This sector includes organizations that have long been at the center of preparedness efforts, such as hospitals, emergency medical services (EMS), and public health departments, as well as many entities that have not routinely been part of preparedness efforts. ![]() We define the health sector very broadly. Therefore, because many disasters share common elements that have an impact on health sector resilience, we believe this checklist will have broad applicability and can be useful for natural disasters, including but not limited to hurricanes and coastal storms, as well as other emergencies in a variety of locales, especially those emergencies that result in a loss of critical infrastructure. Consequently, this checklist is informed by the experiences of communities directly affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.Īlthough not every lesson from an advance-notice event like a hurricane will apply to no-notice events like an earthquake or tornado, many will. Additionally, we believe that compiling the judgments of a diverse sample of individuals is a more reliable means of assessing health sector resilience than relying solely on the perspectives of a few experts. They are best able to judge which factors were most important to facilitating the resilience of the health sector in which they work and live. 1– 3 We posited that, in addition to official guidance, there is much to be learned from the lived experience of those who played a role in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from an actual disaster. Therefore, elements of health sector preparedness and resilience can apply to a range of hazards, which have been described elsewhere and form the basis of official guidance. Many disasters share common characteristics. The goal of this project was to develop an evidence-informed checklist that outlines action steps for medical and public health authorities, in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and private industry, to assess and strengthen the resilience of their community’s health sector in the face of disasters. Following a general checklist are supplemental checklists that apply to specific parts of the larger health sector. The recommendations are presented as a checklist that can be used by a variety of interested parties who have some role to play in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery in their own communities. The recommended actions emphasize those items that individuals who experienced Hurricane Sandy deemed to be most important. Lastly, we provide a series of recommended actions for improving health sector resilience at the local level. We then describe a conceptual map of health sector resilience that ties these themes together. ![]() We present the key findings organized into 8 themes. We define health sector resilience very broadly, including all factors that preserve public health and healthcare delivery under extreme stress and contribute to the rapid restoration of normal or improved health sector functioning after a disaster. It also includes community-based organizations that support these entities and represent patients. The health sector is defined very broadly, including-in addition to hospitals, emergency medical services (EMS), and public health agencies-healthcare providers, outpatient clinics, long-term care facilities, home health providers, behavioral health providers, and correctional health services. It is informed by the experience of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey and analyzed in the context of findings from other recent natural disasters in the United States. This is a checklist of actions for healthcare, public health, nongovernmental organizations, and private entities to use to strengthen the resilience of their community’s health sector to disasters.
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