Disaster Preparedness and Response

Disaster medicine has occupied an increasingly important niche within the specialty of emergency medicine over the latter half of the 20th century. Regardless of whether an event was natural, anthropogenic, or a combination of both, emergency medicine was and is the ideal discipline to develop the human resources, the strategies, the tactics, and the evidence-based research to elevate the field of disaster medicine. To confront recent events-including sectarian violence, wars, genocide, migration, terrorism, emerging infectious diseases, and pandemics-there first needs to be a knowledge of disaster medicine and disaster management at its most basic level. The intent of this book is to introduce these concepts using diverse viewpoints and scenarios.