Public Health in Emergencies

Disasters often result in significant impacts on people’s health and cause the loss of many lives. Every new threat or disaster reveals the extent of challenges that remain in managing the health risks of disasters.  

ADPC’s Public Health in Emergencies (PHE) team aims to improve health outcomes of communities at risk of emergencies and disasters. In collaboration with our partners, PHE develops and implements capacity building projects and training programs which address continuing and emerging challenges in health emergency management at regional, national, sub-national and community levels.  PHE programs help to strengthen health emergency management systems by building relationships between health disciplines and by integrating the health sector into community-wide disaster management systems.  

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Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER)

PEER is a regional training program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s, Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) with supplemental funding from American Red Cross (ARC) to strengthen disaster response capacities in Asia.

The Program is currently running in nine countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam.

GO TO PROGRAM FOR ENHACEMENT OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE (PEER) WEBSITE :

[http://www.adpc.net/peer]

PEER Website - find all PEER pdates, photos, program information, training information, news, partner details, education, knowledge sharing and documentation about the Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response

 

PHE Activities

PHE Training Program and Projects

With our institutional partners and an extensive network of health emergency management specialists, ADPC has developed and implemented training courses and projects in countries and communities around the world.

• Inter-regional and National Public Health and Emergency Management in Asia & the Pacific (PHEMAP) courses. These courses focus on improving the management and coordination abilities of public health emergency managers in their roles as risk managers, program managers, operations managers and leaders. ADPC has also conducted the First National PHEMAP Course Coordinators workshop to strengthen the linkages between the Inter-regional and National PHEMAP courses and provides support for national PHEMAP courses in Asia.

• Public Health in Complex Emergencies (PHCE) course is designed for health personnel working with refugees and internally displaced persons in complex emergencies.

• Hospital Emergency Preparedness & Response (HEPR) course assists health service managers and medical personnel with health facility planning and managing large numbers of casualties.

• Basic Emergency Response Course (BERC) which combines training of trainers and community level training to build health and medical emergency response capability in communities (associated with ADPC projects on Urban Disaster Risk Management).

• Management of the Dead and the Missing in Disasters (MDM) workshop addresses the multisectoral dimensions of managing missing persons and dead bodies, such as disaster victim identification, management of health risks, cultural traditions for burials, and psychosocial support for relatives.

• Scoping study on the psychosocial and disaster mental capacities and capacity development activities in Asia

• Nutrition of Children and Mothers in Disasters (NCMD) course which enables participants to train other health staff on managing nutritional needs in disasters.

• Disasters and Development (D&D) course for health and development professionals and focusing on integrating health emergency risk management and sustainable development.

• WHO Fellowships and study tours for senior health officials from the regions, eg. Myanmar, DPR Korea.

Epidemic and pandemic preparedness has been an increasing focus of our activities, and has brought new partnerships and projects such as:

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• Strengthening Community-based Management of Avian and Human Influenza, a knowledge generation project, with our partners in the AHI-NGO-RC/RC Partnership, namely CARE, IFRC and IRC

• Health Care Facility Emergency Preparedness and Response to Epidemics and Pandemics (HCF-EPREP) which strengthens health care facility emergency planning for communicable disease emergencies, with a focus on pandemic influenza

• Emerging Zoonotic Diseases which focuses on the development and testing of tools for assessing risk and capacity assessment tools.

• Exercise Management for Public Health and Animal Health professionals

• Development of a training package for managing health risks of deliberate use of biological, chemical and radiological agents (BCR)

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 Key funding partners

The PHE team acknowledges the financial and in-kind support from many national government, international, academic, private sector and non-government organizations. In recent years, the following donors have supported PHE projects:

• APEC, ASEAN & Kenan Institute Asia (Exercise Management)

• Asian Development Bank (Community based AHI)

• AusAID (Emerging Zoonotic Diseases, Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development Program)

• Japan International Corporation of Welfare Services (PHEMAP)

• Royal Government of Norway (PHEMAP)

• Rockefeller Foundation (Zoonotic Diseases)

• USAID (Public Health in Complex Emergencies, Psychosocial Support, Exercise Management)

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Key partners

In addition to our donor partners, the PHE team has consolidated long-standing partnerships and continues to develop relationships with organizations working in public health. In addition to the program activities listed above, the following formal partnership agreements have been established:

• PHEMAP: MoU between WHO-SEARO, WHO-WPRO and ADPC was extended in June 2006 for 3 years.

• Public Health in Complex Emergencies: a MoU was signed by ADPC, American University of Beirut (Lebanon), Institute of Public Health, Makerere University (Uganda), International Rescue Committee and World Education Inc.

• Thammasat University: a MoU was signed with the new Faculty of Public Health at Thammasat University, Thailand.

ADPC is a partner with CARE, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Rescue Committee in the AHI-NGO-RC/RC Asia Partnership. PHE has also built relationships with Ministries of Health and UN organizations (including FAO, UNICEF and all levels of WHO - WHO country offices, WPRO, SEARO, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) and with WHO Headquarters in Geneva). The PHE team is also working closely with NGOs, other Ministries and schools of public health.  

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Key project countries

The PHE team has welcomed participants to our training courses from over 25 countries in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Europe, Pacific and the Americas. Our recent projects have focused on Bhutan, Cambodia, China, DPR Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lao PDR, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia and Vietnam.

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Prepared on: 29 Jan 2008

ADPC Newsletter
Safer health facilities from disaster risk reduction initiatives