Education and disaster risk reduction.

It has been stated over and over again: preparedness is crucial to reduce the impact of events and hazards that have the potential of resulting in disaster. An exchange of experiences with preparedness has been a prominent component of almost every World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine. Also, the Education Committee of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) has intensely studied and discussed how education and training could improve the multidisciplinary health response to major events that threaten the health status of a community. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine has contributed to the discussion by publishing relevant articles, as well as a comprehensive summary of the dedicated " Issues Paper " and the conclusions of the 2004 Brussels conference on Disaster Education and Training. 1,2 The report of the latest Benelux workshop of the Education Committee will be published soon. The damage and health impact, even of " natural " hazards largely is determined by socioeconomic factors and societal development(s). While it is true that humans cannot control the occurrence of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions , their impact depends on the environment and social context (population density, quality of housing, social resilience, etc.) of the impacted community. The loss of human lives due to " natural " hazards can be linked directly to the poverty level of a given country. 3 Man and society also change nature. Human activities and " unsustainable " development can influence our planet profoundly , lead to climate change, and contribute to events like hurricanes, flooding, drought, and wildfires. On the other extreme, there is deliberate harm caused not only by so-called terrorism, but large-scale violence. This is not determined by nature, not even human nature unless one would ignore history and reject any idea of societal evolution. Project Ploughshares reported armed conflicts underway in 192 countries in 2006. The likelihood of being affected by one or more armed conflicts during the 10-year period 1997–2006 increased as the UN Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of a country declined: 1.6% of high human development countries experienced an armed conflict, vs. 30.1% of medium development status, 38.7% of low human development states. 4 Political violence and war not only lead to thousands of deaths each year (mostly unarmed civilians), but also millions of refugees and internally displaced people. It is estimated that for every violent death in the Congo's war zone, there are 62 …