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Disaster Med Public Health Prep 2022 Jun 30:1-7. Epub 2022 Jun 30.

Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Objective: In times of repeated disaster events, including natural disasters and pandemics, public health workers must recover rapidly to respond to subsequent events. Understanding predictors of time to recovery and developing predictive models of time to recovery can aid planning and management.

Methods: We examined 681 public health workers (21-72 y, M(standard deviation [SD]) = 48. Read More

Chest 2022 Jun 25. Epub 2022 Jun 25.

Sistema d'Emergències Mèdiques de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; Faculty of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Spain.

Nurse Educ 2022 Jun 27. Epub 2022 Jun 27.

Nurse Navigator (Ms Johnson), Advocate Aurora Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Chicago; Associate Director/Associate Professor (Dr Badowski), RN to MS Nursing Program, DePaul University School of Nursing, Chicago, Illinois; and Clinical Associate Professor (Dr Quandt), DePaul University School of Nursing, Chicago, Illinois.

Background: Disaster planning is an essential component for nursing students to learn.

Problem: Clinical experiences of disasters are typically unavailable for nursing students. Increasing frequency of disaster events around the globe has made disaster planning knowledge and skills a critical component in nursing education and professional practice. Read More

PLoS One 2022 28;17(6):e0270035. Epub 2022 Jun 28.

College of Landscape Architecture, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, PR China.

The construction of refuge spaces in rapidly urbanizing historic cities is a challenging task owing to their complex urban form, unique urban fabric, and historic preservation requirements. Refuge green space (RGS) is a green space that can serve as an emergency shelter in cities, providing a flexible means to increase the emergency shelter capacity for rapidly urbanized historic cities. After major earthquakes, spatial accessibility to GRSs is a critical planning strategy for disaster prevention and emergency response in historic cities. Read More

Disaster Med Public Health Prep 2022 Jun 27:1-8. Epub 2022 Jun 27.

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna, Bangladesh.

Objective: The objective of the research is to estimate the cost of ecosystem service value (ESV) due to the Rohingya refugee influx in Ukhiya and Teknaf upazilas of Bangladesh.

Methods: Artificial neural network (ANN) supervised classification technique was used to estimate land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics between 2017 (ie, before the Rohingya refugee influx) and 2021. The ESV changes between 2017 and 2021 were assessed using the benefit transfer approach. Read More

Prehosp Disaster Med 2022 Jun 27:1-5. Epub 2022 Jun 27.

Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

Introduction: Mass-casualty incidents (MCIs) are events in which many people are injured during the same period of time. This has major implications in regards to practical concerns and planning for both personnel and medical equipment. Smart glasses are modern tools that could help Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in the estimation of the number of potential patients in an MCI. Read More

Risk Anal 2022 Jun 26. Epub 2022 Jun 26.

Department of Urban Studies & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

This paper demonstrates how qualitative analysis can be a novel means of investigating theories of error and causation in natural gas pipeline incidents. Qualitative analysis offers unique opportunities to understand process, interactions, and the role of context in identifying active error and latent conditions in incident causation. Through the coding of text from 24 onshore natural gas pipeline incident reports on leaks and explosions in the United States and Canada, our findings reveal a proportion of active and latent errors consistent with other hazardous infrastructure contexts (roughly 3:1 latent-active ratio across 817 coded errors). Read More

Emerg Med Australas 2022 Jun 24. Epub 2022 Jun 24.

Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

Objective: This qualitative study explores whether Australian mass casualty and disaster plans explicitly acknowledge or implicitly draw upon ethical principles.

Methods: Federal, state and territory governmental websites were searched to identify mass casualty incident and/or disaster plans. The authors examined the documents to identify whether ethical principles were overtly stated or implied, and what those values or principles were. Read More

Jamba 2022 31;14(1):1264. Epub 2022 May 31.

African Centre for Disaster Studies, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Science, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.

Determining the level of a city's disaster resilience and developing a disaster resilience strategy is an important process towards understanding the current and potential future risk of cities. However, the process of determining and mapping the level of urban disaster resilience presents a challenge for the City of Tshwane, as it requires a consolidated and coordinated commitment and collaboration from various role players. This research study developed disaster resilience framework indicators for the City of Tshwane to determine its current disaster resilience and to contribute to its disaster resilience and sustainable development planning strategy. Read More

Materials (Basel) 2022 Jun 16;15(12). Epub 2022 Jun 16.

Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia.

