Question

What are the major health concerns in a natural disaster? How do they differ from a complex humanitarian emergency? What is the role of public health personnel during a disaster and a complex humanitarian emergency?

Answer 1

The major health concerns after a natural disaster are

• Outbreak of infectious or communicable diseases due to unhygienic environment, lack of sanitation, inadequate medical supplies or vaccination, unhygienic food,water,etc.,
• Mental health problems due to loss of family members, properties, stress,financial instability and trauma due to the disaster
• Eg.,earthquake, flood, hurricane, storms, eruption of volcanoes, etc.,

They differ from complex humanitarian emergencies by affecting the health (physical and psychological) aspects of the victims.Whereas in complex humanitarian emergencies a threat to public's health, safety are possible because of violence, political issues ,etc., It is a mixture of man made disaster often posing a great loss eg., Bomb blast

The role of the public health professionals are

• To identify and triage the patient in the grounds of priority ,thus saving maximum life
• Provide services with the available supplies
• To screen and isolate the infectious or communicable disease patients
• Plan a public health program to health educate,health promotions
• Promote peace by health educating on jon violence
• To be trained and knowledgable on the current practices.