined. This paper concludes with specific interventions for how urban agriculture can be utilized for earthquake recovery in order to build resilience. • Food security and malnutrition are pervasive issues following an earthquake. • Urban agriculture can improve food security during earthquake recovery. • Urban agriculture provides social and community benefits during recovery. • Earthquake-prone areas should consider urban agriculture in preparedness programs. • Considering urban agriculture within earthquake management can increase resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes an anthropological approach to understanding the governance of seaport security in Canada; it uses cultural theory and the concepts of regulation and integration as key determinants in understanding how organizations respond to risk. This paper draws on data from 29 semi-structured interviews with transportation specialists, including owners, operators, managers and regulators. Nine of the interview subjects came from seaports, in particular. The interviews occurred between 2011 and 2013. We argue that Canadian seaports exist in an area of confusing multi-level governance; they are immovable, are expected to be competitive and serve a number of (at times competing) public and private sector interests. These institutional arrangements have resulted in a security environment that is heavily regulated, but the community itself is not well integrated. Interview subjects raise concerns about the ports' ability to respond to security threats. The paper then uses cultural theory to examine alternative governance arrangements enhancing, for example, community, competition or regulation. While most options to improve security will likely reduce the competitiveness of the seaports, it would help to instill more confidence among port staff and enhance organizational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Inter-Parliamentary Union's 2010 report which found that parliamentarians have important role in influencing national policies. It discusses risks faced by British Columbia from natural disasters, industrial accidents and terrorism, and mentions that British Columbia Provincial Government has established the Ministry on emergency management in Canada to overcome the problem.

In today's challenging climate of ongoing fiscal restraints, limited resources and complex organisational structures there is an acute need to investigate opportunities to facilitate enhanced delivery of business continuity programmes while maintaining or increasing acceptable levels of service delivery. In 2013, Health Emergency Management British Columbia (HEMBC), responsible for emergency management and business continuity activities across British Columbia's health sector, transitioned its business continuity programme from a manual to automated process with the development of a customised online database, known as the Health Emergency Management Assessment Tool (HEMAT). Key benefits to date include a more efficient business continuity input process, immediate situational awareness for use in emergency response and/or advanced planning and streamlined analyses for generation of reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Public Health Agency of Canada (the Agency) has an important role to play in collaboration with its provincial/territorial partners to advance preparedness for emerging and re-emerging high-consequence infectious diseases. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the Agency established Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) Rapid Response Teams that were available to any requesting provincial/territorial jurisdiction with a laboratory confirmed case of EVD. Working with provincial and territorial officials, a Rapid Response Team Concept of Operations was developed which outlined the process for Rapid Response Team engagement as well as the suite of technical expertise available. The Concept of Operations was refined further following a series of face-to-face advance planning meetings with individual provincial and territorial jurisdictions. This led to a consensus agreement that the Agency's Rapid Response Team should be available to support management of both confirmed and suspected EVD cases. There was also unanimous support from provincial and territorial jurisdictions that the concept and operationalization of the Agency's Rapid Response Team should be broadened to provide surge-capacity support to the provinces and territories to include any event with significant public health consequences. The Agency will continue to engage with domestic and international partners regarding best practices to maintain a highly skilled and nimble Rapid Response Team that is operationally ready to support both domestic and international public health emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The 1917 Halifax Explosion was an unfortunate but predictable tragedy, given the sea traffic and munitions cargo, resulting in sudden large-scale damage and catastrophic injuries, with 1950 dead and 8000 injured. Although generous support was received from the United States, the bulk of the medical work was undertaken using local resources through an immediate, massive, centrally coordinated medical response. The incredible care provided 100 years ago by these Canadian physicians, nurses and students is often forgotten, but deserves attention. The local medical response to the 1917 disaster is an early example of coordinated mass casualty relief, the first in Canada, and remains relevant to modern disaster preparedness planning. This commentary has an appendix, available at canjsurg.ca/016317-a1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding wildfire impacts on structures in wildland urban interface (WUI) communities is fundamental for emergency response and mitigation planning to reduce potential social and economic losses. The magnitude of structures loss determines the direct economic costs for re-building, indirect economic losses due to evacuation and disruption of economic activities as well as shelter needs. This paper presents a framework for the development and implementation of incident-level wildfire impact assessment of WUI residential structures including the following successive components: hazard, inventory, exposure, and impact. The hazard model generates spatial and temporal distribution of fire intensity for wildfire event scenarios; the inventory model provides spatial pattern of exposed structures; the exposure model estimates the fire intensity at WUI locations; whereas the impact model evaluates the structures loss by applying newly developed empirical response functions represented