This paper describes the chemical industry's Community Awareness and Emergency Response (CAER) Program, and voluntary and mandatory actions by the chemical industry to comply with the major environmental legislation. The chemical industry started the voluntary CAER Program soon after the Bhopal Disaster in 1984; it is coordinated through the Chemical Manufacturer's Association. This program, wh...

CONTEXT Little is known about how written family planning clinic policy regarding emergency contraception, as well as personal characteristics, behaviors and attitudes, may influence a woman to use emergency contraception. METHODS Between June 2001 and July 2002, women attending publicly funded family planning clinics in Pennsylvania were enrolled in an 18-month longitudinal study. Half atten...

The evaluation of the quality of emergency plans is an unresolved issue. While most research efforts have focused on the definition and improvement of planning methods and the associated tools, a reference framework allowing the assessment of emergency plans is still missing. In this paper, we report our initial work towards the definition of a quality framework for emergency plan management. T...

Recent manmade and natural disasters highlight weaknesses in the public health systems designed to protect populations from harm and minimize disruption of the social and built environments. Emergency planning and response efforts have, as a result, focused largely on ensuring populations' physical well-being during and after a disaster. Many public health authorities, including the World Healt...

STUDY OBJECTIVE Hospital preparedness is an essential component of any developed health care system. However, there is no national legislation in Switzerland. The objective of this inquiry was to establish the geographic distribution, availability and characteristics of hospital preparedness across Switzerland. METHODS A questionnaire regarding hospital preparedness in 2006 was addressed to a...

Emergency response planning in case of a major accident (hazardous material event, nuclear accident) is very important for the protection of the public and workers' safety and health. In this context, several protective actions can be performed, such as, evacuation of an area; protection of the population in buildings; and use of personal protective equipment. The best solution is not unique wh...

We analyze optimal production and pricing strategies in the single period (newsvendor) dual sourcing problem that entails local and offshore suppliers. The local supplier is used reactively as an emergency source following the realization of random demand. A multiplicative demand model is employed. We show that dual sourcing flexibility may decrease optimal price when emergency supply cost is s...