While the World Health Organization established minimum standards for emergency medical teams (EMTs) in 2013, globally recognized competency standards for individual disaster medical responders remain lacking. This study identifies and synthesizes existing competencies, qualifications, and training requirements for physicians, nurses, and paramedics who serve as deployable disaster response specialists on EMTs.

A scoping review was conducted following PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Comprehensive searches of five databases were performed in September, 2024. Gray literature from 22 governmental and non-governmental organizations was also reviewed. Studies addressing competencies or requirements for disaster specialists (physicians, nurses, paramedics) participating in disaster response were included.

Fifty-four studies were included, most being nursing-focused (n = 28, 51.9%). Studies predominantly originated from the United States (n = 15, 27.8%) and China (n = 9, 16.7%). Training program duration ranged from single-day workshops to multi-week courses, with varied delivery formats. Core competencies identified across professions included Incident Command System knowledge, triage skills, communication abilities, personal protective equipment use, psychological first aid, ethical-legal preparedness, clinical-technical skills, and leadership capabilities.

Substantial convergence exists around core disaster medicine competencies, yet significant variability persists in training approaches and duration. The establishment of globally recognized, evidence-based competency standards for individual disaster medical specialists represents a critical next step.

Earthquake is a traumatic event with significant physiological and psychological effects, profoundly altering individuals’ lives. This study aimed to determine the relationship between death distress and fertility intentions among women who experienced the Kahramanmaras earthquake in Türkiye on February 6, 2023.

This descriptive, correlational study included 294 married women residing in an earthquake-affected region of Turkey. We collected data using the Participant Information Form and the Brief Death Distress Scale.

A total of 294 women participated in this study. The mean death distress score was 25.65 ± 7.46. The death depression dimension had the highest score among the subdimensions of the death distress scale (11.02 ± 3.61). Age, income level, pregnancy, number of children, extent of house damage during the earthquake, and experience of being trapped under debris were factors influencing death-related distress. Women who changed their fertility intentions had higher levels of death distress, anxiety, and obsession than those who did not change their fertility intentions.

This study provides a new perspective for understanding post-earthquake changes in married women’s mental health and fertility behavior. Death distress is a key factor that should be considered in planning post-disaster healthcare services for women.

In the aftermath of the 2023 Turkey earthquakes, severely damaged hospitals necessitated efficient patient transportation. This research aims to assess the applicability of trauma assessment tools (TRISS, ISS, RTS) in determining transportation methods for earthquake-affected patients when local hospitals are incapacitated, particularly for patients transported by air ambulance and those who self-arrive from a location 1,100 km away.

This retrospective analysis involved 397 patients from a hospital 1,100 km away from the 2023 Turkey Earthquake. We assessed patients who arrived by air ambulance or self-transport following the earthquake, calculating TRISS, ISS, and RTS scores. We sought intergroup differences to establish transportation strategies.

TRISS and ISS exhibited good predictive value (AUC 0.723 and 0.880, respectively), while RTS was less useful. The median RTS score was 8 for both the Air transfer and Walk-in patients’ groups. The median RTS score was similar for air transfer and walk-in patients. For air transfer patients, most admissions occurred on the first day, while walk-in patients peaked on the eighth day.

ISS and TRISS effectively identify patients requiring air transport post-earthquake. Distant hospitals should prepare to receive air transferred patients within the first five days, and self-admitted patients from the fourth day onward.

The aim of this study is to develop disaster specific classification model specific to India, that extracts population emotional states during disasters from geo-referenced social media data. The developed model is also examined considering the case of Chennai floods 2015.

Using tweets from various disaster situations in India, a domain-specific training corpus was created. After training and testing different machine learning models, the top-performing model was used to classify emotions from tweets collected between November and December 2015 from Chennai. Using QGIS and Z-proportional testing, the spatial and temporal variations of negative emotions were further investigated.

Emotions were extracted from geo-tagged tweets that were posted during the 2015 Chennai floods using the SVM classifier (accuracy: 0.84). The findings revealed that, in comparison to before the flood, there was a significant increase in sadness (23%) and fear (6%) during the disaster. Sadness and disgust decreased in post flood period. Distinct spatiotemporal patterns of emotional expression were identified, which showed clusters of anger in Perungudi, fear in Adyar, and grief and disgust in Teynampet and Sholinganallur zones.

