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The article evaluates why it is important to get the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) foreign disaster relief (FDR) mission right, focusing on the strategic goals and benefits of providing FDR. Topics include an exploration of the DoD FDR missions in Nicaragua and Haiti to demonstrate how rules of engagement (ROE) was ill-suited to the mission, the importance of the standing rules for the use of force (SRUF) at the operational and tactical levels, and RUF's compatibility with DoD's FDR.

After disasters, such as in the aftermath of a major earthquake, the road network can be blocked by debris from collapsed buildings, impacting accessibility to the affected population. In addition, people move and assemble in various points of the city. In this context, road network accessibility becomes an important issue for logistics operations responsible for the relief and the distribution of supplies to the affected population. We propose metaheuristics for the multi-period Work-troops Scheduling Problem (WSP), extending a contribution from the literature. The WSP is an NP-hard problem. This study brings several contributions to the WSP such as a dedicated local search and two metaheuristics: a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search procedure and an Iterated Local Search. Results are performed on theoretical instances, and on a realistic instance of Port-au-Prince city in Haïti after the 2010 earthquake, where the problem has 16,660 vertices and 19,866 routes representing the urban network, and more than 500 blocked roads. The method developed improved the results from the literature and the results indicate its robustness. Moreover, the best-known results for the case of the Haïti instances are presented in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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One of the most pressing governance challenges around the globe is managing disasters and their underlying risk factors. Little is known about effective strategies to minimize burnout and posttraumatic stress disorder among practitioners involved in addressing this challenge, especially in countries that rely mainly on international aid agencies for the delivery of basic services to their citizens. This article draws on the emotional labor literature to identify routes addressing the negative consequences of doing response and recovery work in postdisaster contexts. Based primarily on surveys and interviews with response and recovery workers involved after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, it advances and extends previous emotional labor theory on the mitigating factors of service workers' burnout. It points to the importance of autonomy and training as well as five coping mechanisms: relying on informal support, utilizing humor, leaving work at work, decompressing alone, and rotating job positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the confluence of humanitarian aid, centralisation, and politics. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010 led to more than USD 16 billion in pledges. By contrast, Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall in Haiti on 4 October 2016, stayed in the shadows, attracting about one per cent of the amount. While the earthquake exhibited one face of centralisation, the Category 4 storm laid bare rural vulnerabilities shaped by postcolonial state neglect, and reinforced by the influx of non‐governmental organisations in the 'Republic of Port‐au‐Prince'. The study draws on data from four case studies in two departments to illuminate the legacies of hyper‐centralisation in Haiti. Compounding matters, Matthew struck in the middle of an extended election that the international community attempted to control again. The paper argues that disaster assistance and politics are uncomfortably close, while reflecting on the momentary decentralisation of aid after the hurricane and its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As international humanitarian assistance from governments and private donors continued to increase in recent years, the pace of growth, however, has slowed down [1]. For instance, in 2018, while US$17.0 billion out of US$28.1 billion funding was committed to UN-coordinated appeals, there was still a funding shortfall of US$11.1 billion, with only 61% of requirements met [1]. Against this backdrop, international organizations are in - creasingly implementing innovative solutions to respond the needs of affected communities [2], [3]. Many of these solutions involve the use of digital technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS), robotics, spatial decision support systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones [4]. Although drones are not the first use of robotics in commercial and industrial settings, the humanitarian use of drones represents the first wave of robotics applied in the aid sector, and is representative of emerging technologies being used for humanitarian purposes [5]. Examples of successful drone use in this setting include the 2010 Haiti earthquake (damage inspection), 2012 Hurricane Sandy in the U.S.A. (epidemic prevention), 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (rescue logistics), the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa (medical equipment delivery), and the 2015 Nepal earthquake - the site of this case study - when Nepal was stricken by one of the most devastating natural disasters in history, leaving the country with heavy burdens of immediate emergency relief and long-term postdisaster reconstruction [6]-[8]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to draw lessons for logistics management in humanitarian disasters, using the earthquake in Haiti as a case study. In Haiti, there were problems with the logistical response. This study investigates the humanitarian logistics challenges faced by various stakeholders in Haiti during the disaster-relief operations. Design/methodology/approach: In this exploratory case study, the central methodology used was data triangulation. Data