Disaster Information For Librarians

American citizens receive assistance at a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center, located at New Orleans Public Library Are you interested in contributing to HLWIKI International – hlwiki.ca? contact: dean.giustini@ubc.ca To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the A-Z index. Last Update 6 June 2013 Introduction The purpose of this entry is to present background information on disaster management and information sources for librarians working with the disaster workforce. For information on preparing libraries for disasters, please see: National Network of the Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Emergency Preparedness & Response Toolkit An excellent guide is also Deborah Halsted's handbook, Disaster Planning: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians. What is an emergency, a disaster, a health disaster? We often hear these words, but they are rarely defined. Before we can explore the roles of librarians in the disaster life cycle (mitigation, planning, response and recovery) it is worth understanding what disasters are. Emergency Management Cycle Think of an event. An event is "an occurrence that has the potential to affect living beings and/or their environment; a realization of a hazard."[1] Imagine that a tanker truck carrying toxic chemicals has flipped over on a suburban highway. No chemicals may have been spilled, but this event has the potential to escalate. An emergency is "a situation that is out of control and requires immediate attention."[2] The truck is now spilling chemicals onto the road. Individuals are getting out of their cars and trying to help the injured truck driver when a fire breaks out. The event is now an emergency. Immediate assistance is required to attend to the injured, disperse the crowd, put out the fire, and clean up the chemicals. A disaster is "a serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human, materials or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope using only its own resources."[3] The fire has spread rapidly to the residential area adjacent to the highway. Firefighters have arrived, but they are too few to manage the situation without outside assistance. A health disaster is "a precipitous or gradual decline in the overall health status of a community for which the community is unable to cope without assistance." [4] Individuals who stopped to help the truck driver are now lying on the ground unconscious. Residents of the adjacent suburbs are suffering from coughing, vomiting, and severe headaches. Paramedics have arrived, but they lack protective equipment needed to attend to the injured without exposing themselves to the chemical fire. They need outside assistance. You can see how an event can cause an emergency, and how that emergency can turn into a disaster, and how a disaster in turn can create a health disaster. Librarians' Roles in Disaster Planning Interprofessionalism is paramount to effective disaster mitigation, planning, response and recovery. Members of the disaster workforce include both licensed or credentialed health professionals (nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, physicians, etc.) and additional licensed or trained professionals (community volunteers, firefighters, emergency managers, etc.), including librarians. Librarians assist disaster workers by rapidly identifying, evaluating and disseminating information. Further, librarians train emergency responders in the use of information tools; and librarians monitor information sources to support decision-making by emergency managers.[5] A project from the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) identified functions for librarians: actively participating in emergency preparedness meetings and listening carefully for unfilled needs and questions creating and maintaining email lists for specific groups and needs to distribute updated pertinent information quickly and efficiently maintaining a careful watch of PubMed, government agency reports, news reports, and NLM/DIMRC emails to provide updated information to the emergency management or preparedness committee members.[6] Finding Disaster Health Information The following Medline-indexed journals contain peer-reviewed articles and research on disaster health topics. American Journal of Disaster Medicine Disasters Disaster Management and Response (incorporated by Journal of Emergency Nursing in 2008) Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Biosecurity and Bioterrorism Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness Journal of Business Continuity and Emergency Planning In addition to appearing in the above sources, disaster health literature is found in the scholarly literature of many health specialties. Emergency medicine, health administration and public health are just a few examples. It is essential to develop search strategies that include a wide variety of sources when seeking disaster health literature. Disaster Health Subject Headings & Terminology Valuable resources for locating appropriate subject headings to use in searches for disaster health information are NLM's Guide MeSH Terms Used in Indexing Disaster-Related Journal Articles and the U.S. Fire Administration Learning Resource Center's subject heading list. Use also the Library of Congress (LC) subject heading "Disaster Medicine," with its narrower entries for "Disaster Hospital" and "Disaster Nursing." There is no Doody's category for "Disaster Medicine." When locating monographs for collection building, try the terms: Emergency Medical Services Emergency Medicine Public Health WorldCat categories: Emergency Medical Services Emergency Management Emergencies Disaster Planning Disaster Medicine A further resource is this list of disaster glossaries compiled by NLM's Disaster Information Management Research Center. For prefabricated strategies on disaster topics such as surge capacity and bioterrorism, check the Disaster Search Strategies blog. Sources of Disaster Health Information Recognize that opportunities for disaster research are limited. Randomized, double-blinded, clinical studies, case-control or cohort studies are impractical for most research in disaster medicine.