Introduction: When a disaster strikes a community, there is widespread loss to human, animal, material or economic losses and a serious disruption of social and community function. The impact of the disaster does not recede with the cause of the disaster, and often cause far reaching and long lasting damages. In the absence of proper preparedness to face an upcoming disaster, the losses cause by the disaster can exceed the ability of the community to handle the losses. Effective disaster management will enable the community to minimize its damages, and enable effective restoration, once the cause of disaster recedes. By taking systematic steps to analyze the previous disasters, forecast an impending disaster and taking steps to manage the hazardous cause of disaster; it is possible to reduce exposure to the cause and reduce vulnerability of the community to the adverse effects. The first step in effective disaster management is to create awareness and develop a culture that gives importance to safety. This capstone project will be about developing healthcare awareness in the community that is prone to disaster, through education and messages. This project will enable the development of key safety and resilience messages. It is important that the awareness created in the community is in harmony with the ideas of the disaster risk reduction and health care programs. Providing uniform messages will enable the effective mobilization of help and in scaling up the help during disaster. The manual titled, “Public Awareness and Public Education for Disaster Risk Reduction: A Guide”, published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies provides an operation guidance that can be adopted for disaster management by healthcare (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2013). This project’s educational message will be based on this guideline. The guidelines provided in the manuals are based on well tested protocols, and experiences in the field of disaster management, and thus act as a credible and reliable source of information. The key aim of the project is to develop messages that are easy to understand and are accepted by the community.
The health care awareness messages for disaster preparedness are delivered to the community through campaigns, teaching in classrooms, peer education through volunteers, and through training programmes (Acosta, Towe, Chandra & Chari, 2015). Educating the community is an important aspect of the disaster management program. The protocol for disaster management will vary with the type of disaster: earthquake, flood, pandemic, cyclone, fire, etc. The message will differ for different disaster, though the outline will be similar. Some of these disasters are seasonal and being informed will enable preparedness. Messages that provide help inform or warn about an impending disaster is very important in disaster management. This message should signal the healthcare team to get ready for action in the community. The role of health care is very important in forecasting a pandemic. Effective communication about an impending pandemic will create alertness and awareness. It is important that these messages do not create panic, fear and upheaval in the community. (Eriksson, 2009)
Disasters like pandemic are caused by infectious agents that spread fast and cause diseases in a wide population of human. Pandemic becomes a disaster when it causes high mortality in the population. Being prepared will help reduce morbidity and mortality, aiding to prevent disaster. Reducing contamination will prevent the spread of infectious agents. A few examples of pandemic are typhus, tuberculosis, measles, SARS, HIV, Polio, Cholera, Dysentery, Salmonellosis, E. coli, Listeria, Anthrax, H5N1, Malaria, Dengue, Leptospirosis, etc.
Practices like good hygiene and sanitation, availability of clean water, vaccination, clean hands, vector control and disease surveillance are important in preventing pandemics. The messages used should focus of conveying key messages about ideal practices to the public. So the focus of this project will be on developing educational materials and messages to encourage use of clean water, promoting vaccination, identification of pandemic threats, hand washing, disposing waste in a safe and hygienic way, sanitation, clean food, covering mouth while sneezing and healthy lifestyle. (Raman, Ryan & Olfman, 2006)
In this project messages for educating the public will be compiled thorough research of widely disseminated and accepted compendium that were developed for use in different countries and regions. Messages will be developed for disaster programs that intend to create local, regional, zonal and global awareness and preparedness. These messages will be validated through different workshops and public campaigns. The messages will be further refined and revised. (Sattler, Kirsch, Shipley, Cocke & Stegmeier, 2014)
Messages developed through this project will be beneficial for different disaster recovery programs, and can also be adapted by other humanitarian efforts that help people living in areas prone to disasters. Though the messages will be developed in English, it will be feasible for easy translation into other languages as well. The disaster management responses will be developed based on core information and will promote the people towards an actionable response. All messages will be consistent for use at different levels like: local, regional, zonal and global operations. When such uniform messages are practiced equally by everyone at a global level, disaster can be effectively handled and its harmful impacts can be prevented. (UNDP in Bangladesh, 2016)
Conclusion: Messages that are inconsistent or unclear will result in confusion and mistrust. This project is important as it will ensure that the key points of the awareness are conveyed uniformly to different audiences by different participants. Repetitive use of these key messages is important in educating the public.
References:
Acosta, J., Towe, V., Chandra, A., & Chari, R. (2015). Youth Resilience Corps: An Innovative Model to Engage Youth in Building Disaster Resilience. Disaster Medicine And Public Health Preparedness, 1-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2015.132
Eriksson, K. (2009). Knowledge transfer between preparedness and emergency response: a case study. Disaster Prevention And Management, 18(2), 162-169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09653560910953234
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,. (2013). Public awareness and public education for disaster risk reduction: key messages. Geneva: IFRC.
Raman, M., Ryan, T., & Olfman, L. (2006). Knowledge Management Systems for Emergency Preparedness. International Journal Of Knowledge Management, 2(3), 33-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jkm.2006070103
Sattler, D., Kirsch, J., Shipley, G., Cocke, P., & Stegmeier, R. (2014). Emergency Preparedness on Campus: Improving Procedural Knowledge and Response Readiness. Journal Of Homeland Security And Emergency Management, 0(0). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jhsem-2013-0075
UNDP in Bangladesh,. (2016). Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme. Retrieved 5 January 2016, from http://www.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/operations/projects/crisis_prevention_and_recovery/comprehensive-disaster-management-programme.html
