This book provides nurses and nurse practitioners with the current, valid, and reliable information and comprehensive disaster health policy coverage available for improving population health outcomes following a disaster event or public health emergency. The book is divided into seven sections. Section I deals with the issue of disaster preparedness, which involves disaster planning, hospital and emergency department preparedness, leadership and coordination in disaster health care systems, and issues such as social disruption, individual empowerment, and community resilience. The second section is about disaster mental health and understanding and managing psychosocial impact and effect of disasters. Section III on disaster management begins with presentations on legal and ethical issues involved in disaster response, and then highlighting the role of media in crisis communication. Emergency medical consequence planning for special events, mass gatherings, and mass casualty incidents, and management of burn casualties and explosive blast injuries are also explained. The fourth section talks about global disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies with chapters covering natural disasters, restoring basic sanitation, water and food supply services, role of nurses in climate change, and disaster relief nursing in the 21st Century. Section V is devoted to chemical, biological and radiological agents, and the unique threat of biological and chemical terrorism. The penultimate section discusses identifying and accommodating high-risk and vulnerable populations and caring for the needs of children, pregnant women, new born babies and patients with HIV and AIDS. The book ends with Section VII, which highlights the role of information technology, achieving community-based practice and the role of public health response in disaster response.
