PLOS Currents: Disasters
[Accessed 20 December 2014]
http://currents.plos.org/disasters/

Art of Disaster Preparedness in European Union: a Survey on the Health Systems
December 17, 2014 • Research article
Introduction: Naturally occurring and man-made disasters have been increasing in the world, including Europe, over the past several decades. Health systems are a key part of any community disaster management system. The success of preparedness and prevention depends on the success of activities such as disaster planning, organization and training. The aim of this study is to evaluate health system preparedness for disasters in the 27 European Union member countries.
Method: A cross-sectional analysis study was completed between June-September 2012. The checklist used for this survey was a modified from the World Health Organization toolkit for assessing health-system capacity for crisis management. Three specialists from each of the 27 European Union countries were included in the survey. Responses to each survey question were scored and the range of preparedness level was defined as 0-100%, categorized in three levels as follows: Acceptable; Transitional; or Insufficient.
Results: Response rate was 79.1%. The average level of disaster management preparedness in the health systems of 27 European Union member states was 68% (Acceptable). The highest level of preparedness was seen in the United Kingdom, Luxemburg, and Lithuania. Considering the elements of disaster management system, the highest level of preparedness score was at health information elements (86%), and the lowest level was for hospitals, and educational elements (54%).
Conclusion: This survey study suggests that preparedness level of European Union countries in 2012 is at an acceptable level but could be improved. Elements such as hospitals and education and training suffer from insufficient levels of preparedness. The European Union health systems need a collective strategic plan, as well as enough resources, to establish a comprehensive and standardized disaster management strategy plan. A competency based training curriculum for managers and first responders is basic to accomplishing this goal.

Validating Indicators of Disaster Recovery with Qualitative Research
December 16, 2014 • Research article
Introduction: Recovery from disasters is a critical function of federal, state, and local governments, yet measurable, validated indicators of community recovery remain unidentified. A list of potential recovery indicators was developed by the authors through a literature review, recovery plan review, and case study of two disaster impacted communities.
Methods: To validate the indicators, qualitative data was collected from experts on disaster recovery. Twenty-one key informant interviews and two focus groups were conducted between January and April of 2014 to solicit feedback from disaster recovery practitioners and academics.
Results: Five major themes emerged from the qualitative data. These included: the flexibility of the indicators to serve multiple purposes for communities and individuals both pre- and post- disaster; the focus areas are comprehensive, but content and organization can be improved; the importance of seeing the indicators as a self-assessment, rather than a tool for comparing communities; the potential challenges of collecting data for some indicators; and the identification of potential measurement issues with the indicators.
Discussion: The proposed recovery indicators can be utilized by both practitioners and researchers to effectively track post-disaster recovery. They capture many of the complexities of community disaster recovery and provide potential opportunities for linkages to the development of disaster recovery plans and other activities that could increase community resilience in the future.