Disasters and Vulnerable Populations PDF Download

Author: Lisa R. Baker
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826198457
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 252

View

Book Description
Print+CourseSmart

Author: Piers Blaikie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134528612
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

View

Book Description
The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309316227
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 535

View

Book Description
In the devastation that follows a major disaster, there is a need for multiple sectors to unite and devote new resources to support the rebuilding of infrastructure, the provision of health and social services, the restoration of care delivery systems, and other critical recovery needs. In some cases, billions of dollars from public, private and charitable sources are invested to help communities recover. National rhetoric often characterizes these efforts as a "return to normal." But for many American communities, pre-disaster conditions are far from optimal. Large segments of the U.S. population suffer from preventable health problems, experience inequitable access to services, and rely on overburdened health systems. A return to pre-event conditions in such cases may be short-sighted given the high costs - both economic and social - of poor health. Instead, it is important to understand that the disaster recovery process offers a series of unique and valuable opportunities to improve on the status quo. Capitalizing on these opportunities can advance the long-term health, resilience, and sustainability of communities - thereby better preparing them for future challenges. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters identifies and recommends recovery practices and novel programs most likely to impact overall community public health and contribute to resiliency for future incidents. This book makes the case that disaster recovery should be guided by a healthy community vision, where health considerations are integrated into all aspects of recovery planning before and after a disaster, and funding streams are leveraged in a coordinated manner and applied to health improvement priorities in order to meet human recovery needs and create healthy built and natural environments. The conceptual framework presented in Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters lays the groundwork to achieve this goal and provides operational guidance for multiple sectors involved in community planning and disaster recovery. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters calls for actions at multiple levels to facilitate recovery strategies that optimize community health. With a shared healthy community vision, strategic planning that prioritizes health, and coordinated implementation, disaster recovery can result in a communities that are healthier, more livable places for current and future generations to grow and thrive - communities that are better prepared for future adversities.

Author: Deborah S.K. Thomas
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466516380
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 526

View

Book Description
With chapters that incorporate additional perspectives on social vulnerability, this second edition focuses on the social construction of disasters, demonstrating how the characteristics of an event are not the only reason that tragedies unfurl. It incorporates disaster case studies to illustrate concepts, relevant and seminal literature, and the most recent data available. In addition to highlighting the U.S. context, it integrates a global approach and includes numerous international case studies. The book highlights recent policy changes and current disaster management approaches and infuses the concept of community resilience and building capacity throughout the text.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309152372
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 177

View

Book Description
During natural disasters, disease pandemics, terrorist attacks, and other public health emergencies, the health system must be prepared to accommodate a surge in the number of individuals seeking medical help. For the health community, a primary concern is how to provide care to individuals during such high demand, when the health system's resources are exhausted and there are more patients than the system can accommodate. The IOM's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events held a workshop June 10-11, 2009, to assess the capability of and tools available to federal, state, and local governments to respond to a medical surge. In addition, participants discussed strategies for the public and private sectors to improve preparedness for such a surge. The workshop brought together leaders in the medical and public health preparedness fields, including policy makers from federal agencies and state and local public health departments; providers from the health care community; and health care and hospital administrators. This document summarizes the workshop.

Author: Bruce Jennings
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190270748
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 321

View

Book Description
Emergency Ethics brings together leading scholars in the fields of public health ethics and bioethics to discuss disaster or emergency ethics and ethical aspects of preparedness and response with specific application to public health policy and practice. The book fills a gap in the existing public health ethics literature by providing a comprehensive ethical conception of emergency preparedness as a distinctive form of civic practice brought about by the interrelationships and coordination of many groups, disciplines, and interests and drawing on numerous bodies of knowledge and expertise. It addresses particular aspects of preparedness and response plans, particular decisions that planners and communities have to make, decisions that require balancing many diverse and sometimes conflicting values and identifying and applying a framework of basic ethical principles for preparedness planning, emergency response, and post-disaster recovery. It also explores the relationship between emergency preparedness to other facets of public health practice. The book begins with a broad and synthetic overview of emergency ethics that addresses the central components and ethically significant issues arising in public health preparedness planning, disaster response, and recovery. Following that overview are five chapters that in a philosophically innovative and detailed way delve deeply into important and problematic issues in emergency planning and response, including the allocation of scarce resources, conducting ethical research in the context of public health emergencies, the obligations of public health professionals, communication and engagement with the public, and special moral obligations surrounding vulnerable populations.