[7] Qualitative studies, using a case or case series design, are more common. Evidence from interviews, government reports, hospital and emergency department logs, de-briefing documents, media stories and other sources of grey literature contributes primarily to disaster research studies.[8] Prepare to utilize a variety of databases and web sources when seeking disaster literature. Depending on the period -- mitigation, planning, response or recovery -- in which you are providing services, information requests will differ. Grey literature sources will help you find planning documents, agency reports will help you find current mortality and morbidity statistics, and bibliographic databases will help you find peer-reviewed journal literature. Consider your audience. Are you providing services to nurse managers, volunteer fire fighters, health care administrators, academic researchers? How will they be accessing the information? Do they need a quick summary to be displayed on a mobile device? Do they require a systematic search of the literature? The resources below (Canadian, American, and international) are categorized to assist you in finding disaster information information efficiently for a wide range of audiences. Best Bets for Disaster Information DIMRC (Disaster Information Management Research Center) - Resource Guide for Disaster Medicine and Public Health A gateway to grey literature resources that are freely available on the web. PubMed NLM's biomedical literature database. Indexes many disaster medicine journals. Cochrane Collaboration's Evidence Aid Project Evidence Aid uses knowledge from Cochrane Reviews and other systematic reviews to provide best-available evidence on interventions that might be considered in the context of natural disasters and other major healthcare emergencies Canadian Resources National Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Canadian Disaster Database Emergency Preparedness Canada Health Canada - Emergency Preparedness Canadian Red Cross Provincial Emergency Preparedness - Vancouver Emergency Management BC American Resources Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response - Public Health Emergency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Emergency Preparedness and Response Disaster Information Management Research Center Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - Disaster Information FEMA - Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS.gov) International Resources Center for International Disaster Information Disaster Recovery Information Exchange (DRIE) International Committee of the Red Cross Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) - Area on Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief Vandemecum Created by the European Commission on Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - ReliefWeb United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction WHO - Health Action in Crises Specialized Libraries for Disaster and Emergency Management Literature FEMA Library U.S. Fire Administration Learning Resource Center Natural Hazards Center Library - HazLit Database U.S. Homeland Security Digital Library WHO Library and Information Networks for Knowledge (WHOLIS) Disaster Information from Professional Associations American College of Emergency Physicians - EMS and Disaster Preparedness American Red Cross World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) Emergency Management Programs and Disaster Information from Academic Centres Canadian Brandon University - Department of Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies Centennial College - Emergency Management and Public Safety Institute Fleming College - Emergency Management George Brown College - School of Emergency Management Justice Institute of British Columbia - School of Public Safety & Security - Emergency Management Division Royal Roads University - Peace & Conflict Management Program Sheridan College Institute - Emergency Management Program York University - Graduate program in Disaster & Emergency Management American Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware - Tip: search the Disaster Research Center's publications through the University of Delaware Library's institutional repository Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder International Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the Université Catholique de Louvain EM-DAT The International Disaster Database Disaster Health Information Tools & Resources from NLM Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management (CHEMM) NLM's Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET) DIMRC - Disaster Apps and Mobile Optimized Web Pages Disaster Health Information for the Public/Consumer Canadian Government of Canada GetPrepared.ca American American Public Health Association (APHA) Get Ready Campaign MedlinePlus Topic Pages (search by disaster type) Paediatric Disaster Information Canadian Centre for Excellence in