triangulation involved interviews with respondents grouped into three categories, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the military establishment and the governmental agencies. Prominence is given to the common themes expressed by each group. These common themes are then compared to the themes of other groups to identify opportunities and problems for future disaster relief operations. Findings: The study indicates that there is a clear gap in terms of how the humanitarian efforts were coordinated between different actors. Lack of civil–military cooperation and coordination was one of the findings from the interviews, and many of the resources and initiatives were overlapping or redundant. Timeliness and efficiency need to be at the forefront of all planning and would result in more saved lives and reduced human suffering. The key goal of humanitarian logistics stipulates is to form connections and relationships, which was well illustrated through the informants' interviews. It was found that organizing different stakeholders/actors to work together by sharing processes and distribution channels demands a vision that goes beyond logistics management. Government agencies, the military establishment, NGOs, locals and victims need to collaborate to create a synergy in generating solutions that are tailored to the shock of the disaster in the first place. Research limitations/implications: The current study relies on a single case study approach as disaster scenarios are unique in terms of their impact, magnitude, timing and location. Despite these limitations, this study provides a detailed account of the logistical challenges in dealing with the disaster that took place in Haiti. The logistics-related lessons learned from this case study should be carefully applied in other settings, taken into consideration contextual differences. Practical implications: One important aspect of measuring efficiency for any commercial logistics system is key performance indicators (KPIs) that indicate how well the firm is doing in managing its inbound and outbound operations. From a practical standpoint, the Haiti case raised a challenging concern with regard to how to measure the performance of humanitarian disaster logistics. This is a starting point to understand the dynamics of disaster system efficiency and logistics interplay and offers a few lessons to improve the resource availability in the case of future emergencies. Originality/value: This study lays the groundwork for future researchers to explore and debrief on the topic once disaster relief draws to a close and time has allowed logisticians and relief workers to analyze the response mechanisms used in disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a utility framework to identify assets for deployment into humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. We focus on attributes of the hard assets: capabilities for humanitarian missions, proximity to the affected area, and cost to the organization. We demonstrate the importance of this framework using the case of the United States Navy (USN). On a broader level, we offer a strategy for the decision makers to deploy appropriate assets for executing HADR smartly. Such a method, when employed with relevant data, can enhance efficiency for various organizations involved in HADR, whether military or not. We collected a large amount of data on the assets, specifically ships, of the USN. This collected data alone are a contribution to the literature. We use factor analysis to reduce the dimensionality and make the dataset manageable while simultaneously retaining the variation and maximal information in the data. Our results, in this case, show that planners need to consider costs to truly maximize utility, especially in cases where two assets, or a combination of them, have similar utility ratings but significantly different costs. Our findings also demonstrate that asset capabilities, proximity, and the duration of an HADR response matter. Finally, we employ our framework to illustrate how HADR responses to the 2010 Haiti and 2011 Tohoku earthquakes could have been conducted more effectively and efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution aims to shed further light on the role of languages and translation in danger zones through an interview with Ellie Kemp, the Head of Crisis Response at Translators without Borders (TWB), a non-profit organization that provides language assistance in disaster settings. In the humanitarian sector, TWB is well-known for its work in amongst others the West Africa Ebola crisis, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh, and the recent cyclone responses in Mozambique. Next to providing translations, the organization trains local translators and interpreters, researches the language needs of crisis-affected people, and raises awareness of language barriers in crisis contexts. TWB is thus active in a number of danger zones that have not been explored fully in other contributions to this special issue, such as health emergencies. This contribution firstly introduces TWB and its activities in more detail, and then shares TWB's responses to a number of questions related to the role of languages and translation in danger zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Five billion people, primarily in low-income and middle-income countries, cannot access safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care, particularly for orthopaedic trauma. The rate-limiting step for many orthopaedic surgical procedures performed in the developing world is the absence of safe anesthesia. Even surgical mission teams providing surgical care are limited by the availability of anesthesiologists. Emergency physicians, who are already knowledgeable in airway management and procedural sedation, may be able to help to fulfill the need for anesthetists in disaster relief and surgical missions.Methods: Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, an emergency physician was trained using the Emergency Physician's General Anesthesia Syllabus (EP GAS) to perform duties