Author: Greg Bankoff
Publisher: Earthscan
ISBN: 1849771928
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254

View

Book Description
Raging floods, massive storms and cataclysmic earthquakes: every year up to 340 million people are affected by these and other disasters, which cause loss of life and damage to personal property, agriculture, and infrastructure. So what can be done? The key to understanding the causes of disasters and mitigating their impacts is the concept of 'vulnerability'. Mapping Vulnerability analyses 'vulnerability' as a concept central to the way we understand disasters and their magnitude and impact. Written and edited by a distinguished group of disaster scholars and practitioners, this book is a counterbalance to those technocratic approaches that limit themselves to simply looking at disasters as natural phenomena. Through the notion of vulnerability, the authors stress the importance of social processes and human-environmental interactions as causal agents in the making of disasters. They critically examine what renders communities unsafe - a condition, they argue, that depends primarily on the relative position of advantage or disadvantage that a particular group occupies within a society's social order. The book also looks at vulnerability in terms of its relationship to development and its impact on policy and people's lives, through consideration of selected case studies drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mapping Vulnerability is essential reading for academics, students, policymakers and practitioners in disaster studies, geography, development studies, economics, environmental studies and sociology.

Author: Amado Alejandro Baez
Publisher: Apple Academic Press
ISBN: 9781771884891
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

View

Book Description
This new volume provides a nuanced look at vulnerable populations before, during, and after disasters. Vulnerable populations include the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, the uninsured, low-income children, the elderly, the homeless, children and young people, and those with other chronic health conditions, including severe mental illness. The chapters will be helpful to those working with these populations as well as for disaster preparedness professionals. The chapters in this book included are broken into five sections, which describe the following topics: Part I of this book delves into the ways policymakers and researchers define vulnerable populations. Part II looks at emergency risk reduction among vulnerable populations, from children to the elderly. Part III explores disaster preparedness strategies for vulnerable people. Part IV discusses the management of disaster responses and communication with the public. Part V consists of assessments of and suggestions for disaster responders helping vulnerable populations. Topics include: * establishing and maintaining a database of vulnerable people * links between financial capacity and preparedness * how to build up and maintain a disaster-resilient nation * how children with disabilities are affected by disasters * developing strategies to redress inequality in disaster risk * addressing special needs students at schools in times of emergency * how the past experiences of older people influence their preparedness for disasters * tools and strategies vital to helping older people with chronic diseases Disaster professionals in countries from around the world share their research and studies on working with vulnerable populations of such disasters as floods, political violence, humanitarian emergencies, the H1N1 pandemic, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and more.

Author: Anthony J. Masys
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030234916
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 425

View

Book Description
With our highly connected and interdependent world, the growing threat of infectious diseases and public health crisis has shed light on the requirement for global efforts to manage and combat highly pathogenic infectious diseases and other public health crisis on an unprecedented level. Such disease threats transcend borders. Reducing global threats posed by infectious disease outbreaks – whether naturally caused or resulting from a deliberate or accidental release – requires efforts that cross the disaster management pillars: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. This book addresses the issues of global health security along 4 themes: Emerging Threats; Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery; Exploring the Technology Landscape for Solutions; Leadership and Partnership. The authors of this volume highlight many of the challenges that confront our global security environment today. These range from politically induced disasters, to food insecurity, to zoonosis and terrorism. More optimistically, the authors also present some advances in technology that can help us combat these threats. Understanding the challenges that confront us and the tools we have to overcome them will allow us to face our future with confidence.

Author: Deborah S.K. Thomas
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466516372
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 533

View

Book Description
The 2010 Haiti and Chili earthquakes, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in Japan are but a few examples of recent catastrophic events that continue to reveal how social structure and roles produce extensive human suffering and differential impacts on individuals and communities. These events bring social vulnerability to the forefront in considering how disasters unfold, clearly revealing that disasters are not created from the physical event alone. Equally important, people—even those considered vulnerable—respond in innovative and resilient ways that unveil the strength of human ingenuity and spirit. It is not a foregone conclusion that a hazard event, even a large one, will result in catastrophic loss. This updated second edition of Social Vulnerability to Disasters focuses on the social construction of disasters, demonstrating how the characteristics of an event are not the only reason that tragedies unfurl. By carefully examining and documenting social vulnerabilities throughout the disaster management cycle, the book remains essential to emergency management professionals, the independent volunteer sector, homeland security, and related social science fields, including public policy, sociology, geography, political science, urban and regional planning, and public health. The new edition is fully updated, more international in scope, and incorporates significant recent disaster events. It also includes new case studies to illustrate important concepts. By understanding the nuances of social vulnerability and how these vulnerabilities compound one another, we can take steps to reduce the danger to at-risk populations and strengthen community resilience overall. Features and Highlights from the Second Edition: Contains contributions from leading scholars, professionals, and academics, who draw on their areas of expertise to examine vulnerable populations Incorporates disaster case studies to illustrate concepts, relevant and seminal literature, and the most recent data available In addition to highlighting the U.S. context, integrates a global approach and includes numerous international case studies Highlights recent policy changes and current disaster management approaches Infuses the concept of community resilience and building capacity throughout the text Includes new chapters that incorporate additional perspectives on social vulnerability Instructor’s guide, PowerPoint® slides, and test bank available with qualifying course adoption