OBJECTIVES When a soccer stadium stampede occurred in Zimbabwe on 9 July 2000, the hospital disaster (medical emergency) plan failed. This report describes the use of the audit technique to change the hospital's disaster preparedness. METHOD A literature review was done to establish international standards of best practice in major medical incident response. The hospital disaster plan (major ...

BACKGROUND An understudied area of interest in post-disaster public health is individuals' use of social networks as a potential determinant of quality of life (QOL) and mental health outcomes. A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out to examine whether continual use of online social networking (Facebook) in an adult population following a massive earthquake was correlated with ...

» Comorbidity of PTSD, major depression, and substance use disorder among adolescent victims » The role of anger and ongoing stressors in mental health following a natural disaster » Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression prevalence and associated risk factors among local disaster relief and reconstruction workers fourteen months after the Great East Japan earthquake: A cross-sectional s...

The daily use of geospatial technology, such as the global positioning system (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing (RS), is increasing. The use of geospatial technology in disaster management is a natural fit because almost every aspect of a disaster is referenced by location. This paper presents the results of a recent web-based survey of disaster management practiti...

The primary goal of this research was to reveal de novo mutations in the liquidators (cleanup personnel) who emigrated to Israel from the Chernobyl disaster area. We used genome fingerprinting simple sequence repeat-anchored polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and random amplified polymorphic DNA PCR (RAPD PCR). The methodology involved a combination of RAPD PCR, polyacrylamide gel el...

The 2013 Partial Amendment of the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law mandated that a roster of vulnerable persons during disasters be created, and further development of evacuation support is expected. In this study, the number of vulnerable people living in target analytical areas are identified in terms of neighborhood units by using the National Health Insurance Database to create a realisti...

This article examines the nature of freely available geospatial software and information systems in the context of disaster management. The use of geospatial data is crucial to effective disaster management, from preparedness to response and recovery. However, to make efficient use of available data and information – before, during and after a disaster – reliable software is required. The softw...

Changes in population birth outcomes, including increases in low birthweight or preterm births, have been documented after natural and manmade disasters. However, information is limited following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster. In this study, we assessed whether there were long-term changes in birth outcomes post-disaster, compared to pre-disaster data, and whether resi...

BACKGROUND Disaster experiences have been associated with higher prevalence rates of (mental) health problems. The objective of this study was to examine the independent relation between a series of single disaster experiences versus the independent predictive value of a accumulation of disaster experiences, i.e. a sum score of experiences and symptoms of distress and post-traumatic stress diso...

We report the relationship between rapid aortic enlargement of chronic type B aortic dissection and sleep disorder due to anxiety after Tohoku disaster. Five patients underwent surgical procedures due to rapid aortic enlargement after the earthquake disaster. They reported that their morning blood pressure increased to approximately 190 mm Hg after the disaster. They were troubled with severe i...