Children and natural disasters

The number of children affected by natural disasters each year is alarmingly high and can be expected to rise as climate change continues. The mental consequences have been documented not only in the rates of post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder, but also for depression and other mental health problems.

Climate Change and Health

Climate change and the impacts on health are being increasingly reported and documented. It is expected that with continued rises in global temperature and greenhouse gas emissions the effects on health will become more widely experienced and extreme. Throughout July PLOS Medicine is publishing a Special Issue on climate change and health. Guest edited by Dr. Jonathan Patz (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Dr.

Seven ways to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder

PTSD can be caused by a range of experiences, from a car crash to rape to surviving a terrorist attack. But how do you know if you have it and what can you do?

The Perspective of the Affected : What People Confronted With Disasters Expect From Government Officials and Public Leaders

Despite available knowledge on appropriate psychosocial support for people confronted with death, loss, and severe stress in the context of major crises and disasters, it is crucial to understand what people affected expect from government officials and public leaders in the aftermath of an extreme event. Eight interviews with affected adult residents were conducted to explore their expectations and experiences in relation to government. This was done against the background of Park's (2016) model on meaning making.

Operational and ethical challenges of applied psychosocial research in humanitarian emergency settings : a case study

Interventions on mental health and psychosocial wellbeing have been largely implemented in low and middle income countries. In order to adapt the support offered, an increasing number of applied research projects in mental health and psychosocial support have been conducted. However, while challenges arising can be related to the specificity of the mental health and psychosocial sector, within a broader perspective they are also strongly linked to difficulties of access to beneficiaries, security and protections issues, and competence of staff.

‘Our NGO family has suffered a tragedy, and we will survive : ’ Evaluating a crisis response intervention with expatriate aid workers in Afghanistan

In 2008, Taliban forces killed four aid workers in Afghanistan. Immediately afterwards, expatriate and national field staff undertook crisis management activities on the ground. While this was a devastating event, field and headquarters staff agreed that the organisational response to the crisis was positive. Nine months later, 19 expatriate staff members involved in the crisis response participated in an evaluation to reflect on personal and organisational factors that contributed to their post crisis resilience.

The role and experience of local faith leaders in promoting child protection : a case study from Malawi

Frequently, community based strategies include engagement with local faith leaders. However, there have been few systematic attempts to document how faith leaders themselves define their roles in these initiatives. This study examined local faith leaders and their spouses, in flood affected areas of Malawi, who had been oriented to child protection issues through World Vision workshops aimed explicitly at relating protection concerns to religious teachings.

Closing the gap between disaster mental health research and practice : evidence for socio-ecological mental health interventions through multilevel research

Socio-ecological interventions assume that there are ‘links’ between the individual process that determines disaster mental health and the social context one lives in. However, there is insufficient empirical basis for this claim. This paper summarises the main findings from a research programme, in which two advanced statistical techniques on data from two floods were applied, respectively Uttar Pradesh, India 2008 and Morpeth, England, 2008.

Vulnerability to heatwaves and implications for public health interventions : A scoping review

 

Abstract

 

Background

Heatwaves form a serious public health threat, especially for vulnerable groups. Interventions such as active outreach programs, exposure reduction measures and monitoring and mapping of at-risk groups are increasingly implemented across the world but little is known about their effect.

Objectives

Pages