similar to those of certified registered nurse anesthetists. The emergency physician then provided anesthesia during surgical mission trips with an orthopaedic team from February 2011 to March 2017, in Milot, Haiti. This is a descriptive overview of this training program and prospectively collected data on the cohort of patients whom the surgical mission teams treated in Haiti during that time frame.Results: A single emergency physician anesthetist provided anesthesia for 71 of the 172 orthopaedic surgical cases, nearly doubling the number of cases that could be performed. This also allowed the anesthesiologists to focus on pediatric and more difficult cases. Both immediately after the surgical procedure and at 1 year, there were no serious adverse events for cases in which the emergency physician provided anesthesia.Conclusions: Given emergency physicians' baseline training in airway management and sedation, well-supervised and focused extra training under the vigilant supervision of a board-certified anesthesiologist may allow emergency physicians to be able to safely administer anesthesia. Using emergency physicians as anesthetists in this closely supervised setting could increase the number of surgical cases that can be performed in a disaster setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a comprehensive humanitarian assessment tool designed and used following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. The tool was developed under Joint Task Force – Haiti coordination using indicators of humanitarian needs to support decision making by the United States Government, agencies of the United Nations, and various non-governmental organizations. A set of questions and data collection methodology were developed by a collaborative process involving a broad segment of the Haiti humanitarian relief community and used to conduct surveys in internally displaced person settlements and surrounding communities for a four-month period starting on 15 March 2010. Key considerations in the development of the assessment tool and data collection methodology, representative analysis results, and observations from the operational use of the tool for decision making are reported. The paper concludes with lessons learned and recommendations for design and use of similar tools in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake included an array of diverse yet critical actions. This paper will briefly review the evacuation of a small group of patients with burns to burn centers in the southeastern United States (US). This particular evacuation brought together for the first time plans, groups, and organizations that had previously only exercised this process. The response to the Haitian earthquake was a glimpse at what the international community working together can do to help others, and relieve suffering following a catastrophic disaster. The international response was substantial. This paper will trace one evacuation, one day for one unique group of patients with burns to burn centers in the US and review the lessons learned from this process. The patient population with burns being evacuated from Haiti was very small compared to the overall operation. Nevertheless, the outcomes included a better understanding of how a larger event could challenge the limited resources for all involved. This paper includes aspects of the patient movement, the logistics needed, and briefly discusses reimbursement for the care provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, more than two million people moved to temporary camps, most of which arose spontaneously in the days after the earthquake. This study focuses on the material assistance people in five Port-au-Prince camps reported receiving, noting the differences between assistance from formal aid agencies and from 'informal' sources such as family. Seven weeks after the earthquake, 32% of camp dwellers reported receiving no assistance whatsoever; 55% had received formal aid, typically a tent or tarpaulins; and 40% had received informal aid, usually in the form of cash transfers from family living abroad. While people were grateful for any material aid, cash was more frequently considered timely and more effective than aid-in-kind. Should this study be indicative of the greater displaced population, aid agencies should consider how they might make better use of cash transfers as an aid modality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disaster recovery operations that do not account for environmental sustainability (ES) risk exacerbating the impact of the disaster and hindering long-term recovery efforts. Yet aid agencies do not always consider ES. This research is a case study of the recovery that followed the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Using timber and concrete procurement as proxies for broader post-disaster operations, research examined perceptions of ES as well as attempts at and barriers to incorporating it into programming. Identified barriers can be grouped into two categories: (1) prioritisations and perceptions within the disaster response sector that resulted in limited enthusiasm for incorporating ES into programming, and (2) structural and organisational barriers within the disaster response framework that impeded ES attempts and served as a further disincentive to incorporating ES into programming. As a result of those barriers, incorporation of ES was sporadic and inconsistent and often depended on the capacity and motivation of specific implementers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on Mission 4636, a real-time humanitarian crowdsourcing initiative that processed 80,000 text messages (SMS) sent from within Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. It was the first time that crowdsourcing (microtasking) had been used for international relief efforts, and is the largest deployment of its kind to date. This article presents the first full report and analysis of the initiative looking at the accuracy and timeliness in creating structured data from the messages and the collaborative nature of the process. Contrary