as the relationship between fire intensity, distance from forest edge and expected proportion of burned structures. A case study application of the proposed framework is presented for loss assessment of structures in a WUI community of the northern boreal forest of Canada. The proposed framework is particularly useful to the public safety community for conducting what-if scenarios of wildfire impact in support of emergency and mitigation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores flood-related environmental injustices by deconstructing racial, ethnic, and socio-demographic disparities and spatial heterogeneity in the areal extent of fluvial, pluvial, and coastal flooding across Canada. The study integrates JBA Risk Management's 100-year Canada Flood Map with the 2016 national census-based socioeconomic data to investigate whether traditionally recognized vulnerable groups and communities are exposed inequitably to inland (e.g., fluvial and pluvial) and coastal flood hazards. Social vulnerability was represented by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic deprivation, including economic insecurity and instability indices. Statistical analyses include bivariate correlation and a series of non-spatial and spatial regression techniques, including ordinary least squares, binary logistic regression, and simultaneous autoregressive models. The study emphasizes the quest for the most appropriate methodological framework to analyze flood-related socioeconomic inequities in Canada. Strong evidence of spatial effects has motivated the study to test for the spatial heterogeneity of covariates by employing geographically weighted regression (GWR) on continuous outcome variables (e.g., percent of residential properties in a census tract exposed to flood hazards) and geographically weighted logistic regression on dichotomous outcome variables (e.g., a census tract in or out of flood hazard zone). GWR results show that the direction and statistical significance of relationships between inland flood exposure and all explanatory variables under consideration are spatially non-stationary. We find certain vulnerable groups, such as females, lone-parent households, Indigenous peoples, South Asians, the elderly, other visible minorities, and economically insecure residents, are at a higher risk of flooding in Canadian neighbourhoods. Spatial and social disparities in flood exposure have critical policy implications for effective emergency management and disaster risk reduction. The study findings are a foundation for a more detailed investigation of the disproportionate impacts of flood risk in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The aim of this paper was to provide a concept analysis of 'pandemic influenza'. Background Pandemic influenza can have a devastating impact as individuals have little to no immunity towards the newly encountered virus. It is a persistent societal threat due to the advancement of multiple technological processes. Nurses work in multiple roles in pandemics. As such, a thorough understanding of the concept and its implications from a nursing perspective is required. Design Rodgers' Evolutionary Method was used to conduct the concept analysis of the term 'pandemic influenza'. Data sources Forty-nine papers were examined from the disciplines of public health, medicine, law, bioethics and healthcare policy. Papers were found from the PubMed, CINAHL and Google Scholar databases all dates up to December 2013. Limits were set to include peer-reviewed, English language articles. Methods Identified papers were critically analyzed to explore the concept's antecedents, attributes and consequences. Surrogate and related terms, and an exemplar, were identified. Results Attributes of pandemic include original viral structure, increased human susceptibility, younger vulnerable populations and unpredictable time frames. Antecedents include processes that enable the increased geographical transmission of a newly created influenza. Consequences include higher morbidity and mortality rates and the need for an efficient pandemic response. Conclusions This analysis identified the attributes of pandemic influenza through a synthesis of the current pandemic literature. However, no articles were identified as specifically nursing in nature. Therefore, more research is required to examine the impact of a pandemic declaration on the nursing profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three recent Canadian public health crises present an illustration of both the opportunities for reform and the challenges that may impede progress and public health renewal in federalist nations. While the three crises examined exposed serious flaws in emergency preparedness and fuelled demands for vital public health reform, evidence indicates that fundamental challenges have not been addressed and may have even heightened over the last decade given a move to 'open federalism" and the significant fiscal impacts of ongoing austerity measures. With future pandemics inevitable, we identify the missed opportunities to optimize Canada's emergency response capacity and procedures and examine the seemingly intractable barriers of federalism and path dependency thinking that continue to impede learning and reform and ultimately undermine effective disaster management [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indexes that measure social vulnerability to hazards have gained acceptance as a research tool that can inform local policymaking. Many indexes, however, are created remotely by researchers without using the input of those working in local policy. If practitioners are involved in creating an index that they find accurate and useful, it is more likely they will incorporate the findings of the index in local policy decisions. This article describes the process of ground truthing a social vulnerability index with practitioners working in five municipalities in Metro Vancouver and how the index was then revised to reflect their input. This process involved presenting an index to focus groups of municipal practitioners for their feedback and conducting a survey of participants that was then used to assign weights to the variables in the index. The study found that practitioners were generally accepting of the research approach to quantifying social vulnerability by place, although they often had specific concerns regarding the methodology and offered suggestions to make the index more reflective of the local context. The process of revising the index illustrates that local practitioner input can be used to create a measure of social vulnerability to hazards that is meaningful to those working