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A Proposed Universal Medical and Public Health Definition of Terrorism

Part of: Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Counterterrorism Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Jeffrey L. Arnold ,
Per Örtenwall ,
Marvin L. Birnbaum ,
Knut Ole Sundnes ,
Anil Aggrawal ,
V. Arantharaman ,
Abdul Wahab Al Musleh ,
Yasufumi Asai ,
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.  and
Jae Myung Chung
...Show all authors
Jeffrey L. Arnold*
Affiliation:
Office of Emergency Preparedness, Yale New Haven Center for Emergency and Terrorism Preparedness, Yale New Haven Health System, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Per Örtenwall
Affiliation:
Beredskapsenheten, Goteborg, Sweden
Marvin L. Birnbaum
Affiliation:
Emergency Medical Services Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Knut Ole Sundnes
Affiliation:
Office for War Surgery and Emergency Medicine, Joint Medical Command, Norwegian Defense Forces, Sessvollmoen, Norway
Anil Aggrawal
Affiliation:
Professor of Forensic Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India
V. Arantharaman
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore
Abdul Wahab Al Musleh
Affiliation:
Chairman of Accident and Emergency and EMS, Assistant Medical Director, Director of Hamad International Training Center, Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar
Yasufumi Asai
Affiliation:
Chairman, Department of Traumatology and Critical Care Medicine, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo, Japan
Frederick M. Burkle Jr.
Affiliation:
The Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies, The Schools of Public Health and Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions, Baltimore, USA
Jae Myung Chung
Affiliation:
Chairman and Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Taegu, South Korea
Felipe Cruz Vega
Affiliation:
Disaster Division Head, Mexican Social Security Institute, Mexico City, Mexico
Michel Debacker
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Disaster Medicine, Free University Brussels and Catholic, University of Leuven, Belgium
Francesco Della Corte
Affiliation:
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy
Herman Delooz
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
Garth Dickinson
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Timothy Hodgetts
Affiliation:
Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, United Kingdom
C. James Holliman
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA
Campbell MacFarlane
Affiliation:
Head of EMS Training, Gauteng Provincial Government, South Africa and Department of Surgery, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Ulkumen Rodoplu
Affiliation:
Emergency Medicine Association of Turkey, Izmir, Turkey
Edita Stok
Affiliation:
Ministry of Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ming-Che Tsai
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan Republic of China
*
Medical Director Yale New Haven Center for Emergency and Terrorism Preparedness, 1 Church Street, 5th floor, New Haven, CT 06510 USA, E-mail: arnoldmdcs@cs.com
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Abstract

The lack of a universally applicable definition of terrorism has confounded the understanding of terrorism since the term was first coined in 18th Century France. Although a myriad of definitions of terrorism have been advanced over the years, virtually all of these definitions have been crisis-centered, frequently reflecting the political perspectives of those who seek to define it.

In this article, we deconstruct these previously used definitions of terrorism in order to reconstruct a definition of terrorism that is consequence-centered, medically relevant, and universally harmonized. A universal medical and public health definition of terrorism will facilitate clinical and scientific research, education, and communication about terrorism-related events or disasters.

We propose the following universal medical and public definition of terrorism: The intentional use of violence — real or threatened — against one or more non-combatants and/or those services essential for or protective of their health, resulting in adverse health effects in those immediately affected and their community, ranging from a loss of well-being or security to injury, illness, or death.

Keywords

adverse effectdeathdefinitiondisastereventhealthhealthcare systeminjurymedical definitionnon-combatantpublic healthpsychological injuryterrorismviolencevulnerable
Type
Theoretical Discussion
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 18 , Special Issue 2: Terrorism-I: Country Reports , June 2003 , pp. 47 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2003

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