Worldwide concern and ascendancy of emissions and carbon footprints have propelled a substantial number of explorations into green concrete technology. Furthermore, construction material costs have increased along with their gradual impact on the environment, which has led researchers to recognize the importance of natural fibers in improving the durability and mechanical properties of concrete. Natural fibers are abundantly available making them relatively relevant as a reinforcing material in concrete. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 Jun 17;19(12). Epub 2022 Jun 17.

Center for Health Equity Research, Department of Social Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.

Climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent all over the world; however, there is significant variability in the impact of disasters, including which specific communities are the most vulnerable. The objective of this descriptive study was to examine how climate disaster susceptibility is related to the density of incarceration at the county level in the United States. Percent of the population incarcerated in the 2010 census and the Expected Annual Loss (EAL) from natural hazards were broken into tertiles and mapped bivariately to examine the overlap of areas with high incarceration and susceptibility to climate disasters. Read More

Entropy (Basel) 2022 May 30;24(6). Epub 2022 May 30.

College of Water Resources and Architecture Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China.

To facilitate better implementation of flood control and risk mitigation strategies, a model for evaluating the flood defense capability of China is proposed in this study. First, nine indicators such as slope and precipitation intensity are extracted from four aspects: objective inclusiveness, subjective prevention, etc. Secondly, the entropy weight method in the multi-attribute decision making (MADM) model and the improved three-dimensional technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (3D-TOPSIS) method were combined to construct a flood defense capacity index evaluation system. Read More

J Pediatr Health Care 2022 Jul-Aug;36(4):301-302

J Environ Public Health 2022 13;2022:5445786. Epub 2022 Jun 13.

Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.

Background: Emergency is generally caused by natural disaster and infectious disease outbreaks, or it is man-made. Floods are natural phenomena that generally appear in multiple parts of the world. Flooding is one of the most destructive naturally occurring environmental hazards and can cause public, infrastructural, and environmental damage. Read More

Ann Oper Res 2022 Jun 15:1-27. Epub 2022 Jun 15.

La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Large-scale disasters occur worldwide, with a continuing surge in the frequency and severity of disruptive events. Researchers have developed several optimization models to address the critical challenges of disaster relief supply chains (e.g. Read More

Ann Oper Res 2022 Jun 16:1-37. Epub 2022 Jun 16.

Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.

The location planning of relief distribution centres (DCs) is crucial in humanitarian logistics as it directly influences the disaster response and service to the affected victims. In light of the critical role of facility location in humanitarian logistics planning, the study proposes a two-stage relief distribution location problem. The first stage of the model determines the minimum number of relief DCs, and the second stage find the optimal location of these DCs to minimize the total cost. Read More

Am J Occup Ther 2022 Jul;76(4)

Sandra E. Groger, OTD, OTR/L, is Adjunct Faculty, Department of Occupational Therapy, Rocky Mountain University, Provo, UT.

As natural disasters increase in frequency throughout the world, more children and families are exposed to disaster-related stress and trauma. Many children with disaster exposure face occupational disruption, in which common activities, roles, and relationships are damaged or destroyed. In this descriptive column, we explore the impact that natural disasters have on children, the contribution of pediatric occupational therapy to disaster management, and the opportunity for occupational therapy practitioners to engage in collaborative psychosocial and activity interventions during disaster recovery. Read More

Global Health 2022 Jun 20;18(1):63. Epub 2022 Jun 20.

Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines, Unit G3: International Coordination/Regulatory Services, Paul-Ehrlich Str. 51-59, 63225, Langen, Germany.

Background: A stable, well-functioning and integrated national medicines regulatory system is a core component of health systems resilient against infectious disease outbreaks. In many low- and middle-income countries, however, sizable gaps exist in the emergency preparedness framework of national regulatory authorities (NRAs). RegTrain-VaccTrain is a project of Germany Ministry of Health's Global Health Protection Programme that contributes to global efforts aimed at strengthening such regulatory systems by providing technical support and advice to partner NRAs. Read More

Waste Manag 2022 Jun 17;149:60-69. Epub 2022 Jun 17.

State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.

The harm done to the environment by fossil fuels was serious, and it is urgent to find effective methods and adopt carbon-neutral feedstock to prevent further environmental damage. An innovative infrared heating reactor was developed for the generation of high-yield bio-oil and cleaner pyrolysis gases. This work was devoted to exploring the fast pyrolysis characteristics and its mechanism of corn stover over the iron oxide in a novel infrared heating (IH) reactor and a traditional electric heating (EH) reactor. Read More

Transp Policy (Oxf) 2022 Sep 13;125:127-150. Epub 2022 Jun 13.