Emergency Preparedness - Paediatric Disaster Preparedness American National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health - Pediatric Disaster Preparedness American Association of Pediatrics Children & Disasters website National Child Traumatic Stress Network Surveillance Tools for Infectious Disease Outbreaks Agencies report infectious disease incidence statistics through some of the tools listed here. Health care organizations, in particular, may require updated mortality and morbidity numbers to support administrative decision making in the case of infectious disease outbreaks. Canadian Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) Public Health Agency of Canada's Flu Watch American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) State Health Statistics International World Health Organization (WHO) Global Alert and Response (GAR) European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Surveillance International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) Program for Monitoring Emerging Disease (ProMED) Mail Disaster Information Apps & Mobile Optimized Websites Tools to help you find important information on your mobile device on disaster planning, response and recovery topics. Disaster Apps and Mobile Optimized Web Pages from DIMRC Relief Central from Unbound Medicine GetPrepared.ca Mobile Site Disaster Health Information Email Lists Email lists are a great way to monitor information and join discussions on disaster management topics. Canadian CCDR (Canada Communicable Disease Report) Email Subscription American CDC's Email lists DIMRC's DISASTR-OUTREACH-LIB International ISID's ProMED (Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases) Mail Disaster Health Information RSS Feeds Monitoring disaster information is a key role for librarians in disaster management. Subscribing to RSS feeds from agencies that release disaster-related information will allow you to stay abreast of updates and breaking news. Don't forget your local news sources though -- they are your best bet for finding out what is happening in your community. Canadian Public Health Updates from Public Health Agency of Canada. Includes an RSS feed for the Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) American CDC FEMA NLM's feeds includes the Division of Specialized Information Services and DIMRC International ECDC ReliefWeb's feeds allows you to create RSS feeds for any search of their website (i.e., create an RSS feed for news about epidemics, or create a feed for news of disasters in Canada) WHO's feeds include disease outbreak, emergencies and disaster news Disaster Health Information on Twitter Social media plays an important role in monitoring and sharing disaster information. Twitter hashtags for emergency management can help you follow relevant conversations related to disasters or events. For a list of disaster hash tags, see the post on the DavisLogic Emergency Management Blog [9]. Also follow the Disaster Information Management Research Center @NLM_DIMRC Disaster Health Information Widgets A widget allows you to insert code from disaster agencies in your website. Once added, the widget updates and displays information from agencies on your site. CDC Widgets DIRLINE (Directory of Health Organizations) for state disaster organizations (U.S.) FEMA Widgets Training Opportunities Courses that complement information presented on this page are offered through the Medical Library Association's (MLA's) Disaster Information Specialization Program and the Canadian Health Libraries Association's (CHLA's) Continuing Education course, Disaster Health Information Sources for Canadians. References Auf der Heide E. The importance of evidence-based disaster planning. Ann Emerg Med. 2006;47(1):34-49. Banner G. WMD, Emergency management and medical web sites, 2011. Burton A. Sharing science: enabling global access to the scientific literature. Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Dec;119(12):A520-3. Featherstone RM, Lyon BJ, Ruffin AB. Library roles in disaster response: an oral history project by the National Library of Medicine. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008;96(4):343-50. Featherston RM. Disaster search strategies blog. http://disastersearchstrategies.blogspot.ca/ Hanfling D, Altevogt BM, Viswanathan K, Gostin LO. Crisis standards of care: a systems framework for catastrophic disaster response. Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2012. International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction. Internationally agreed glossary of basic terms; 1992. McKnight M, Zach L. Choices in chaos: designing research into librarians' information services improvised during a variety of community-wide disasters in order to produce evidence-based training materials for librarians. Edmonton, Canada: EBLIP. 2007;2(3):50–75. Murphy MW, Iqbal S, Sanchez CA, Quinlisk MP. Postdisaster health communication and information sources: the Iowa flood scenario. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2010;4(2):129-34. Reynolds P, Tamanaha I. Disaster Information Specialist Pilot Project: NLM/DIMRC. Med Ref Serv Q. 2010;29(4):394-404. World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine. Glossary of terminology. Health disaster management: guidelines for evaluation and research. V1. Madison: Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. http://www.wadem.org/guidelines/glossary.pdf Acknowledgement Work to compile this preliminary list of disaster health information sources was funded by the National Library of Medicine under contract HHS-N-276-2010-00782-P.