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Disaster Preparedness at the Primary Health Care Level: The Proposal of a New Framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2023

Alessandro Lamberti-Castronuovo
Affiliation:
CRIMEDIM - Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Novara, Italy Department for Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition - Università Del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy
Martina Valente
Affiliation:
CRIMEDIM - Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Novara, Italy Department for Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition - Università Del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy
Francesco Barone-Adesi
Affiliation:
CRIMEDIM - Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Novara, Italy Department of Translational Medicine - Università Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy
Ives Hubloue
Affiliation:
Research Group on Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Brussels, Belgium
Luca Ragazzoni
Affiliation:
CRIMEDIM - Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Novara, Italy Department for Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition - Università Del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy
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Abstract

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Introduction:

With the publication of the Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (H-EDRM) Framework in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized the need for disaster preparedness in all sectors of the health system, including primary health care (PHC). PHC disaster preparedness plays a crucial role in guaranteeing continuity of care and responding to the health needs of vulnerable populations during disasters. While this is universally acknowledged as an important component of disaster management (DM), there is still a severe paucity of scholarship addressing how to practically ensure that a PHC system is prepared for disasters. The objective of this study is to propose a new framework that describes key characteristics for PHC disaster preparedness and lays the groundwork to deliver operational recommendations to assess and improve PHC disaster preparedness.

Method:

A systematic literature review including the following online scientific databases was performed: Cochrane Library, Embase, Medline, National Library of Medicine, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Gray literature was also found by searching in: Trove, Mednar, and OpenGray. A total of 145 records were analyzed.

Results:

Twenty-five characteristics that contribute to a well-prepared PHC system were identified and categorized according to the WHO Health System Building Blocks to form a new PHC disaster preparedness framework.

Conclusion:

The findings will contribute to the elaboration of a set of guidelines for PHC systems to follow in order to assess and boost their disaster preparedness. This will hopefully help to raise awareness among international policymakers and health practitioners on the importance to design interventions that integrate PHC into overall DM strategies, as well as to assess the preparedness of PHC systems in different political, developmental, and cultural contexts. The proposed framework is currently being used by our research group as groundwork for the creation of an assessment tool for evaluating all-hazards preparedness at the PHC level.

Type
Lightning and Oral Presentations
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine