Could social media data aid in disaster response and damage assessment? Countries face both an increasing frequency and an increasing intensity of natural disasters resulting from climate change. During such events, citizens turn to social media platforms for disaster-related communication and information. Social media improves situational awareness, facilitates dissemination of emergency infor...

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...

Only 40-50% of households in the United States are currently disaster prepared. In this intervention study, respondent-driven sampling was used to select a sample (n = 187) of low income, Latino residents of Los Angeles County, randomly assigned into two treatment conditions: (i) household preparedness education received through 'promotora' (community health worker) led small group meetings, an...

The purpose of this study is to apply digital city concept for the development of a pictogram system for natural disaster reduction. Long lasting and tangible achievement of IDNDR is needed which may be used in all over the world for many coming generations. As Neurath said “Words divide, pictures unite”, pictograms could be a powerful communication tool as well as an educational tool to improv...

New generation remote sensing technologies open today new application areas and demonstrate their effectiveness providing geo-information in support to disaster management. In the same time, new challenges can be identified and among them has a crucial role the validation of geo-information under the new specific constraints dictated by the disaster management application area. In the frame of ...

Smart mobile phones are used in a variety of activities, including social networking, messaging, connectivity and context-sensitive applications. The ubiquities of handheld computer technology have been found to be very useful, especially in flood training applications. The aim of this paper is to propose a prototype for one stop center disaster training information through smart mobile phone a...

Unique physiological, developmental, and psychological attributes of children make them one of the more vulnerable populations during mass-casualty incidents. Because of their distinctive vulnerabilities, it is crucial that pediatric needs are incorporated into every stage of disaster planning. Individuals, families, and communities can help mitigate the effects of disasters on pediatric popula...

An important, but overlooked component of disaster managment is raising the awareness and preparedness of potential stakeholders. We show how recent advances in agent-based modeling and geo-information analytics can be combined to this effect. Using a dynamic simulation model, we estimate the long run outcomes of two very different urban disasters with severe consequences: an earthquake and a m...