[1] Disaster informatics or crisis informatics is the study of the use of information and technology in the preparation, mitigation, response and recovery phases of disasters and other emergencies. It began to emerge as a field after the successful use of a variety of technologies in disasters including the Asian tsunami, September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.
Disaster informatics may involve incorporating social media content generated by people in disaster zones into humanitarian response plans based on satellite imagery and official emergency services procedures. Disaster informatics may involve crowdsourcing, participatory mapping or citizen science, with members of the public as 'everyday analysts'. [2]
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The term was first used in a request for proposal response by D. E. Yarrington after the WTC communications problems were revealed. Subsequently, in 2002, a grant proposal was submitted to the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine to begin the formal study of disaster informatics as it related to public health. This initiative emerged from her library and information science work at Jackson State University.
Biodefense refers to measures to counter biological threats, reduce biological risks, and prepare for, respond to, and recover from bioincidents, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate in origin and whether impacting human, animal, plant, or environmental health. Biodefense measures often aim to improve biosecurity or biosafety. Biodefense is frequently discussed in the context of biological warfare or bioterrorism, and is generally considered a military or emergency response term.
Information science, documentology or informatology is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations in addition to the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding the information systems.
Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons.
Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980s. It is considered to be the most important process in public relations.
Health informatics is the study and implementation of computer structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding, and management of medical information. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science.
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity.
A humanitarian crisis is defined as a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people. It may be an internal or external conflict and usually occurs throughout a large land area. Local, national and international responses are necessary in such events.
Emergency management is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actually focus on the management of emergencies; emergency management or disaster management can be understood as minor events with limited impacts and are managed through the day-to-day functions of a community. Instead, emergency management focuses on the management of disasters, which are events that produce more impacts than a community can handle on its own. The management of disasters tends to require some combination of activity from individuals and households, organizations, local, and/or higher levels of government. Although many different terminologies exist globally, the activities of emergency management can be generally categorized into preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery, although other terms such as disaster risk reduction and prevention are also common. The outcome of emergency management is to prevent disasters and where this is not possible, to reduce their harmful impacts.
Disaster response refers to the actions taken directly before, during, or immediately after a disaster. The objective is to save lives, ensure health and safety, and meet the subsistence needs of the people affected. It includes warning and evacuation, search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance, and the immediate restoration or construction of infrastructure. An example of this would be building provisional storm drains or diversion dams. Emergency response aims to provide immediate help to keep people alive, improve their health and support their morale. It can involve specific but limited aid, such as helping refugees with transport, temporary shelter, and food. Or it can involve establishing semi-permanent settlements in camps and other locations. It may also involve initial repairs to damage to infrastructure, or diverting it.
Medair is an international non-governmental organisation (INGO) whose purpose is to relieve human suffering in some of the world's most remote and devastated places. Medair aims to assist people affected by natural disasters and conflict to recover with dignity through the delivery of quality humanitarian aid.
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) is a research unit of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain). It is part of the School of Public Health located on the UCLouvain Brussels Woluwe campus, in Brussels, Belgium.
Health information technology (HIT) is health technology, particularly information technology, applied to health and health care. It supports health information management across computerized systems and the secure exchange of health information between consumers, providers, payers, and quality monitors. Based on a 2008 report on a small series of studies conducted at four sites that provide ambulatory care – three U.S. medical centers and one in the Netherlands, the use of electronic health records (EHRs) was viewed as the most promising tool for improving the overall quality, safety and efficiency of the health delivery system.
Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the central notion is transformation of information. In some cases, the term "informatics" may also be used with different meanings, e.g. in the context of social computing, or in context of library science.
Crisis mapping is the real-time gathering, display and analysis of data during a crisis, usually a natural disaster or social/political conflict. Crisis mapping projects usually allows large numbers of people, including the public and crisis responders, to contribute information either remotely or from the site of the crisis. One benefit of the crisis mapping method over others is that it can increase situational awareness, since the public can report information and improve data management.
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is an emeritus Homeland Security Centers of Excellence at the University of Maryland, College Park that researches terrorism in the United States and around the world. It maintains the Global Terrorism Database, which includes over 200,000 terrorist attacks and which it describes as the "most comprehensive unclassified data base on terrorist events in the world."
Evidence Aid is an international platform that was formed out of the need to deliver time sensitive access to systematic reviews for use in the event of disasters and other humanitarian emergencies. The method of using systematic reviews is to provide evidence for use by policy makers, clinicians, regulators, and even the general public who benefit when these materials are easy to understand and are accessible. The vision of Evidence Aid is to create and satisfy an increasing demand for evidence to improve the impact of humanitarian aid by stimulating the use of an evidence-based approach. Evidence Aid was founded in 2004. It is currently a project that is housed by the Cochrane Collaboration and Queen's University Belfast. Evidence Aid was established by several members of the international Cochrane Collaboration following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Evidence Aid was formed to provide systematic reviews on the effects of interventions and actions of relevance prior to, in the course of and during the aftermath of disasters or other humanitarian emergencies, in order to improve health-related outcomes; their aim is to work with those who need and use this evidence, as well as working with researchers and publishers to facilitate freely accessible materials to meet the information needs for those facing humanitarian emergencies and disasters. Evidence Aid works in collaboration with other organizations including Public Health England; Red Cross Flanders, International Rescue Committee; Centers for Disease Control; Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine; and the University of Oxford.
Frederick M. "Skip" Burkle, Jr. is an American physician known for his work in human rights, international diplomacy and peacemaking, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response. He has been called "the single most talented and experienced post-conflict health specialist working for the United States government." His medical qualifications include pediatrics, emergency medicine, psychiatry, public health, and tropical medicine.
Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response (AIDR) is a free and open source platform to filter and classify social media messages related to emergencies, disasters, and humanitarian crises. It has been developed by the Qatar Computing Research Institute and awarded the Grand Prize for the 2015 Open Source Software World Challenge.
Emergency sanitation is the management and technical processes required to provide sanitation in emergency situations. Emergency sanitation is required during humanitarian relief operations for refugees, people affected by natural disasters and internally displaced persons. There are three phases of emergency response: Immediate, short term and long term. In the immediate phase, the focus is on managing open defecation, and toilet technologies might include very basic latrines, pit latrines, bucket toilets, container-based toilets, chemical toilets. The short term phase might also involve technologies such as urine-diverting dry toilets, septic tanks, decentralized wastewater systems. Providing handwashing facilities and management of fecal sludge are also part of emergency sanitation.
Marian Brooke Rogers is a British psychologist who is a Professor of Behavioural Science and Security at King's College London where she is Vice Dean in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy (SSPP). She is a social psychologist who studies risk and threat. In 2014 she was asked to chair the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Expert Group (BSEG). In 2019 she was appointed Chair of the Home Office Science Advisory Council (HOSAC). Professor Rogers was appointed to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology in 2020.
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