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Managing Disaster-Related Health Risk: A Process for Prevention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2018

Mark Keim
Mark Keim*
Affiliation:
Disaster Doc, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia USA National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Bethesda, Maryland USA Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Disaster Medicine Fellowship, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts USA Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia USA
*
Correspondence: Mark Keim, MD, MBA DisasterDoc LLC Atlanta Georgia USA E-mail: mark@disasterdoc.org
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Abstract

In 1994, the first World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction held in Yokohama, Japan affirmed that “Disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness are better than disaster response in achieving the goals and objectives of the decade. Disaster response alone is not sufficient, as it yields only temporary results in a very high cost.” Since then, disaster risk reduction has become the mainstay for international development related to disasters.

According to the National Research Council (Washington, DC USA), “Disaster research, which has focused historically on emergency response and recovery, is incomplete without the simultaneous study of the societal hazards and risks associated with disasters, which includes data on the vulnerability of people living in hazard prone areas.” Despite over 25 years of global policy development, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Washington, DC USA) recently noted that, “while some disaster management and public health preparedness programming may be viewed as tangentially related, a multi-sectoral and inter-disciplinary national platform for coordination and policy guidance on involving disaster risk reduction in the United States does not exist.” Today, one of the world’s “seven targets in seven years” as agreed upon in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is to substantially reduce global mortality by 2030. Significant reductions in health risk (including mortality) have historically required a comprehensive approach for disease management that includes both a preventive and a curative approach. Disaster risk management has arisen as a primary means for the world’s populations to address disaster losses, including those related to health. Prevention has been proven as an effective approach for managing health risk. This report describes the role of disease prevention in managing health risk due to disasters.

KeimM. Managing Disaster-Related Health Risk: A Process for Prevention. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(3):326-334.

Keywords

disasterdisaster risk managementhealth riskpreventionpublic health emergency
Type
Special Reports
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , June 2018 , pp. 326 - 334
Copyright
© World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2018 

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Footnotes

Conflicts of interest/funding/disclaimer: This work was sponsored by DisasterDoc, LLC (Atlanta, Georgia USA), a private consulting firm specializing in disaster research and education. The author attests that there are no conflicts of interest involved with the authorship and publication of this work. The material in this manuscript reflects solely the views of the author. It does not necessarily reflect the policies or recommendations of the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (Bethesda, Maryland USA).

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