A Socio-Health Approach to Improve Local Disaster Resilience and Contain Secondary Crises: A Case Study in an Agricultural Community Exposed to Bushfires in Australia.

Recent large-scale disasters have exposed the interconnected nature of modern societies, exacerbating the risk of cascading impacts. Examining elements of community health status, such as social determinants of health, their perceived health status, and how they relate to disaster resilience, can illuminate alternative actions for cost-effective disaster prevention and management. Moreover, agricultural communities are essential to food security and provide a working example of the importance of mitigation in escalation of crises.

Improving Disaster Data Systems to Inform Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building in Australia: A Comparison of Databases.

Objective: Disaster impact databases are important resources for informing research, policy, and decision making. Therefore, understanding the underpinning methodology of data collection used by the databases, how they differ, and quality indicators of the data recorded is essential in ensuring that their use as reference points is valid.

Methods: The Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub (AIDRKH) is an open-source platform supported by government to inform disaster management practice.

Triage in Complex, Coordinated Terrorist Attacks.

Introduction: Terror attacks have increased in frequency, and tactics utilized have evolved. This creates significant challenges for first responders providing life-saving medical care in their immediate aftermath. The use of coordinated and multi-site attack modalities exacerbates these challenges.

Peer-Reviewed Validation of a Comprehensive Framework for Disaster Evaluation Typologies.

Introduction: The Comprehensive Framework for Disaster Evaluation Typologies, developed in 2017 (CFDET 2017), aims to unify and facilitate agreement regarding the identification, structure, and relationships between various evaluation typologies found in the disaster setting. A peer-reviewed validation process sought input from international experts in the fields of disaster medicine, disaster/emergency management, humanitarian/development, and evaluation. This paper discusses the validation process, its results, and outcomes.

Current and Emerging Disaster Risks Perceptions in Oceania: Key Stakeholders Recommendations for Disaster Management and Resilience Building.

Identification and profiling of current and emerging disaster risks is essential to inform effective disaster risk management practice. Without clear evidence, readiness to accept future threats is low, resulting in decreased ability to detect and anticipate these new threats. A consequential decreased strategic planning for mitigation, adaptation or response results in a lowered resilience capacity.

Special Report: WADEM Climate Change Position Statement.

The World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM; Madison, Wisconsin USA) is a multi-disciplinary professional association whose mission is the global improvement of prehospital and emergency health care, public health, and disaster health and preparedness. In April 2017, the biennial general meeting of the World Congress for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WCDEM) endorsed the WADEM Climate Change Position Statement, which was subsequently published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine in July 2017. This special report examines literature used and reviews the process of development of this Position Statement as a product of WADEM.

Disaster Metrics: A Comprehensive Framework for Disaster Evaluation Typologies.

Unlabelled: Introduction The frequency of disasters is increasing around the world with more people being at risk. There is a moral imperative to improve the way in which disaster evaluations are undertaken and reported with the aim of reducing preventable mortality and morbidity in future events. Disasters are complex events and undertaking disaster evaluations is a specialized area of study at an international level.

Defining disaster resilience: comparisons from key stakeholders involved in emergency management in Victoria, Australia.

Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector.

An Historical Examination of the Development of Emergency Medical Services Education in the US through Key Reports (1966-2014).

Introduction: The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) approach to emergency prehospital care in the United States (US) has global influence. As the 50-year anniversary of modern US EMS approaches, there is value in examining US EMS education development over this period. This report describes US EMS education milestones and identifies themes that provide context to readers outside the US.

A review of key national reports to describe the development of paramedic education in England (1966-2014).

Introduction: In the year 1966, important advances in mobile coronary care and trauma care in the UK and USA influenced globally the development of modern prehospital emergency services and paramedic education. In that year, to meet the evolving role of prehospital care in the UK, the 'Millar Report' specified a new syllabus for ambulance personnel in England. As the 50th anniversary of this report approaches, this paper reviews key national UK reports to describe the development of paramedic education in England over this period.

No fixed place of birth: unplanned BBAs in Victoria, Australia.

Objectives: the primary objective-to present data on the incidence of unplanned births before arrival (BBAs) in Victoria between 1991 and 2008. The secondary objective-to provide an extensive literature review highlighting the issues surrounding an unplanned BBA.

Setting: the incidence of BBAs in Victoria published in the relevant government reports.

Fear, familiarity, and the perception of risk: a quantitative analysis of disaster-specific concerns of paramedics.