to all previous papers, studies and media reports about Mission 4636, which have typically chosen to exclude empirical analyses and the involvement of the Haitian population, it is found that the greatest volume, speed and accuracy in information processing was by Haitian nationals, the Haitian diaspora, and those working closest with them, and that no new technologies played a significant role. It is concluded that international humanitarian organizations have been wrongly credited for large-scale information processing initiatives (here and elsewhere) and that for the most part they were largely just witnesses to crisis-affected communities bootstrapping their own recovery through communications technologies. The particular focus is on the role of the diaspora, an important population that are increasingly able to contribute to response efforts thanks to their increased communication potential. It is recommended that future humanitarian deployments of crowdsourcing focus on information processing within the populations they serve, engaging those with crucial local knowledge wherever they happen to be in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines communication management issues of emergency aid following natural disasters. Ten aid workers involved in the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake relief were interviewed and surveyed while they were still "in the field" to determine their understanding of the role of communication in the relief effort. The analysis was framed using the three-stage process (pre-disaster, response, post-disaster). Analysis of their responses showed that there are still chronic problems in each of the stages. The importance of enhancing communication elements in the pre-disaster phase was a strong finding. In the response stage, the differential role of various media, including old technologies in poor regions, emerged as an issue. Organizational factors such as high staff turnover were also seen as negatively affecting communication efficacy. An important finding about the post-disaster stage is the importance of debriefing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the presence of depression and anxiety symptoms in survivors of the Haiti earthquake who were assisted by a healthcare team from the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, and to evaluate the impact that losing a family member during this catastrophe could have on the development of these symptoms. Methods: Forty survivors of the Haiti earthquake who were assisted by the healthcare team between February and March of 2010 were included in this study. All subjects underwent a semi-structured interview. The group was divided into Group A (individuals who had some death in the family due to the disaster) and Group B (those who did not lose any family member). Results: A total of 55% of the subjects had depression symptoms whereas 40% had anxiety symptoms. The individuals who lost a family member were five times more likely to develop anxiety and depression symptoms than those who did not. Conclusion: Catastrophe victims who lost at least one family member due to the disaster were more likely to develop anxiety and depression symptoms. To these individuals, as well as others showing psychological distress, should be offered early mental health care to help them cope with the great emotional distress inherent in these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper analyzes the performance of different post-disaster humanitarian logistic structures that arose in response to the Port-au-Prince earthquake of January 12th, 2010. Based on field work conducted by the authors, the paper defines a typology of structures; assesses their relative performance in terms of delivering relief aid; and identifies the causes that explain the differences between them. Three structures are defined for comparative purposes: Agency Centric Efforts (ACEs), Partially Integrated Efforts (PIEs), and Collaborative Aid Networks (CANs). These structures differ to the extent to which they are integrated with the local social networks during the relief effort. Representative examples were analyzed to illustrate their inherent strengths and weaknesses, and reach conclusions of general applicability. The authors strengthen the analyses with discussions of “comparables,” i.e., other cases not fully discussed in the paper that shed additional light onto the performance of the structures. The paper’s analyses are based on dozens of interviews, both formal and informal, conducted with individuals directly involved in the relief effort, complemented with critical analyses of news accounts, and reports produced by the agencies involved. Based on its chief findings, the paper makes policy recommendations to maximize the effectiveness of future relief distribution efforts in response to disasters of various sizes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Coordinating organizational activity across different sectors is crucial in disaster management. We analysed the response of 291 aid workers to the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and found that common incentives and a high degree of equality among aid organizations positively affected perceived network coordination. Large and public organizations were more likely to take leadership roles and high numbers of public organizations involved in the disaster response network led to improved network coordination. These results indicate the need for mechanisms that enable smaller and non-profit organizations to participate in network coordination and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the study of feasibility of deployment of surgical capabilities by the Canadian Forces' (CF) for its future humanitarian operations/disaster response missions. It mentions of an earthquake in Haiti that caused excessive casualties where CF had sent its field hospital. It discusses the surgical experience of the surgeons who treated the victims of the disaster. It highlights that clinical benefit can be achieved through a lighter and mobile surgical/resuscitation team.

