Journal of Emergency Management : JEM

Emergency management (EM) requires an appropriate understanding of its situational context in real time. This involves constant communication between emergency operations and administration, so that informed, coordinated decisions can be made in a constantly changing environment using the most critical and updated information. Challenges in EM include adapting to rapidly changing technologies, adoption, and communication. The goal of this needs assessment is to examine how the effective collection and communication of information has been affected by the technology developed to support it, to identify critical disconnects between emergency management professionals and information technology and telecommunications (ITT) professionals, and to identify opportunities for improved application and user interface development...

Climate change is increasing the risk for extreme weather events such as heatwaves, including in northern countries like Sweden, which until recent years has had limited experiences of coping with extreme heat. Based on predictions that Sweden will be more frequently exposed to heatwaves in the future, it is imperative to increase the societal resilience and adaptation measures. This paper presents a qualitative interview study involving 19 participants and their experiences of caring for vulnerable people during the heatwave in 2018...

At the national level, the field of emergency management has distinctive capabilities and responsibilities organized by the United States Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) doctrine. Key to this doctrine is the goal: a secure and resilient nation. This goal is known as the National Preparedness Goal (NPG). The NPG is supported by five missions, and these five missions are supported by 32 core capabilities. One of the core capabilities is Public Information and Warning...

The collective awareness and acknowledgment of mental health challenges affecting all of us across our society is a trend that can inform targeted future interventions. Mental health conditions have only worsened during the past three years, secondary to the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. In the workplace, 67 percent of those surveyed reported at least one mental health symptom over the past year, demonstrating an increase from 59 percent in 2019.1 Recent findings approximate that first responders have a higher incidence (>30 percent) of developing mental health conditions, including depression, suicidal ideation, alcohol/drug abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as compared with 20 percent in the general population...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The existence of wildfires has been present since before humans, eventually, humans learned to control it. Today, fire is used for light, warmth, hunting, gathering, agriculture, energy, and so on. Fire has led to the evolution of flora and fauna of the world and the development of human society. Fire is both a natural and manmade disaster that causes a significant threat to life, property in residential, urban, rural areas, as well as industrial areas and the environment. Im-pacts of fire can be social, economic, and environmental, such as demolishing wildlife habitat, watershed and water supply damages, damage to property such as public recreation facilities, trails, campgrounds, and signs that affect tourists, destruction of timber, degraded air quality, and smoke-related illnesses...

The international rescue response to natural hazards, which has frequently drawn the attention of the international community, is a very important part of the international humanitarian assistance system. This paper focuses on the international rescue response mechanism, which is under the United Nations (UN) framework, and trends in its devel-opment. Referencing the international rescue response mechanism, this paper analyzes the overall characteristics of the humanitarian response mechanism under the UN framework, and its main components, basic procedures, quality guarantee, and support of the international rescue response mechanism...

The aim of this article is to carry a bioethical and a limited policy analysis on the progression and aftermath of the 2017-2018 listeriosis epidemic or disaster in South Africa. This links the context of the listeriosis epidemic/disaster to the overall public health systems, disaster medicine, and ethics in South Africa, with specific focus on standards of public service and private stakeholder conduct in the country. The public service angle is unpacked in terms the policy framework relevant to ethics and public health/disaster management...

The vast majority of Lesotho's rural population is reliant on agriculture for survival. However, Lesotho, Southern Africa is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which has a negative impact on rural livelihoods. Furthermore, despite the fiscal challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lesotho's National Climate Change Policy Implementation Strategy has been hampered by implementation issues and has yet to be implemented. This sparked the necessity for this research, which aims to inform the government of Lesotho on how farmers are combating climate change in their own tiny way...

There has existed a need to increase the resilience of the drinking water supply in Makana Local Municipality in the scope of the 2018-2019 drought and the municipal water supply outages. A combination of the know-how and mandates of local government and the private water-retail sector could provide solutions. In order to achieve successful imple-mentation, the authors present here tools from the disaster risk management legislation in South Africa for operational-ization of this public-private partnership...

Makana Local Municipality is located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The area is water-scarce and has been undergoing aridification in recent years, ie, there has been a 7-year long drought. At the same time, there has been a breakdown in provision of municipal services, such as drinking water, to the population since at least 2008. Mi-crobial water quality has been a result of this, and monitoring has been a challenge. Given the drought and the prob-lems with drinking water delivery, it was necessary to conduct this study to investigate the microbial quality of alterna-tive water resources that the Makana population can use during the municipal water outage...

COVID-19's super-spread nature, its adverse impacts, and the associated public fear and panic have resulted in the use of "dangerous" substances and medicinal herbs (mismedication), particularly in rural parts of Africa. Exploring the phenomenon of mismedication is crucial for promoting effective public health policies. This study adopted a qualitative study design and purposively selected and interviewed 50 rural folks cutting across the 10 districts of Lesotho in Southern Africa. The study's findings show that rural folks perceive a high vulnerability to the COVID-19 virus...

South Africa is a country that has undergone massive societal changes in the last 30 years. At the time coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck, the country was still facing challenges in terms of inequality and the disaster vulnerability of its population. During COVID-19, the provision of lifesaving personal protective equipment and other resources was marred by corruption and failings of the governmental officials. At the same time, the complexity of the COVID-19 pandemic required operational changes in the public health and disaster risk management systems...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had adverse effects worldwide and has overwhelmed the health systems of many countries. Yet, to manage sanitary crises as COVID-19 pandemic, skills, commitment, and motivation of hospital workers are essential. However, most research on the preparedness of hospital workers for sani-tary crises shows a mismatch between their level of preparedness, their perceived preparedness, and the estimated needs to manage these situations. After a definition of the concepts mobilized in this study, actual preparedness, de-clared preparedness, perceived preparedness, and perceived readiness, this study aims to explore hospital workers readiness perception to manage a sanitary crisis upcoming (COVID-19 pandemic) and determinants of this perception...

Online tools such as Google Trends and search volume trackers provide potential low-cost methods to evaluate the interest of the public in the current topics once a disaster strikes. A low-cost plugin is available commercially to extract the public interest data from Google and it is tested in this letter to the editor. The plugin was used to assess the time trends in the South African public's interest in working from home which became a relevant topic during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Results of the data extraction and analysis are presented and potential applications in emergency management are proposed...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

After hazardous material incidents, it is important to perform emergency decontamination procedures to remove contamination from the body. As these emergency decontamination procedures are developed, it is important to understand the efficacy of a given protocol. This study discusses a method that was developed to evaluate the efficacy of decontamination procedures by using an ultraviolet fluorescent aerosol and an image analysis protocol. This method involves imaging a mannequin while both unclothed and clothed prior to exposure to the fluorescent aerosol...

This study examined the results of an electronic survey of residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFE) in California in 2021 to provide insight on key elements of emergency plans and facility preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic and future emergencies. Surveys were distributed to RCFE administrators using publicly available emails found on the California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal. Responses from 150 facility administrators included data on their perception of current and future facility preparedness for COVID-19 and other emergency scenarios, items included in facility evacuation/shelter-in-place plans, and hazard vulnerability analyses and training practices of facility staff...

Hurricane Maria was a disastrous weather event that devastated Puerto Rico (PR) in September 2017. Yet, little is known about people's perceptions of this event. In this investigation, we offer insight about Hurricane Maria's impact on PR's inhabitants. More specifically, we study a sample (n = 542 responses) of individuals' worry levels through four time points during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria: their variation through time, their relationship to decision making, and if and how certain demographic variables may influence them...