This study remains a proof-of-concept confirming the importance of social media analytics during disasters for directing focused response and recovery activities.

Identification, a cognitive process by which individuals think of themselves as similar to another person, may be associated with distress during traumatic events. This study examined the association of identification with psychological responses among disaster workers not directly exposed to an airline crash.

Participants were 421 workers (aged 18-60 [M (SD) = 36.2 (9.9)], 86.4% male, 98.3% White, 71.8% married). Surveys at 2 months (Time 1; T1) and 7 (T2) months post-disaster assessed identification (i.e., extent to which participants identified victims as similar to themselves, a friend, and/or family member), previous disaster exposure, and acute stress and anger/hostility. Linear and logistic regression analyses examined the relationship of identification to psychological responses over time.

Approximately 15% of participants reported that they had high levels of acute stress within a week of the airplane crash when assessed 2 months later. Among those with high identification, 30.2% had high acute stress. In multivariable models, adjusting for covariates, greater identification was associated with acute stress and anger/hostility at T1, but not anger/hostility at T2.

Identification is associated with high levels of acute stress and anger/hostility in non-exposed individuals. Those with greater identification, regardless of exposure, could be at increased risk of distress and may benefit from early interventions.

This brief report examines physical and mental health symptom profiles among older adults approximately 5 months after Hurricane Helene–related flooding in Southern Appalachia.

Survey data were collected from 233 older adults and assessed physical health symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder, depressive symptoms, flood event exposure, environmental contaminant exposure, and post-flood stressors. Cluster analysis was conducted to identify post-disaster physical and mental health symptom profiles, and analysis of variance and chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences in disaster exposure, post-flood stressors, and sociodemographic characteristics across profiles.

Three distinct post-disaster health symptom profiles were identified: a lower symptom profile, an elevated mental health symptom profile, and a combined elevated physical and mental health symptom profile. Disaster exposure, contaminant exposure, and post-flood stressors increased in a graded manner across profiles, indicating a dose–response framework of disaster-related health impacts. Higher symptom burden profiles were disproportionately represented among older adults with disabilities/chronic illness and among older age groups.

Findings highlight heterogeneity in post-disaster health experiences among older adults and underscore the value of identifying high-risk subgroups and implementing recovery strategies that address co-occurring physical and mental health needs among older adults following flood events.

The contribution of active involvement in full-scale disaster exercises to learning processes is widely recognized. Accordingly, this study seeks to explore the learning gains of individuals who participated as live actors and observers in a full-scale avalanche exercise conducted with international collaboration.

This study used a mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative and quantitative research methods. Descriptive statistical techniques were employed to analyze quantitative data, while thematic analysis was utilized to interpret the qualitative data.

Participants reported high levels of satisfaction in the domains of field knowledge (76.5%), Critical Decision-Making (74.6%), motivation (60.8%), and self-confidence (49.1%).

On the other hand, they raised concerns regarding the inadequacy of instructions (58.8%), the lack of up-to-date practices (47%), the realism of the scenario (54.9%), safety measures (56.8%), and communication (72.5%).

The findings suggest that participants demonstrated development in both cognitive and affective domains, regardless of the specific roles they assumed during the exercise. In the cognitive dimension, improvements were observed in high-angle rescue, avalanche search methodologies, understanding of team roles, intervention procedures, prioritization criteria, and safety assessment. In the affective dimension, advancements were noted in recognizing ethical issues, exploration of authority boundaries, willingness to intervene, and self-confidence.

The aim of this study was to determine the health problems of individuals who survived the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake according to the Omaha System.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Adıyaman, Türkiye, and included 297 earthquake survivors. Data were collected using the Problem Classification Scheme of the Omaha System.

The majority of individuals who survived the earthquake were women and had at least one chronic disease. Of the 42 problems listed in the Omaha Problem Classification Scheme, 38 were identified. Most of the identified problems were actual and individual-level issues. Income, Sanitation, Residence, Living/workplace safety, Communication with community resources, Communicable/infectious condition, and Nutrition problems were identified in all earthquake survivors.

