BACKGROUND Natural disasters result in significant numbers of disabling impairments. Paradoxically, however, the traditional health system response to natural disasters largely neglects health-related rehabilitation as a strategic intervention. OBJECTIVES To examine the role of health-related rehabilitation in natural disaster relief along three lines of inquiry: (1) epidemiology of injury an...

Taiwan is affected by three primary types of natural disaster: typhoons, earthquakes, and floods. Natural disasters in Taiwan can cause human causalities and loss of housing. Therefore, a method for evaluating the severity of losses caused by natural disasters would be beneficial for disaster management institutes in Taiwan when developing further supply chain management (SCM) strategies. To ev...

Recent natural disasters have highlighted the need for disaster preparedness, planning, and management. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the usefulness of Web sites in dealing with natural disasters. However, little is known about the necessary contents and structures of Web-based information systems for natural disaster management. In this paper, we focus on developing an ontology structure of e...

BACKGROUND We explore the health care literature and draw on two decades of experience in the provision of medical care at mass gatherings and special events to illustrate the complementary aspects of mass gathering medical support and disaster medicine. Most communities have occasions during which large numbers of people assemble in public or private spaces for the purpose of celebrating or pa...