Introduction:
Published reports on health impacts from natural disasters causing injuries, poisonings, infectious disease, chronic illness, and NCDs continue to grow exponentially. Simultaneously, ...calls for the improvement in scientific rigor to improve causal links, strength of association, and efficacy of interventions are increasing. At the heart of this challenge is demonstrating mortality and morbidity risk across a time continuum, where the health effect is not detected for weeks, months, or years after the disaster event. In some circumstances, the presence and acuity of illness are not apparent until after an insidious or cumulative point has been reached. Notwithstanding medical observations or disaster-attributed morality classification matrices being available for 20 years, natural disaster mortality continues to be measured narrowly, on those confirmed dead (acute physical trauma, drowning, poisoning, or missing). There has been little effort to expand mortality assessment beyond this historical lens. For example, it fails to consider suicide in drought and was not redefined when the Indonesian fires caused the highest mortality in 2015. Tens of thousands of lives were lost from smoke exposure.
Aim:
This study sought to test the progress of two decades of published medical and scientific literature on natural disaster mortality reporting.
Methods:
A retrospective analysis of natural disaster impact reports for the past ten years was performed on three of the world’s largest disaster databases, including CRED, Sigma, and ADRC.
Discussion:
WADEM members must commence a strategic process to expand the recognition of health impacts from natural disasters. Global and domestic advocacy is required for building evidence through improved systematic collection of data and especially reporting patient continuum of care as a minimum standard. Without this leadership, disaster health impacts will continue to be underestimated and emergency health program responses and financial resources will fall short in protecting those most at risk.
Introduction:
The rationale for undertaking this study was to investigate how characteristics of population health relate to and impact disaster risk, resilience, vulnerability, impact, and recovery. ...The multi-disciplinary environment that contextualizes disaster practice can influence determinants of health. Robust health determinants, or lack thereof, may influence the outcomes of disaster events affecting an individual or a community.
Aim:
To investigate how the social determinants of health inform community perceptions of disaster risk.
Methods:
Community perception of disaster risk in reference to the social determinants of health was assessed in this study. Individual interviews with participants from a community were conducted, all of whom were permanent community residents. Thematic analysis was conducted using narrative inquiry to gather firsthand insights on their perceptions of how characteristics of population health relate to and impact an individual’s disaster risk.
Results:
Analysis demonstrated commonality between interviewees in perceptions of the influence of the social determinants of health on individual disaster risk by determinant type. Interviewees sensed a strong correlation between low community connection and disaster risk vulnerability. Specific populations thought to have low community connection were perceived to be socially isolated, resulting in low knowledge or awareness of the surrounding disaster risks, or how to prepare and respond to disasters. In addition, they had reduced access to communication and support in time of need.
Discussion:
The importance of a strong social community connection was a feature of this research. Further research on how health determinants can enable disaster risk awareness and disaster risk communication is warranted.
In general, the identification and protection of vulnerable groups in the case of hazards or when a crisis unfolds is an issue that any crisis and disaster risk management should address, since ...people have different levels of exposure to hazards and crises.
In this article, we promote the application of the intersectionality perspective in the study of vulnerable groups, and we call for intersectionality as a guiding principle in risk and crisis management, to provide a better and more nuanced picture of vulnerabilities and vulnerable groups. This can help national and local authorities and agencies to formulate specific guides, to hire staff with the skills necessary to meet particular needs, and to inform vulnerable groups in a particular way, taking into account the differences that may coexist within the same group. Intersectionality allows us to read vulnerability not as the characteristic of some socio-demographic groups. It is rather the result of different and interdependent societal stratification processes that result in multiple dimensions of marginalisation. In this vein, we argue that research should focus on 1) self-perceived vulnerability of individuals and an intersectionality approach to unpack vulnerable groups; 2) cases of crises according to the level and/or likelihood of individual exposure to hazards, to better nuance issues of vulnerability.