Introduction: Paramedics play an integral role in the response to and management of disasters and mass casualty events. Providing a core component of the front line response to disasters, paramedics potentially expose themselves to a variety of health and safety risks, including physical injury, death, communicable disease, and psychological effects. The health and safety risks to emergency service personnel were highlighted by the deaths of firefighters, paramedics, and police during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the infection, illness, and deaths of paramedics and emergency health care staff during the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003.

Paramedics and the effects of shift work on sleep: a literature review.

Introduction: This paper investigates the literature regarding the impact of shift work on prehospital emergency providers. While the issue of shift work has been thoroughly investigated in other health disciplines, this is not the case for the paramedic discipline, particularly in the Australian context.

Objective: To identify the literature available on prehospital providers regarding the effects of shift work on sleep.

Anticipated behaviors of emergency prehospital medical care providers during an influenza pandemic.

Introduction: Emergency prehospital medical care providers are frontline health workers during emergencies. However, little is known about their attitudes, perceptions, and likely behaviors during emergency conditions. Understanding these attitudes and behaviors is crucial to mitigating the psychological and operational effects of biohazard events such as pandemic influenza, and will support the business continuity of essential prehospital services.

Attitudes to living and working in pandemic conditions among emergency prehospital medical care personnel.

Introduction: Little is known about the risk perceptions and attitudes of healthcare personnel, especially of emergency prehospital medical care personnel, regarding the possibility of an outbreak or epidemic event.

Problem: This study was designed to investigate pre-event knowledge and attitudes of a national sample of the emergency prehospital medical care providers in relation to a potential human influenza pandemic, and to determine predictors of these attitudes.

Methods: Surveys were distributed to a random, cross-sectional sample of 20% of the Australian emergency prehospital medical care workforce (n = 2,929), stratified by the nine services operating in Australia, as well as by gender and location.

A national framework for disaster health education in Australia.

Introduction: Recent events have heightened awareness of disaster health issues and the need to prepare the health workforce to plan for and respond to major incidents. This has been reinforced at an international level by the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, which has proposed an international educational framework.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to outline the development of a national educational framework for disaster health in Australia.

Can interdisciplinary clinical DVD simulations transform clinical fieldwork education for paramedic, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and nursing students?

Unlabelled: The aim of this study was to examine the usefulness of DVD simulations in a clinical teaching context, their impact on student learning, and their potential as a supplemental learning option for clinical placements/fieldwork education rotations that might assist in reducing the burden on the health care system.

Methods: Eleven clinical DVD simulations were developed by Monash University academic staff from four academic departments: nursing, occupational therapy, paramedics, and physiotherapy. Undergraduate students (n = 394) from these health science groups viewed the DVD simulations.

Lessons from the front lines: the prehospital experience of the 2009 novel H1N1 outbreak in Victoria, Australia.

The H1N1 (swine influenza) 2009 outbreak in Victoria, Australia, provided a unique opportunity to review the prehospital response to a public health emergency. As part of Ambulance Victoria's response to the outbreak, relevant emergency response plans and pandemic plans were instigated, focused efforts were aimed at encouraging the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and additional questions were included in the call-taking script for telephone triage of emergency calls to identify potential cases of H1N1 from the point of call. As a result, paramedics were alerted to all potential cases of H1N1 influenza or any patient who met the current case definition before their arrival on the scene and were advised to use appropriate PPE.

Three decades of disasters: a review of disaster-specific literature from 1977-2009.

Introduction: The potential for disasters exists in all communities. To mitigate the potential catastrophes that confront humanity in the new millennium, an evidence-based approach to disaster management is required urgently. This study moves toward such an evidence-based approach by identifying peer-reviewed publications following a range of disasters and events over the past three decades.

Development of prehospital, population-based triage-management protocols for pandemics.

The lack of disease-specific triage-management protocols that address the unique aspects of a pandemic places emergency medical services, and specifically, emergency medical services practitioners, at great risk. Without adequate protocols, the emergency health system will risk needless exposure, loss of functional capacity, and inappropriately triaged patients. This paper reports on the development of population-based triage-management protocols at two patient points of contact.

Is mechanism of injury alone a useful predictor of major trauma?

Introduction: The Review of Trauma and Emergency Services in Victoria -1999 left unresolved the predictive value of mechanism of injury in pre-hospital trauma triage guidelines. Ethics approval was granted. The objective of this study is to determine if mechanism of injury alone is a useful predictor of major trauma in pre-hospital trauma triage.