in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Common ground is necessary for developing collaboration as part of building resilience for public health preparedness. While the importance of common ground as an essential component of collaboration has been well described, there is a need for studies to identify how common ground develops over time, across individual and group dimensions, and the contexts that influence its development. This paper studied common ground development in three Canadian communities between October 2010 and March 2011 through a project on capacity building for disaster management. Disaster management requires the integration of paid and volunteer participants across public and private sectors and is therefore a good domain to study common ground development. We used directed qualitative content analysis to develop a model of common ground development over time that describes its progression through coordinative, cooperative and collaborative common ground. We also identified how common ground develops at micro (individual) and macro (group) levels, as well as how agency, technology and geographical contexts influence its development. We then use the four phases of disaster management to illustrate how our model can support longitudinal common ground development. Our findings provide useful insight to enable proactive development of common ground in collaborative health communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance coverage of damage caused by overland flooding is currently not available to Canadian homeowners. As flood disaster losses and water damage claims both trend upward, insurers in Canada are considering offering residential flood coverage in order to properly underwrite the risk and extend their business. If private flood insurance is introduced in Canada, it will have implications for the current regime of public flood management and for residential vulnerability to flood hazards. This paper engages many of the competing issues surrounding the privatization of flood risk by addressing questions about whether flood insurance can be an effective tool in limiting exposure to the hazard and how it would exacerbate already unequal vulnerability. A case study investigates willingness to pay for flood insurance among residents in Metro Vancouver and how attitudes about insurance relate to other factors that determine residential vulnerability to flood hazards. Findings indicate that demand for flood insurance is part of a complex, dialectical set of determinants of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research in emergency preparedness is dedicated to exploring differences in behavior based on sociodemographic attributes. It has been suggested that these differences may be partially explained by cognitive threat appraisals; however, this relationship is rarely tested empirically in the literature. This study investigates the mediational role of cognitive threat appraisals on the relationship between sociodemographic attributes and anticipated emergency response in a representative sample of the Canadian public (n = 1502). Findings reveal that a number of sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, age, education, and income were significantly related to anticipated emergency response. Cognitive threat appraisals—including two measures of risk perception for terrorism threats—were similarly found to differ significantly by sociodemographic attributes, and were significantly related to anticipated emergency response. However, with the exception of gender, these differences in risk perception did not significantly explain the sociodemographic differences in anticipated response. These results suggest that while individual-level differences in appraisal are important considerations in emergency preparedness and response, further research should consider the broader contextual factors relevant to at-risk demographic groups to better explain these relationships. Implications for future research and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnography is a qualitative methodology facilitating in-depth research into groups sharing a common organizational culture. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to discover obstacles and opportunities for the proposed use of citizen volunteers in the Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services (VF&RS) located in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Canada. As proposed, volunteers would be organized into Neighborhood Emergency Assistance Teams (NEATs) and activated for use in disaster events falling outside the normal scope of emergency response. Development of the NEAT program is an effort by VF&RS and the City of Vancouver (CoV) to acknowledge the necessity and critical nature of engaging communities as a means of preparing for catastrophic events (Reynolds, 2012; VF&RS, 2011). Data gathered from semistructured interviews of 26 firefighters and 4 subject-matter experts (SMEs), for a total sample size of 30, were analyzed using thematic network analysis to discover common themes in attitudes and perceptions among the respondents concerning the use of volunteers in delivering fire and rescue services. Emerging from the analysis were 16 basic themes that were collapsed into five organizing themes that, in turn, were organized into two global themes. Global Theme 1, organizational and cultural aspects of the fire service impede innovation and progress in the area of disaster management, points to obstacles in the use of volunteers in the VF&RS. In contrast, Global Theme 2, participatory approaches to disaster management enhance capacity and resiliency of the fire service and society, suggests that interviewees believe the use of volunteers through the NEAT program holds considerable promise for delivering disaster-management services in Vancouver. The article concludes with 14 policy recommendations that provide the VF&RS the opportunity to enhance the development of comprehensive disaster emergency management through strategies incorporating the use of citizen volunteers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 23, 2012, the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ontario, collapsed suddenly, killing two people, injuring many more, and destroying many of the community’s services, including the public library. After describing the events leading up to, during, and following the destruction of Elliot Lake Public Library, I discuss five opportunities for community and institutional renewal that are not currently being realized by the library. The destruction of the library need not be an entirely negative experience but, rather, a catalyst