The Omaha System provides nurses with pertinent data to organize health services and prioritize interventions in the post-disaster period. The problems identified highlight the urgent need to improve health and living conditions in temporary shelters.

Exercises are an essential component of preparedness and should be used to enhance capability and contribute to continuous improvement. An exercise can be as simple as a planning group discussing an emergency plan or as complex as a major multi-agency event involving several organizations and participants. This study aims to identify and conceptualize quality indicators (QIs) influencing prehospital disaster exercises across structure, conduct, and outcome.

This research was conducted through a systematic review and searching of the databases of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Thematic content analysis was used for data analysis. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used for systematic search, and the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) was used for quality assessment of the final extracted articles.

From an initial set of 3,083 articles, 10 high-quality studies were included for analysis. The quality indicators influencing prehospital disaster exercises were analyzed into 3 themes, 8 categories, and 21 subcategories. The primary themes and related main categories included: Exercise structure QIs (knowledge promotion and cognitive skills, supply of exercise hardware and software requirements and resources desirable management), Exercise conduct QIs (practical proficiency in essential skills and decision-making capacity), and Exercise outcome QIs (evaluation and reporting of exercise, promotion of managerial capabilities and competencies, and development of psychological capabilities).

The findings of this research present a knowledge framework that can help exercise planners in prehospital settings in designing scientifically sound and standardized exercises aimed at enhancing disaster response processes. Furthermore, the implementation and evaluation of both discussion-based and operation-based disaster exercises informed by these identified quality indicators can foster the development of knowledge and promote behavioral change among prehospital staff, and facilitate a standardized response to emergencies and disasters.

The growing frequency of global disasters highlighted the need to integrate technology into disaster management. This systematic review describes the global landscape of mobile phone technologies for natural hazard-induced disaster prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.

A systematic review was conducted by searching databases, including Embase and MEDLINE, for studies published in English between 2000 and March 2024 that examined mobile applications for disaster management.

The review included 26 studies covering 77 mobile apps across 14 countries. Most apps were privately owned (78.26%), supported multiple disaster phases (41.56%), and favored the Android platform (46.67%), with GPS being the most common technology (15.58%). Apps primarily targeted the general public (63.64%) and focused on earthquakes (32.47%) and hurricanes (31.17%). Despite their potential, adoption remains low; only 11.33% (6 apps) exceeded 1 million downloads, while 33.96% failed to surpass 1,000 downloads.

This review highlights significant gaps in the development, adoption, and impact of disaster management apps, especially in high-risk regions. Future efforts must focus on enhancing accessibility, addressing user needs, expanding features, and fostering stakeholder collaboration to improve the effectiveness of mobile technologies in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.

Evaluate and improve the accuracy of disaster triage decisions for pediatric patients among clinicians of various training levels using the Sort, Assess, Life-Saving Intervention, Treatment/Transport (SALT) triage system.

We used an online pediatric disaster triage module to evaluate and improve accuracy of triage decisions. During a pre- and post-test activity, participants triaged 20 fictional patients. Between activities, participants completed a didactic covering concepts of disaster triage, SALT triage, and pediatric limitations of triage systems. We assessed accuracy and improvement with non-parametric tests.

There were 48 participants: 27 pediatric emergency medicine attendings (56%), 9 pediatric emergency medicine fellows (19%), 12 pediatric residents (25%). The median (interquartile range [IQR]) pre-test percent accuracy across all participants was 75 (IQR 65-85). Attendings scored higher than residents 80 (IQR 73-88) compared to 60 (IQR 55-65, P < 0.01) but not significantly higher than fellows 75 (IQR 70-85, P = 0.6). For the 44 participants who completed both the pre- and post-test, median score significantly improved from 75 (65-85) to 80 (75-90), P < 0.01.

The accuracy of triage decisions varies at different training levels. An online module can deliver just-in-time triage training and improve accuracy of triage decisions for pediatric patients, especially among pediatric residents.