IVIost severe disasters cause large population movements. These movements make it difficult for relief organizations to efficiently reach people in need. Understanding and predicting the locations of affected people during disasters is key to effective humanitarian relief operations and to long-term societal reconstruction. We collaborated with the largest mobile phone operator in Haiti (Digicel) and analyzed the movements of 1.9 million mobile phone users during the period from 42 d before, to 341 d after the devastating Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010. Nineteen days after the earthquake, population movements had caused the population of the capital Port-au-Prince to decrease by an estimated 23%. Both the travel distances and size of people's movement trajectories grew after the earthquake. These findings, in combination with the disorder that was present after the disaster, suggest that people's movements would have become less predictable. Instead, the predictability of people's trajectories remained high and even increased slightly during the three-month period after the earthquake. Moreover, the destinations of people who left the capital during the first three weeks after the earthquake was highly correlated with their mobility patterns during normal times, and specifically with the locations in which people had significant social bonds. For the people who left Port-au-Prince, the duration of their stay outside the city, as well as the time for their return, all followed a skewed, fat-tailed distribution. The findings suggest that population movements during disasters may be significantly more predictable than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on the obstacles that cripples education in Haiti which is in a state of arrested development, a concept formed to determine stages of recovery after disasters and conflicts. These obstacles include the lack of coordination between domestic and local actors and discrimination. She argues that nongovernmental organizations make profits from the nation's arrested development by not creating sustainable solutions to Haiti's problems.

With an increasing number of disasters disrupting commerce and community life around the world, it is timely to position humanitarian and disaster relief supply chains ( HDRSC) within the broad field of supply chain management. This article presents a framework to that end. It distinguishes attributes of the environment that illustrate the difficulties encountered in supply chain management. Although considerable research has been conducted in logistics issues affecting HDRSCs, very little management research speaks to the complicating attributes. Thus, this article describes activities such as demand determination, supply chain coordination, recognizing when to move along the life cycle and post-disaster reconstruction that differentiates supply chain concerns from logistics concerns. From this backdrop, some of the areas where research into HDRSCs can inform supply chain management in general are presented. The article concludes by discussing critical areas of research need as identified by experienced practitioners. Research in these areas will provide insights for supply chain managers facing similar issues in other environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study analyzes the disaster response and recovery efforts following the January 12th, 2010 Haitian earthquake through the eyes of 18 different relief agencies. Focusing on the formation and maintenance of partnerships after the catastrophic earthquake, this paper explores the concepts of cooperation, mutual understanding, and connectivity among agencies responding to the earthquake. The case study is based on results from interviews and interactions with 18 agencies during a month-long trip to Haiti in the summer of 2010. Of the agencies interviewed, it was found that agencies that had no partnerships or presence in Haiti prior to the earthquake were most likely to build new clinics, orphanages, and schools. Additionally, we found that agencies were more likely to develop new partnerships from new contacts rather than dormant contacts. By studying the partnerships between local and international agencies, it was found that their relationships were less stable than partnerships between international agencies. This study hopes to increase understanding and applicability of research in disaster relief networks by providing a new perspective into how agencies work together. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

On January 12, 2010, a routine trip to Haiti for a pediatric tropical medicine elective with pediatric residents turned into a disaster response mission. I was accompanied by 6 pediatric residents and 1 nurse, and we were among the first nonmilitary physicians to enter Haiti after the earthquake. This article describes our experience upon arriving in Port-au-Prince, 80 hours after the earthquake. This experience solidified my belief that “children are not little adults” and that the needs of children in a disaster are different than those of adults. The presence of pediatricians in a disaster is vital to the survival of the children. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