for refocusing the library’s role and improving its services and facilities in order to better meet the changing information needs of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Freshwater biodiversity is in a state of crisis. The recent development of a global emergency recovery plan to "bend the curve" for freshwater biodiversity lacks the necessary details for implementation in a regional context. Using Canada as an example, we describe a toolbox intended to equip decision-makers and practitioners with evidence-based tools for addressing threats to freshwater biodiversity. The toolbox includes two rubric-based scoring tools to inform users about the level of the reliability (e.g., transparent methods, critical appraisal) and relevancy to Canadian freshwater systems (e.g., habitat, species) of an evidence synthesis. Those scoring tools were applied to 259 evidence syntheses, also included in the toolbox, across fifty freshwater management actions. Habitat Creation, Invasive Species Removal, and Revegetation were found to have reliable evidence syntheses but there remain several actions for which the syntheses are not robust and where the evidence base is unreliable. We suggest the need for more rigorously conducted empirical tests of freshwater management actions, further evidence synthesis, and clearer conveyance of implications for decision-makers and practitioners. Decision-makers and practitioners should use the two scoring tools on syntheses outside this project and tailor them to their regions. Given the global interest in addressing the freshwater biodiversity crisis and the necessity to engage and empower decision-makers and practitioners on a regional basis, we anticipate this toolbox will serve as a model for regions beyond Canada. Future studies to understand if and how the toolbox is used will be needed to make refinements and ensure it benefits freshwater biodiversity. • Current management of freshwater ecosystems fails to address the global freshwater biodiversity crisis • Evidence syntheses and reviews are a valuable resource to decision-makers and practitioners for informing conservation actions • The toolbox consists of over 250 freshwater management evidence syntheses, scored based on the included appraisal tools • Syntheses demonstrate a poor systematic review conduct but show a strong potential for regional relevance and applicability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background As natural disasters are increasing globally, nursing's role in responding to disasters is evolving. Disaster nursing has emerged as a specialty that focuses on the care of groups and communities during disaster response. The role of rural nurses in disasters is less well defined. Methods A review of peer-reviewed literature combined with the International Council of Nurses framework of Disaster Nursing Competencies was conducted to understand the roles and functions of nurses in rural areas that experience disasters. The authors' findings from investigating the effects of four wildfires in rural Canadian communities are also discussed. Results Six major themes derived from our wildfire studies were generated within the context of nursing practice and are useful in the preparation of rural nurses involved in disaster management and recovery. This adds to the current literature which by and large has not addressed nursing in rural catastrophes. Conclusion Well-prepared and educated rural nurses who combine theoretical knowledge with their understanding of a rural community potentially can reduce the impact of a disaster. Other nursing roles include mentoring nursing students in disaster preparation and assisting in initiatives to address community recovery in the aftermath of a disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 10 y Health Canada has operated a Fixed Point Surveillance Network of NaI(Tl) detectors across Canada. Deployed for both emergency response and daily monitoring of airborne radiation in the environment, a spectral stripping method allowed measurement of certain isotopes well below the ambient dose rate. These include 133Xe, 135Xe and 41Ar, typical of emissions from operating nuclear reactors. In an effort to increase the number of isotopes measured at these low levels a new technique of spectral fitting using spectral templates is being implemented. However, this requires very accurate spectral templates that can be difficult or impossible to obtain empirically for environmental measurements of airborne radio-isotopes. Therefore, a method of efficiently using Monte Carlo techniques to create these templates was developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The World Health Organization declared the recent international spread of wild poliovirus a public health emergency of international concern on May 5, 2014. Temporary recommendations were issued to reduce the risk of further spread of the disease, focusing on countries currently exporting wild poliovirus and those with individuals infected with wild poliovirus but not exporting the virus to other countries. The purpose of this statement is to review the implications of the new temporary recommendations for Canadian travellers and to provide guidance for health care practitioners for the prevention of poliomyelitis (polio) in travellers from Canada. Methods: This statement was developed by the Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT) and is designed to complement the Canadian Immunization Guide, a comprehensive resource on immunization. CATMAT has taken into consideration both the need for protection and the potential for adverse effects of vaccination. Background: Polio is a highly infectious, vaccine-preventable, viral disease. Though polio is asymptomatic in the majority of cases, in approximately 1% it attacks the central nervous system and leads to paralysis. Epidemiology and risk to traveller: Canada was declared free of wild poliovirus in 1994 and cases since then have been associated with importations and very rarely (1 per 2.7 million doses) to vaccine-associated paralytic polio with the use of oral poliovirus vaccine. There is still a risk to travellers going to regions outside those in which polio has been eliminated. Prevention: Routine vaccination of children and adults is recommended in Canada. Complete information about polio vaccine recommendations in Canada is available in the most recent version of the Canadian Immunization Guide. Travellers should ensure that they are vaccinated against polio before travelling to countries where polio is known or suspected to be circulating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the costs associated with hazardous events