Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T12:57:11.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Medical Requirements During a Natural Disaster: A Case Study on WhatsApp Chats Among Medical Personnel During the 2015 Nepal Earthquake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2017

Moumita Basu ,
Saptarshi Ghosh ,
Arnab Jana ,
Somprakash Bandyopadhyay  and
Ravikant Singh
Moumita Basu*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, and Social Informatics Research Group, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India
Saptarshi Ghosh
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, and Department of Computer Science and Enginnering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
Arnab Jana
Affiliation:
Centre for Urban Science &Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
Somprakash Bandyopadhyay
Affiliation:
Social Informatics Research Group, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India
Ravikant Singh
Affiliation:
Doctors For You, Mumbai, India
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Moumita Basu, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta Joka, Diamond Harbour Road, Kolkata 700104, India (e-mail: moumitabasu0979@gmail.com).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to explore a log of WhatsApp messages exchanged among members of the health care group Doctors For You (DFY) while they were providing medical relief in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake in April 2015. Our motivation was to identify medical resource requirements during a disaster in order to help government agencies and other responding organizations to be better prepared in any upcoming disaster.

Methods

A large set of WhatsApp (WhatsApp Inc, Mountain View, CA) messages exchanged among DFY members during the Nepal earthquake was collected and analyzed to identify the medical resource requirements during different phases of relief operations.

Results

The study revealed detailed phase-wise requirements for various types of medical resources, including medicines, medical equipment, and medical personnel. The data also reflected some of the problems faced by the medical relief workers in the earthquake-affected region.

Conclusions

The insights from this study may help not only the Nepalese government, but also authorities in other earthquake-prone regions of the world to better prepare for similar disasters in the future. Moreover, real-time analysis of such online data during a disaster would aid decision-makers in dynamically formulating resource-mapping strategies. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:652–655).

Keywords

disasterNepal 2015 earthquakemedical resource requirementsdisaster preparednessmedical relief strategy
Type
Brief Reports
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 11 , Issue 6 , December 2017 , pp. 652 - 655
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Peleg, K. Notes from Nepal: is there a better way to provide search and rescue? Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2015;9(6):650-652. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2015.107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Welcome to DFY. Doctors For You. http://doctorsforyou.org/content.php?subpageid=11. Published 2013. Accessed July 3, 2016.Google Scholar
3. Yang, J, Yang, Z, Lv, Q, et al. Medical rescue of China International Search & Rescue Team (CISAR) in Nepal earthquake. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2016;10:1-4. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2016.16.Google Scholar
4. Wang, J, Ding, H, Lv, Q, et al. 2015 Nepal earthquake: analysis of child rescue and treatment by a field hospital. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2016;10:1-3. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2016.22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5. Goda, K, Kiyota, T, Pokhrel, RM, et al. The 2015 Gorkha Nepal earthquake: insights from earthquake damage survey. Front Built Environ. 2015;1:1-15. doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2015.00008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Fukasawa, M, Suzuki, Y, Nakajima, S, et al. Systematic consensus building on disaster mental health services after the Great East Japan Earthquake by phase. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2015;9(4):359-366. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2015.13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7. Jamshidi, E, Majdzadeh, R, Namin, MS, et al. Effectiveness of community participation in earthquake preparedness: a community-based participatory intervention study of Tehran. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2016;10(2):211-218. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2015.156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
8. A Schultz, CH, Koenig, KL, Noji, EK. A medical disaster response to reduce immediate mortality after an earthquake. N Engl J Med. 1996;334:438-444. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199602153340706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9. Understanding the Four Phases of Disaster Recovery. Duane’s Dartboard. https://duanehallock.com/2010/01/27/phases-of-disaster-recovery/. Accessed July 4, 2016.Google Scholar
10. World Health Organization. 19th WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/EML2015_8-May-15.pdf. Published April 2015. Accessed July 04, 2016.Google Scholar