About the lead author (Dr Weiner): I am a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB)/Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the CHB representative and a chartermember of the HMS Section on Disaster Medicine. I have been a National Disaster Medical Systemmember on the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, the International Medical Surgical Response Team, and the Pediatric S...

This paper presents a cohesive summary of existing emergency response systems. We investigate and integrate principles, theories, and practices from four diverse, yet related, fields of knowledge with respect to information representation and decision support capability requirements for emergency planning and response (EPR) systems. This enables the cooperation between constituent agencies (e.g...

OBJECTIVE This study presents baseline data to determine which hospital characteristics are associated with preparedness for terrorism and natural disaster in the areas of emergency response planning and availability of equipment and specialized care units. METHODS Information from the Bioterrorism and Mass Casualty Preparedness Supplements to the 2003 and 2004 National Hospital Ambulatory Me...

This paper proposes the use of responsibility modelling as a tool to support the process of contingency planning for civil emergencies. Existing contingency planning techniques produce documents which are difficult to analyse for vulnerabilities, particularly across organisational boundaries and are likely to be largely unused during an actual emergency. This paper presents a new approach to co...

nancy are long-standing priorities for Washington State’s Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Working together to ensure that all pregnancies are intended (consciously and clearly desired at the time of conception), the two agencies provide family planning counseling and a broad choice of contraceptive methods through a range of health and social serv...

This study aimed to further our understanding of a characteristic of Community Resilience known as Disaster Governance. Three attributes of Disaster Governance-redundancy, diversity, and overlap-were studied in four coastal towns in southern Chile that are at risk of tsunamis. Overall, we explored how different spatial structures of human settlements influence Disaster Governance. Using the Pro...

Ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the federal government increased funding for emergency preparedness. However, the literature continues to document several areas of weaknesses in public health emergency management by local health departments (LHD). This literature review discusses the role of information technology (IT) for emergency preparedness by LHDs. The focus areas for this revie...

Over the last few decades, maternal health has been a major focus of the international community and this has resulted in a substantial decrease in maternal mortality globally. Although, compared with maternal illness, medical and surgical emergencies account for far more morbidity and mortality, there has been less focus on global efforts to improve comprehensive emergency systems. The thought...

OBJECTIVE To describe the provision of emergency contraception and confidentiality for the under 16's by general practitioners (GPs) in Avon, in order to inform the development of a health promotion intervention in schools in Avon. DESIGN Confidential postal questionnaire survey. SETTING All principals in general practice in Avon Health Authority, South West England. SUBJECTS Five hundred...

BACKGROUND Increasing institutional births rates and improving access to comprehensive emergency obstetric care are central strategies for reducing maternal and neonatal deaths globally. While some studies show women consider service availability when determining where to deliver, the dynamics of how and why institutional birth rates change as comprehensive emergency obstetric care availability...