Hunger in Latin America: What Can We Do? Ponte, Silvana Dal; Menezes, Daniel
Prehospital and disaster medicine,
05/2019, Letnik:
34, Številka:
s1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Introduction:
Hunger is a global problem and has increased in recent years. In Latin America, hunger continues in high numbers. Although the level of hunger is relatively low compared to other ...regions, this increase in Latin America is mainly explained by the economic slowdown in South America. Also, climate changes are already weakening the production of the main crops in tropical and temperate regions.
Aim:
Report the numbers of hunger in Latin America.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study with reports of the World Health Organization’s hunger figures, September 2018.
Results:
The number of hungry people in the world has increased for the third consecutive year and affects 821 million people, according to a report released by UN agencies. This corresponds to one in nine people in the world. In Brazil, the figures indicate that more than 5.2 million people spent a day or more without consuming food by 2017, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population. In Latin America and the Caribbean, hunger has also increased and affects some 39 million people.
Discussion:
Hunger is a catastrophic problem in Latin America. Involving professionals in food and nutrition to try to reduce these numbers appears to be a good strategy because just as the doctor treats the disease, the involvement of other specialists to address the cause of the problem can bring long-term benefits. A social project for this purpose that mobilizes chefs and nutritionists is in progress in Brazil.
This study aims to review the literature regarding the barriers to sampling, recruitment, participation, and retention of members of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups in health research and ...strategies for increasing the amount of health research conducted with socially disadvantaged groups.
A systematic review with narrative synthesis was conducted. Searches of electronic databases Medline, PsychInfo, EMBASE, Social Science Index via Web of Knowledge and CINHAL were conducted for English language articles published up to May 2013. Qualitative and quantitative studies as well as literature reviews were included. Articles were included if they reported attempts to increase disadvantaged group participation in research, or the barriers to research with disadvantaged groups. Groups of interest were those described as socially, culturally or financially disadvantaged compared to the majority of society. Eligible articles were categorised according to five phases of research: 1) sampling, 2) recruitment and gaining consent, 3) data collection and measurement, 4) intervention delivery and uptake, and 5) retention and attrition.
In total, 116 papers from 115 studies met inclusion criteria and 31 previous literature reviews were included. A comprehensive summation of the major barriers to working with various disadvantaged groups is provided, along with proposed strategies for addressing each of the identified types of barriers. Most studies of strategies to address the barriers were of a descriptive nature and only nine studies reported the results of randomised trials.
To tackle the challenges of research with socially disadvantaged groups, and increase their representation in health and medical research, researchers and research institutions need to acknowledge extended timeframes, plan for higher resourcing costs and operate via community partnerships.
Constitutional Court is established as an effort to uphold the rule of law and provide maximum protection for democracy as well as human rights, particularly civil rights. The main purpose of the ...rule of law is to protect citizens' freedom from state power. Therefore, this study aims to examine the implementation of civil rights against vulnerable groups in the Indonesian legal and constitutional system. Data were analyzed using a normative juridical approach by examining theories, concepts, legal principles, and statutory regulations obtained from legal sources such as books, articles/writings, and other documents. The government issued various laws and regulations with multiple conventions such as the rights of the child and the elimination of all forms of discrimination but this effort has not been supported by a strong shared commitment. Based on these circumstances, it is necessary to develop an effective law enforcement mechanism to protect citizens' rights, particularly vulnerable groups.
Urban green space (UGS) plays an essential role in sustainable urban development and is closely related to public health and human well-being. The inequity of UGS violates environmental justice and ...threatens the life quality of residents. Although previous studies have examined UGS distribution and the disparity between social groups, they seldom consider the spatial heterogeneity of the UGS inequity for the vulnerable. To find out which vulnerable groups are suffering the insufficiency of UGS resources and to identify the specific spaces with severe UGS inequity in the context of high-density cities, this study employed a geographically weighted regression (GWR) approach to investigate the spatial relationship between UGS availability and neighborhood vulnerable socio-economic variables in Guangzhou, China. Results showed that the older adults, less-educated population, immigrants, and households with a living area below 50m2 in more than half of the neighborhoods in Guangzhou were suffering UGS inequity. These neighborhoods were detected spatially and had different spatial agglomeration characteristics. Based on this, the UGS inequity level of each neighborhood was comprehensively evaluated so that we can identify the spaces facing serious UGS inequity issues that should be paid attention to in future UGS system planning and policymaking.