After epidemic cholera emerged in Haiti in October 2010, the disease spread rapidly in a country devastated by an earthquake earlier that year, in a population with a high proportion of infant deaths, poor nutrition, and frequent infectious diseases such as HIV infection, tuberculosis, and malaria. Many nations, multinational agencies, and nongovernmental organizations rapidly mobilized to assist Haiti. The US government provided emergency response through the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the US Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report summarizes the participation by the Centers and its partners. The efforts needed to reduce the spread of the epidemic and prevent deaths highlight the need for safe drinking water and basic medical care in such difficult circumstances and the need for rebuilding water, sanitation, and public health systems to prevent future epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: On January 12, 2010, Haiti experienced the western hemisphere''s worst-ever natural disaster. Within 24 hours, the United States Naval Ship Comfort received orders to respond, and a group of more than 500 physicians, nurses, and staff undertook the largest and most rapid triage and treatment since the inception of hospital ships. Methods: These data represent pediatric surgical patients treated aboard the United States Naval Ship Comfort between January 19 and February 27, 2010. Prospective databases managed by patient administration, radiology, blood bank, laboratory services, and surgical services were combined to create an overall patient care database that was retrospectively reviewed for this analysis. Results: Two hundred thirty-seven pediatric surgical patients were treated, representing 27% of the total patient population. These patients underwent a total of 213 operations composed of 243 unique procedures. Orthopedic procedures represented 71% of the total caseload. Patients returned to the operating room up to 11 times and required up to 28 days for completion of surgical management. Conclusions: This represents the largest cohort of pediatric surgical patients in an earthquake response. Our analysis provides a model for anticipating surgical caseload, injury patterns, and duration of surgical course in preparing for future disaster response missions. Moreover, we propose a 3-phased response to disaster medicine that has not been previously described. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The reality of supporting community-based urban disaster risk reduction is daunting. This paper provides a cross-cultural analysis of the experiences of Oxfam GB in supporting urban community-based disaster risk reduction in Haiti, Guyana and the Dominican Republic. The paper focuses on the efforts of Oxfam GB and its local partners to overcome the determining influence of local governance on who benefits from interventions, and the longevity of positive outcomes. The most successful projects built on strong pre-existing partnerships with buy-in from local and municipal government, promoted longevity in physical and social infrastructure through dual use investments that had an everyday as well as a disaster risk reduction purpose, and integrated technological and lay focus exercises to generate local participation as well as provide baselines for project planning. Overall, however, disaster risk reduction was constrained by a lack of vision and funding constraints, which prevented root causes in the wider urban and regional environment or political economy to be tackled. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the application of the structured network or bottom-up approach to disaster response. This approach exploits the collective intelligence of all members by only predefining the methods by which individuals will communicate. The volunteer technologies that emerged during the 2007 California wildfires and the Haitian earthquake and Alabama tornadoes in 2011 all reflect the structured network approach in emergency response.

The article focuses on the U.S. responses to the 2005 Earthquake and 2010 floods in Pakistan. It is stated that the basic objective of the U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) at United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for disaster relief is to alleviate suffering, save lives, and reduce the social and economic impact of disasters. It is stated that the scale of disasters in 2010 which includes the earthquake in Haiti and the devastating floods in Pakistan, forced OFDA and disaster relief agencies around the world to rethink their approaches.

