Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Dec 2015
Identifying Indirect Benefits of Federal Health Care Emergency Preparedness Grant Funding to Coalitions: A Content Analysis.
This study aimed to identify the indirect benefits of health care preparedness funding as perceived by current and former recipients of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response's Hospital Preparedness Program. ⋯ This study identified indirect benefits of federal investment in hospital and health care preparedness in day-to-day operations. Major categories of these benefits included dual-use technology and programs and impact of relationships on day-to-day operations. Coalition members placed a high value on these benefits, even though they were not direct outcomes of grant programs. Further research is needed to quantify the economic value of these indirect benefits to more accurately measure the total return on investment from federal grant funding.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Dec 2015
Ambulance Dispatches From Unaffected Areas After the Great East Japan Earthquake: Impact on Emergency Care in the Unaffected Areas.
Although dispatching ambulance crews from unaffected areas to a disaster zone is inevitable when a major disaster occurs, the effect on emergency care in the unaffected areas has not been studied. We evaluated whether dispatching ambulance crews from unaffected prefectures to those damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake was associated with reduced resuscitation outcomes in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases in the unaffected areas. ⋯ The dispatch of ambulances from unaffected prefectures to earthquake-stricken areas was associated with a subsequent decrease in the ROSC and 1-month survival rates in OHCA cases in the unaffected prefectures.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Dec 2015
Notes from Nepal: Is There a Better Way to Provide Search and Rescue?
This article discusses a possibility for overcoming the limited efficiency of international search and rescue teams in saving lives after earthquakes, which was emphasized by the recent disaster in Nepal and in other earthquakes all over the world. Because most lives are actually saved by the locals themselves long before the international teams arrive on scene, many more lives could be saved by teaching the basics of light rescue to local students and citizens in threatened countries.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Dec 2015
Managing Community Resilience to Climate Extremes, Rapid Unsustainable Urbanization, Emergencies of Scarcity, and Biodiversity Crises by Use of a Disaster Risk Reduction Bank.
Earth's climate is changing and national and international decision-makers are recognizing that global health security requires urgent attention and a significant investment to protect the future. In most locations, current data are inadequate to conduct a full assessment of the direct and indirect health impacts of climate change. All states require this information to evaluate community-level resilience to climate extremes and climate change. ⋯ Local information is a prerequisite for strategic and tactical statewide planning. Time and resources are required to analyze risks within each community and what is required to prevent (mitigate), prepare, respond, recover (rehabilitate), anticipate, and assess any threatening events. Specific requirements at all levels from state to community must emphasize community roles by focusing on how best to maintain, respond, and recover public health protections and the infrastructure necessary for health security.