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, North - West University, Potchefstroom, 2531, South Africa.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new wave of health, infrastructure and built environment challenges and opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic induced environment presents a divide between the with policy and planning implications for health, transport and general socio-economic growth and development. Multiple and complex nuanced transport matters cascade all geographic scales and pervade all sectors of the economy. Read More

Int J Public Health 2022 30;67:1604679. Epub 2022 May 30.

Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

Soc Sci Med 2022 Jun 8;306:115108. Epub 2022 Jun 8.

Department of Geography, Florida State University, USA.

This case study presents an evaluation framework to assess the facilitating and constraining factors that influenced the emergency response, operation, and management of a Special Needs Shelter Program in Monroe County, Florida during Hurricane Irma in 2017. A qualitative analysis of key documents and discussions with agencies directly involved in the Monroe County Special Needs Shelter Program was used to assess four major emergency response processes: notifications and communications, evacuation and transportation, sheltering, and interagency coordination. A critical cross-cutting theme emerged, which was a lack of a common definition for populations with "special needs" across different agencies resulting in uncertainties about who should be admitted to the Special Needs Shelter and have access to their services. Read More

JAMA Netw Open 2022 Jun 1;5(6):e2217260. Epub 2022 Jun 1.

Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

Ann Oper Res 2022 Jun 8:1-37. Epub 2022 Jun 8.

Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been experienced as the most significant global disaster after the Spanish flue in 1918. Millions of people lost their life due to a lack of preparedness and ineffective strategies for managing humanitarian supply chains (HSC). Based on the learnings from this pandemic outbreak, different strategies for managing the effective HSC have been explored in the present context of pandemics through a systematic literature review. Read More

Perspect Health Inf Manag 2022 15;19(Spring):1c. Epub 2022 Mar 15.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly disrupted the healthcare industry, impacting health information professionals through facility changes, remote work, shifting priorities, and personal stressors. This study explores the impacts of these disruptions on health information professionals in a rural state. Participants indicated involvement in expanding and new responsibilities related to tracing and data collection, the expansion of telehealth services, and disaster planning. Read More

Nat Commun 2022 Jun 10;13(1):3360. Epub 2022 Jun 10.

Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

Whether disasters influence adaptation actions in cities is contested. Yet, the extant knowledge base primarily consists of single or small-N case studies, so there is no global overview of the evidence on disaster impacts and adaptation. Here, we use regression analysis to explore the effects of disaster frequency and severity on four adaptation action types in 549 cities. Read More

Sci Rep 2022 Jun 10;12(1):9588. Epub 2022 Jun 10.

Institute of Disaster Prevention, Sanhe, 065201, Hebei Province, China.

A large-scale sand liquefaction producing typical and novel surface phenomena was found at the epicenter of Songyuan M5.7 earthquake occurring on May 28, 2018. Field survey and experimental test encompassing boring sampling, standard penetration test (SPT), cone penetration test (CPT), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were performed to ascertain the liquefaction damage and site characteristic. Read More

Public Health 2022 Jun 7;208:46-51. Epub 2022 Jun 7.

Department of Surgery, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, 40530, Gothenburg, Sweden; Institute of Health and Care Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, 40100, Gothenburg, Sweden; Gothenburg Emergency Medicine Research Group, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, 40530, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Objectives: This study aims to develop a theoretical framework for the flexible surge capacity, inspired by existing surge capacity, complexity theory, and collaborative theoretical frameworks, and discuss its implementation and use in emergencies.

Study Design: This was a descriptive study.

Methods: Theoretical frameworks for surge capacity, the complexity and resilience theory, and collaboration were reviewed and combined to develop a theoretical framework for the flexible surge capacity, incorporated with standard practical tools used in disaster and emergency management as interconnecting collaborative factors. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 06 2;19(11). Epub 2022 Jun 2.

Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.

At present, earthquakes cannot be predicted. Scientific decision-making and rescue after an earthquake are the main means of mitigating the immediate consequences of earthquake disasters. If emergency response level and earthquake-related fatalities can be estimated rapidly and quantitatively, this estimation will provide timely, scientific guidance to government organizations and relevant institutions to make decisions on earthquake relief and resource allocation, thereby reducing potential losses. Read More

West J Emerg Med 2022 May 5;23(3):396-407. Epub 2022 May 5.

Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Department of Emergency Medicine, Hempstead, New York.

Introduction: The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is a salient component of reducing occupational risk in many fields. Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel use PPE to reduce risk of exposure and defend against various pathogens they come in contact with while providing patient care. Currently, the understanding of factors that predict the use of PPE by an EMS responder during a pandemic is limited. Read More