BMC Health Services Research is calling for submissions to a Collection on Disasters, crisis, and emergency management within health services.
According to the WHO, 1.6 Billion people – nearly a quarter of the global population are currently living in ‘settings of conflict, displacement and natural disasters’. These figures, along with the rising complexity of the nature of these crises, are unprecedented.
The mass casualties, injuries, and population health deterioration associated to disasters, crises, and emergencies eventually overload the affected health systems and prevent them from performing their intended roles in health care.
A broad range of hazards (natural or technological disasters, conflicts, disease outbreaks, food contamination etc.) bring health systems to the forefront and expose their central role in managing health risks and responding effectively to such events to minimize their impact.
Strengthening health systems, especially the most vulnerable ones, has become a vital step in facing the global and growing dimensions of emergencies and continuing progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
BMC Health Services Research launched this Collection to review the current state of research on health services management of disasters, crisis, and emergency and in particular, studies that:
- Delineate/Introduce policies, frameworks, processes, and innovative interventions aiming at strengthening health services enabling them to effectively prevent, prepare to, manage, and respond to disasters, crises and emergencies.
- Present applied models of mitigation, response, and recovery from emergencies and crises.
- Summarize experiences of resiliency for health systems in the context of disasters, crisis, and emergencies.
- Propose established models of health system governance in crisis settings.
- Advance health systems and health services preparedness to disasters, crises, and emergencies, with particular interest in the development of emergency medicine and emergency care systems with particular interest in the development of emergency medicine and emergency care systems.
- Examine the role or attitude of healthcare professionals and managers in such crisis settings.
- Propose or describe methods to integrate research, including implementation and operational research, in disaster response and settings and/or the role of learning health systems in disaster scenarios.
Image credit: © Stefano Zannini / MSF / dpa / picture alliance
