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From Complex Emergencies to Terrorism — New Tools for Health-Sector Coordination in Conflict-Associated Disasters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

David A. Bradt  and
Christina M. Drummond
David A. Bradt*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; Center for International Emergency, Disaster, and Refugee Studies, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Christina M. Drummond
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Epidemiology, Monash Medical Center, Melbourne, Australia; Center for International Emergency, Disaster, and Refugee Studies, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
*
Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, PO Box 2009, Grattan Street and Royal Parade, Parkville 3050, Victoria, Australia, E-mail: dbradt@jhsph.edu
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Abstract

Inter-agency coordination in humanitarian assistance dates as a discipline from the 1960s. The United Nations, Red Cross, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies have evolved different mechanisms to achieve it. Present practices in field-based, inter-agency coordination of the health sector remain variable and non-standardized. International experiences in coordination of humanitarian assistance reveal numerous issues of jurisdiction, authority, capacity, and competency. New tools to help overcome these issues in the health-sector coordination include binding principles of engagement, protocols for the assumption of responsibilities, standardized minimum essential data sets, and health-sector component summaries.

Keywords

complex emergenciescomponent summarycoordinationdisasterhealth sectorminimum essential data setsterrorism
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 3: Terrorism-II: Special Reports , September 2003 , pp. 263 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2003

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