Abstract: Purpose: This study outlines the evolution of a pediatric field hospital after the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. Methods: Project Medishare set up a field hospital in Port-au-Prince 48 hours after the event. Our institution staffed the pediatric component for 45 days, with sequential deployment of 9 volunteer medical teams. Evolving facility and manpower requirements and changing patient demographics over time were evaluated. Results: Delegations consisted of surgeons, pediatricians, nurses, operating room (OR) personnel, physical therapists, pharmacists, and support staff. Primary goals involved creation of a child-specific ward, pediatric OR, and a wound care center. Major inpatient demographic changes occurred as time from the disaster elapsed. Initial census showed that 93% of the patients were surgical admissions with 40% undergoing operations, mostly fracture and wound care, over the first week. Eight weeks later, medical illnesses accounted for 70% of inpatients, whereas OR volume dropped by more than 50%. A second trend involved increasing acuity of care. Initially, children were admitted for serious or limb-threatening, but usually not life-threatening, injuries. Within 2 months, one third of the patients were housed in the developing NICU/PICU; and only 12% were admitted for injuries related to the earthquake. This change in patient needs led to alterations in facility requirements and in staffing and leadership needs. Conclusion: A disaster involving significant casualties in a populated area demands the rapid development of a field facility with pediatric personnel. Requirements for equipment, manpower, medical records, and systems addressing volunteer stress and ethical dilemmas can be anticipated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Disaster relief is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the organizational processes that help prepare for and carry out all emergency functions necessary to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies and disasters caused by all hazards, whether natural, technological, or human-made. Although it is an important function of local and national governing in the developed countries, it is often wanting in resource-poor, developing countries where, increasingly, catastrophic disasters tend to occur and have the greatest adverse consequences. The devastating January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake is a case study of the impact of an extreme cataclysm in one of the poorest and most unprepared settings imaginable. As such, it offers useful lessons that are applicable elsewhere in the developing world. Emergency preparedness includes 4 phases: mitigation or prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Periods of normalcy are the best times to develop disaster preparedness plans. In resource-poor countries, where dealing with the expenses of daily living is already a burden, such planning is often neglected; and, when disasters strike, it is often with great delay that the assistance from international community can be deployed. In this increasingly interconnected world, the Haiti earthquake and the important international response to it make a strong case for a more proactive intervention of the international community in all phases of emergency management in developing countries, including in mitigation and preparedness, and not just in response and recovery. Predisaster planning can maximize the results of the international assistance and decrease the human and material tolls of inevitable disasters. There should be a minimum standard of preparedness that every country has to maintain and the international assistance to achieve that. International academic medical centers interested in global health could strengthen their programs by prospectively including in them contingency planning for international relief operations. Healthcare professionals of these institutions who travel to disaster zones should rigorously prepare themselves and make provisions for collecting and reporting data, which will enrich the knowledge of this growing activity. © 2011 Mount Sinai School of Medicine [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay presents the author's thoughts on service work during a summer 2010 travel course to Haiti with a group from Saint Mary's College of California and reflections on the complexity of service learning and disaster relief work. A dilemma concerning the installation of a rainwater capture system on a house bought to light the issue of what the family thought they needed versus what the group thought they needed. The decision making process is discussed.

In the article, the author presents her opinion on several commentaries on her article "Spirituality and Mental Health in Humanitarian Contexts: An Exploration Based on World Vision's Haiti Earthquake Response" in a 2010 issue. She examines the issue of the confluence of religion and spirituality during emergencies. She also explores the issue of inclusion and neutrality in mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS).