•GWR was employed to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of UGS inequity.•Some vulnerable groups, especially the immigrants, are not exposed to green space equitably.•Neighborhoods suffering UGS inequity were detected spatially.•Specific areas facing serious UGS inequity issues should be the priority in future planning.
This paper focuses on the recent cases of the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR, the Court) in which the Court offered legal protection to vulnerable groups. For this purpose, the paper will ...first discuss the vulnerability paradigm before the ECtHR and draw the list of groups recognised by the Court as vulnerable. It will then turn to the case law to trace the recent trends and developments in the Court's focus when protecting vulnerable groups. In particular, the research covers the Court judgements rendered in the last four years (from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2022).
•PGS access differs based on household composition status and social status.•Sub-districts with high degree of population aging or unemployment show low access.•PGS provision, residents visits and ...demands of vulnerable groups show mismatches.
Public green spaces are fundamental and indispensable to urban settlements, given the diverse social, economic and environmental benefits that they can provide. However, the absence of knowledge regarding the allocation and access status quo consistently hinders the suitability and rationality of follow-up green space planning, which could eventually impair the livability and sustainability of cities. This study evaluates disparities in access to public green space for urban residents and the spatial mismatches among public green space provision, residents’ visits and the demands of socially vulnerable groups within the Central City of Shanghai. The results show that disparities in public green space accessibility exist pertaining to social status and household composition status. Sub-districts with higher social status or larger proportions of family households composed by children and married inhabitants tend to have better public green space access. In contrast, sub-districts with larger proportions of aged or unemployed populations unexpectedly show worse public green space access. To a certain degree, this reduced access can be considered to be an environmental injustice. Additionally, the mismatches among public green space provision, residents’ visits and the demands of socially vulnerable groups are observed to vary in space, indicating potential problems of resource shortage, supply-demand mismatch, underuse and congestion. The findings could offer urban planners and policy-makers insights into optimizing public green space resources and equitably providing proximal public green space to urban residents, especially vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly and the unemployed.
Droughts are associated with several health effects and Africa is uniquely vulnerable. Despite this, there has been no previous review of the literature on the health effects of drought in Africa. ...This study systematically reviewed the epidemiological research on the association between drought and adverse health effects in Africa (2012–2019). A total of fifteen articles were included in the review after screening 1922 published (peer-reviewed) and unpublished articles. These studies were all conducted in 9 Sub-Saharan African countries. The drought-related health effects identified were on adverse nutritional health (n = 8) including malnutrition resulting in reduced body size and wasting, stunting and underweight, mortality from food insecurity, anaemia from food insecurity and nutrition-related disability from food insecurity; drought and diseases due to microbial contamination of water (n = 6) including cholera, diarrhoeal diseases, scabies, vector-borne diseases and malaria-related mortality; and drought and health behaviours (n = 1) including HIV prevention and care behaviours. The study found limited evidence of a high prevalence of malnutrition, an increased prevalence of anaemia, cholera, scabies, dengue and an increased incidence in child disabilities during periods of drought. Additionally, there was limited evidence on improved child nutritional health with improved water and sanitation access, and an increased prevalence of child wasting, stunting and underweight in drought-prone areas. No evidence of drought on other health outcomes was found. However, all the studies had more than one limitation including weak study design, a lack of comparison to a drought period, uncertainty on the onset and end of drought, lack of control for confounding, presence of contextual factors, weak outcome and/or exposure measure, small sample size and lack of generalizability.
This review found weak evidence for all health outcomes measured but highlights key areas for further research and contextual factors which need to be considered for interventions.
Display omitted
•First review of studies on health effects of droughts in Africa•Existing evidence in Africa on adverse health outcomes and drought is limited.•Drought impacts on vulnerable groups identified.•Research gaps for future studies identified.
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