This research aims to provide guidance on means to bolster safe and effective emergency response. Safe and effective performance among firefighters is key to protecting firefighters, to ensure mission completion, and to protect the public during emergency response situations. Although some studies have shown the impact of safety climate on firefighter performance, few studies have explored the impact of safety climate on affective organizational commitment and safety behaviors among firefighters, which are critical to more effective emergency response.

Data collected from 349 career firefighters in the southern United States were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling to assess posited relationships in the proposed model.

This study confirmed a model that describes the relationships between safety climate, affective organizational commitment, and safety behaviors. Safety climate significantly predicted affective organizational commitment (P < 0.001) and affective organizational commitment was positively associated with both safety compliance (P < 0.001) and safety participation (P < 0.001).

This study has implications for researchers and practitioners. Firefighters exhibit positive affective organizational commitment as a result of positive safety climate perceptions. This commitment is then associated with positive safety behavior outcomes, which bolsters personal safety and enhances the likelihood of safe and effective mission completion to protect the public.

Disaster research can inform effective, efficient, and evidence-based public health practices and decision making; identify and address knowledge gaps in current disaster preparedness and response efforts; and evaluate disaster response strategies. This study aimed to identify challenges and opportunities experienced by Washington State local health departments (LHDs) regarding engagement in disaster research activities.

An online survey was disseminated to the emergency preparedness representative for the 35 LHDs in Washington State. Survey questions sought to assess familiarity and experience with disaster research, as well as identify facilitators and barriers to their involvement. The survey was first piloted with 7 local and state public health emergency preparedness practitioners.

A total of 82.9% of Washington’s 35 LHDs responded to our survey. Only 17.2% of respondents had previous experience with disaster research. Frequently reported barriers to engaging in disaster research included funding availability, competing everyday priorities, staff capacity, and competing priorities during disaster response.

These findings can inform efforts to support disaster research partnerships with Washington State LHDs and facilitate future collaboration. Researchers and public health practitioners should develop relationships and work to incorporate disaster research into LHD planning, training, and exercises to foster practice-based disaster research capacity.

Civil–military relationships are necessary in humanitarian emergencies but, if poorly managed, may be detrimental to the efforts of humanitarian organizations. Awareness of guidelines and understanding of risks relating to the relationship among deployed military personnel have not been evaluated.

Fifty-five military and 12 humanitarian healthcare workers in South Sudan completed questionnaires covering experience, training and role, agreement with statements about the deployment, and free text comments.

Both cohorts were equally aware of current guidance. Eight themes defined the relationship. There was disagreement about the benefit to the South Sudanese people of the military deployment, and whether military service was compatible with beneficial health impacts. Two key obstacles to the relationship and 3 areas the relationship could be developed were identified.

This study shows that United Kingdom military personnel are effectively trained and understand the constraints on the civil–military relationship. Seven themes in common between the groups describe the relationship. Current guidance could be adapted to allow a different relationship for healthcare workers.

Burn disasters represent a real challenge to burn centers worldwide. Several burn disasters with a considerable number of casualties happened in Belgium in the past. The positioning of burn centers is a significant issue to account for in a burn disaster preparedness and response. The objectives of this study are to identify the geographic coverage and accessibility of the burn centers in Belgium in the realm of a burn disaster scenario.

Cross-sectional secondary analysis was performed using data from the Belgian Burn Association and Belgian Department of the Statistic. Data were analyzed using ArcGIS, a geographic information system tool to identify the coverage of burn centers within half an hour driving time, and access time of both populations in the districts and the disaster-prone areas to the individual burn centers.

Around 7.3 million (65%) people are covered by a half an hour driving time window from the burn centers. However, the accessibility to the individual burn centers is varied across different regions and provinces.

There is a slightly over-supply of burn centers in the mid part of the country, contrasted by an under-supply and poor accessibility for the population living near the borders, particularly in the south part of the country. This study would provide a benchmark for stakeholders in Belgium and other industrial countries to consider the coverage and accessibility of the burn centers as part of preparation and planning for burn disasters in the future.

The most common crisis intervention used with German rescue workers is Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). Results regarding its effectiveness are inconsistent. A negative reinforcement of avoidance, due to premature termination of strong emotions during the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), may explain this. The effectiveness of the CISD after terror attacks in Germany has not yet been investigated.

All emergency responders deployed at the terror attack on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin were invited to take part in the study; 37 of the N = 55 participants had voluntarily participated in CISD; 18 had not.

Participants with CISD showed lower quality of life in psychological health and higher depressive symptomatology. Of these, females had lower quality of life in social relationships, whereas males showed more posttraumatic stress symptoms. Emergency responders from non-governmental organizations had higher phobic anxiety. Emergency medical technicians showed more somatic and depressive symptoms.

There is no conclusive explanation for why rescue workers with CISD score worse on certain measures. It is possible that CISD has a harmful influence due to negative reinforcement, or that there was a selection effect. Further research differentiating occupational group, sex, and type of event is necessary.

Armed conflict has contributed to an unprecedented number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), individuals who are forced out of their homes but remain within their country. IDPs often urgently require shelter, food, and healthcare, yet prediction of when IDPs will migrate to an area remains a major challenge for aid delivery organizations. We sought to develop an IDP migration forecasting framework that could empower humanitarian aid groups to more effectively allocate resources during conflicts.

We modeled monthly IDP migration between provinces within Syria and within Yemen using data on food prices, fuel prices, wages, location, time, and conflict reports. We compared machine learning methods with baseline persistence methods of forecasting.

We found a machine learning approach that more accurately forecast migration trends than baseline persistence methods. A random forest model outperformed the best persistence model in terms of root mean square error of log migration by 26% and 17% for the Syria and Yemen datasets, respectively.

Integrating diverse data sources into a machine learning model appears to improve IDP migration prediction. Further work should examine whether implementation of such models can enable proactive aid allocation for IDPs in anticipation of forecast arrivals.

A sense of competency and confidence in disaster management is linked to response willingness and efficacy. This study assessed current health-care student disaster competency curricula and resultant confidence.

A survey was sent to students and administrators in nurse practitioner (NP), master of public health (MPH), and medical/osteopathic schools (MD/DO), assessing curriculum coverage of 15 disaster management competencies (1-4, total 15-60), and confidence in performing 15 related behaviors (1-7, total 15-105). One-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s post-hoc and Mann-Whitney U-tests were used to examine group differences.

A total of 729 students and 72 administrators completed the survey. Low coverage of all topics was reported by both students and administrators (mean 24.4; SD 9.6). Among students, NP students (21.66 ± 8.56) scored significantly lower than MD/DO (23.32 ± 8.19; P < 0.001) and MPH students (26.58 ± 9.06; P < 0.001) on curriculum coverage. Both administrators and students expressed low confidence in competence, with students significantly lower (P < 0.001). NP students scored higher (63.12 ± 20.69; P < 0.001) than both MPH (54.85 ± 17.82) and MD/DO (51.17 ± 19.71; P < 0.001) students.

Health-care students report low coverage of topics considered to be necessary disaster response competencies, as well as their confidence to execute functions. This may negatively impact willingness and ability of these professionals to respond effectively in a disaster.