in 2002, david alexander wrote principles of emergency planning and management. long a standard reference work in that book he described the processes of preparing for and responding to disasters, crises, and civil contingencies. he based the work on principles because he wanted to dissociate it from any particular system of emergency management. then, as now, many books in this subject are tie...

Problems, issues, and challenges to disaster planning and selected disaster-planning principles are presented in this article. Methods of developing strategies to overcome resistance to disaster preparedness and measures to ensure that medical-response facilities will function are among the concepts discussed. Disaster-preparedness resources are provided.

BACKGROUND In recent years, the term 'resilience' has gained increasing currency in discussions of emergency preparedness. This review identifies key concepts and explores the relevance of resilience for disaster planning and public health protection. METHODS A systematic review of literature on concepts of resilience, with a narrative summary of key relevant concepts for public health. RES...

Most community disaster plans are formulated to respond to disasters of moderate size. The MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas, because of its magnitude, had the potential to overwhelm completely the local medical resources. It did not, because of innovative responses to unforeseen problems based on sound disaster planning. Fortunately, disasters on the magnitude of this fire are rare, and few co...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this qualitative, retrospective review is to identify and analyze the occurrence of recurrent problems in 20 processes that cover all relevant aspects of disaster health during the response phase. Consequently, an attempt is made to determine if there are generic themes of coherences in these problems. METHODS Eight after-action reports of five consecutive disasters in t...

A major flood in 1997 forced the evacuation of Grand Forks, North Dakota and caused damage of USD 1 billion. Despite this recent disaster there is only marginal evidence of an increase in disaster recovery planning by businesses that experienced the flood. This finding is consistent with the results of other business-related disaster research. Statistical tests of survey results from 2003 indic...

in the response phase the most important step is to assess disaster after occurrence. by disaster assessment, we can obtain all the needed information for controlling, decision-making and also disaster planning. lack of disaster assessment causes you to make unsuitable decisions ba sed on limited or inadequate data which leads to imperfect disaster response. according to ifrc, disaster response...