Health In Humanitarian Emergencies

A comprehensive, best practices resource for public health and healthcare practitioners and students interested in humanitarian emergencies.

The fields of Global Health and Global Emergency Response have attracted increased interest and study. There has been tremendous growth in the educational opportunities around humanitarian emergencies; however, educational resources have not yet followed the same growth. This book corrects this trend, offering a comprehensive single resource dedicated to health in humanitarian emergencies. Providing an introduction to the public health principles of response to humanitarian emergencies, the text also emphasizes the need to coordinate the public health and emergency clinical response within the architecture of the greater response effort. With contributing authors among some of the world's leading health experts and policy influencers in the field, the content is based on best practices, peer reviewed evidence, and expert consensus. The text acts as a resource for clinical and public health practitioners, graduate-level students, and individuals working in response to humanitarian emergencies for government agencies, international agencies, and NGOs.

The pressure of climate change, environmental degradation, and urbanisation, as well as the widening of socio- economic disparities have rendered the global population increasingly vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. With a primary focus on medical and public health humanitarian response to disasters, Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters provides a timely critical analysis of public health responses to natural disasters. Using a number of case studies and examples of innovative disaster response measures developed by international agencies and stakeholders, this book illustrates how theoretical understanding of public health issues can be practically applied in the context of humanitarian relief response. Starting with an introduction to public health principles within the context of medical and public health disaster and humanitarian response, the book goes on to explore key trends, threats and challenges in contemporary disaster medical response. This book provides a comprehensive overview of an emergent discipline and offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective across a range of relevant topics including the concepts of disaster preparedness and resilience, and key challenges in human health needs for the twenty-first century. This book will be of interest to students of public health, disaster and emergency medicine and development studies, as well as to development and medical practitioners working within NGOs, development agencies, health authorities and public administration.

Since the late 1980s the international relief community has seen its resources stressed beyond capacity by humanitarian crises. Covering topics from emergency public health measures to the psychological trauma of relief workers, this volume presents a seasoned assessment of current practice and proposals for improving operational efforts.

As humanitarian aid organizations have evolved, there is a growing recognition that incorporating palliative care into aid efforts is an essential part of providing the best care possible. A Field Manual for Palliative Care in Humanitarian Crises represents the first-ever effort at educating and providing guidance for clinicians not formally trained in palliative care in how to incorporate its principles into their work in crisis situations. Written by a team of international experts, this pocket-sized manual identifies the needs of people affected by natural hazards, political or ethnic conflict, epidemics of life-threatening infections, and other humanitarian crises. Later chapters explore topics including pain management, skin conditions, non-communicable diseases, palliative care emergencies, the law and ethics of end of life care, and more. Concise and highly accessible, this manual is an ideal educational tool pre-deployment or during fieldwork for clinicians involved in planning and providing humanitarian aid, local care providers, and medical trainees.

The mhGAP Intervention Guide (IG) is a clinical guide on mental neurological and substance use disorders for general health care workers who work in non-specialized health care settings particularly in low- and middle-income countries. These health care workers include general physicians family physicians nurses and clinical officers. The mhGAP programme provides a range of tools to support the work of health care providers as well as health policy makers and planners The proposed guide is an adaptation of the mhGAP Intervention Guide to be used in humanitarian settings. These settings include a broad range of acute and chronic emergency situations arising from armed conflicts natural disasters and industrial disasters and may include mass displacement of populations (eg refugees and/or internally displaced people).

This manual was developed based on the recommendations of a global technical consultation on child health in humanitarian emergencies co-organized by WHO and UNICEF at the end of 2003. WHO in collaboration with the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University undertook a systematic review in 2004. It demonstrated that existing guidelines, including The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), do not cover all priority conditions in emergencies. The objective of this manual is to provide comprehensive guidance on child care in emergencies. Existing guidelines, such as IMCI, assume a functioning health system that facilitates the referral of children, which may not be available in emergency situations. So this manual also includes the initial management of severe conditions. It was also realized that existing manuals do not cover injuries, burns, neonatal illness, psychosocial problems etc, which are considered of high priority in emergency settings. These are addressed in this manual as well as issues on mental health, psychosocial support and common preventive interventions such as immunization. Each chapter summarizes the main ways of diagnosis, treatment and prevention using flow charts. The flow charts are arranged in such a way that they can be enlarged for use as job aids/wall charts, or for modular training at convenient times on the management of each condition. The manual is a collaborative work of three technical areas within WHO - Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH), Health Action in Crises (HAC), and Disease Control in Humanitarian Emergencies (DCE).

This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: ‘“what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?” The chapters—diverse in content, form and perspective—establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.