continues to rise, many researchers and practitioners argue that the social, economic, and human losses attributed to these events can be significantly reduced through a variety of risk reduction and preparedness programs, as well as through a greater understanding of the social, economic, and political processes that work to create vulnerability. This paper explores various approaches to understanding vulnerability and the underlying processes affecting vulnerability levels. Empirical research was conducted in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada with key informants (n = 25) working in emergency preparedness/response or with community organizations. The research revealed at least four themes that would be useful for policies and programs designed to reduce vulnerability to disasters. Although the research was carried out in a Canadian context, the paper examines how these themes might relate more generally to underlying processes of vulnerability discussed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Experience increases hazard prioritization and the number of responses in place. • Less physically visible hazards are underestimated by coastal municipalities. • Information and expertise are crucial for municipalities' hazard response capacity. • Resolving municipalities' identified needs and priorities could support hazard responses. • Integrated coastal governance and management could strengthen local response capacity. As climate and anthropogenic changes increase the vulnerability of coastal areas around the world, the threat (and reality) of coastal hazards grows. These threats arise particularly at a local level, calling out for more knowledge on how to best support coastal municipalities to deal with natural and human-induced hazards. This study seeks to add to the understanding through an examination of local-level experience with hazard planning and responses carried out by coastal municipalities, producing insights on how to reduce their vulnerability and support their resilience. It explores the factors influencing coastal municipalities' management of relevant hazards to achieve comprehensive multi-hazard risk reduction and adaptation. We do so through a national survey of Canada's coastal municipalities which assessed experience with hazards, risk perception, hazard prioritization, and the extent and specifics of hazard responses. We characterize the determinants of coastal municipalities' behaviour and intervening factors, and conduct regression analyses to explain coastal municipalities' risk perception, hazard prioritization, implementation of management processes for dealing with hazards, and the number of implemented or planned hazard responses. Six key factors were identified that influence hazard responses at the municipal level: experience with hazards; competing priorities; hazard visibility; access to resources (financial and technical capacity) and governance (institutional setting and political capacity). We conclude that municipal hazard responses can be reinforced by increasing the effectiveness of risk communication, promoting participatory processes, providing support for municipalities' identified needs and priorities, ensuring municipalities have access to relevant information and expertise, and implementing integrated coastal governance and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the coronavirus pandemic has threatened the lives of the vulnerable, ravaged global economic systems. Topics include the information technology infrastructure and maintain the enormous demands upon render results and patient care data available on a continuous basis; and a sufficient number of ventilators have available to care for needing advanced respiratory support demands not sufficient production.

Complexity is a useful frame of reference for disaster management and understanding population health. An important means to unraveling the complexities of disaster management is to recognize the interdependencies between health care and broader social systems and how they intersect to promote health and resilience before, during and after a crisis. While recent literature has expanded our understanding of the complexity of disasters at the macro level, few studies have examined empirically how dynamic elements of critical social infrastructure at the micro level influence community capacity. The purpose of this study was to explore empirically the complexity of disasters, to determine levers for action where interventions can be used to facilitate collaborative action and promote health among high risk populations. A second purpose was to build a framework for critical social infrastructure and develop a model to identify potential points of intervention to promote population health and resilience. A community-based participatory research design was used in nine focus group consultations ( n = 143) held in five communities in Canada, between October 2010 and March 2011, using the Structured Interview Matrix facilitation technique. The findings underscore the importance of interconnectedness of hard and soft systems at the micro level, with culture providing the backdrop for the social fabric of each community. Open coding drawing upon the tenets of complexity theory was used to develop four core themes that provide structure for the framework that evolved; they relate to dynamic context, situational awareness and connectedness, flexible planning, and collaboration, which are needed to foster adaptive responses to disasters. Seven action recommendations are presented, to promote community resilience and population health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Temperature–mortality analyses are challenging in rural and remote communities with small populations, but this information is needed for climate change and emergency planning. The geographic health areas of British Columbia, Canada were aggregated into four ecoregions delineated by microclimatic conditions. Time series models were used to estimate the effect of maximum apparent temperature on daily non-traumatic mortality. The population of the coldest ecoregion was most sensitive to hot weather, while the population of the hottest ecoregion was least sensitive. The effects were consistently strongest in decedents aged less than 75 years. A province-wide total of 815 deaths was attributed to hot weather over the 25-year study period, with 735 deaths in the most populous ecoregion. The framework described could be adapted to other climatically variable regions with urban, rural, and remote populations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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