In the article, the author presents her opinion on the article "Spirituality and Mental Health in Humanitarian Contexts: An Exploration Based on World Vision's Haiti Earthquake Response," by Alison Schafer in a 2010 issue. She cites two points of challenge in the development of interventions during emergencies, namely, the use of the terms religion and spirituality as synonymous and the boundaries of service or care. She presents several tools for creating models to integrate religious and spiritual needs in psychosocial programmes.

In the article, the authors present their views concerning the article "Spirituality and Mental Health in Humanitarian Contexts: An Exploration Based on World Vision's Haiti Earthquake Response," by Alison Schafer in a 2010 issue. They cite the spiritual nurture and psycho-spiritual approaches that were presented by Schafer to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) during emergencies. They discuss the things that should be done by psychosocial and humanitarian aid workers to implement MHPSS.

The article focuses on the challenges of international assistance in ending violence in fragile states. Definitions of fragile states are discussed which include deficiency in government, economic conditions, and nationhood. Discussion of assistance in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo are provided as examples of failed international intervention. It is suggested that developed countries should intervene despite the challenges of transformation in economic and political conditions by examining the role of external conditions and being better prepared for emergency relief.

In the face of an increased incidence of complex natural disasters around the world, the international donor community plays a critical role in mobilizing support to fragile and weak states, lacking adequate emergency response capacities, infrastructure, and health service. The United States and the European Union are two of the most important players in these efforts, both in terms of supporting the UN system and by providing resources and personnel at disaster sites. But to date, few studies have assessed what challenges and opportunities the U.S. and the EU face when mobilizing for international disaster relief. This article sets out to fill this gap by studying the response to the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. In so doing, this article draws on three categories of capacities: "public leadership," "inter-agency coordination," and "civil-military cooperation," to identify common challenges and opportunities in response capacities and in order to generate recommendations for strengthening transatlantic disaster responses in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world was shocked by the terrible earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January 2010 and by the subsequent humanitarian needs. The Prince Claus Fund immediately contacted its network in Haiti and was astonished by the courage and strength of the people dealing with this terrible situation. Signs of resilience arose from amid the rubble, and stories of hope and survival fed people's readiness to fight. Bolstered by their religion and culture, people in Haiti are still facing challenges every day, challenges they face with pride. In order to support the people in Haiti, the Prince Claus Fund has put its Cultural Emergency Response programme into action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 caused an estimated 230 000 deaths and injured approximately 250 000 people. The Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps Field Hospital was fully operational on site only 89 hours after the earthquake struck and was capable of providing sophisticated medical care. During the 10 days the hospital was operational, its staff treated 1111 patients, hospitalized 737 patients, and performed 244 operations on 203 patients. The field hospital also served as a referral center for medical teams from other countries that were deployed in the surrounding areas. The key factor that enabled rapid response during the early phase of the disaster from a distance of 6000 miles was a well-prepared and trained medical unit maintained on continuous alert. The prompt deployment of advanced-capability field hospitals is essential in disaster relief, especially in countries with minimal medical infrastructure. The changing medical requirements of people in an earthquake zone dictate that field hospitals be designed to operate with maximum flexibility and versatility regarding triage, staff positioning, treatment priorities, and hospitalization policies. Early coordination with local administrative bodies is indispensable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the immediate psychosocial response of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010. IOM launched an emergency psychosocial assistance which focused on basic services and security, community and family supports, non-specialized support, and specialized services. The emergency response aimed to provide direct intervention to survivors, offer capacity building activities, and to support national coordination.

The article focuses on the condition of mental health services and programs in Haiti after the devastating killer earthquake. It delves on the efforts of Henry Reeve and his team of medical specialists, from Cuba, in responding the need of Haitian earthquake victims, through Comprehensive Health Program (CHP). It notes that Reeve's specialists have trained 350 mental health advocates as well as 150,000 youths. Alexis Lorenzo, Latin American Center for Disaster Medicine's (CLAMED) coordinator, states the holistic approach methods in aiding the traumatized disaster victims. Furthermore, the CHP's historical background is also discussed.