This book sets out to develop a new framework for the analysis and understanding of large natural disasters occurring in developing countries in the last three decades, and their effects on the economy and society. In doing so, it challenges many of the accepted wisdoms of disaster theory upon which policy prescriptions are built. A number of important issues are addressed and analysed within this framework. The reliability of current statistics about disasters is questioned, and the effects of disaster situations on the main economic aggregates are examined. The author also looks at the importance of indirect disaster effects, the motivations of disaster response, and the impact of both capital loss and disaster response on output. He assesses the minimum level of additional investment required to secure a balanced recovery, and the extent to which a society's structure and dynamics determine people's vulnerability to disasters. Finally, the overall effects of disaster situations on economy and society are considered. The author concludes that although disasters are primarily a problem of development, they are not necessarily a problem for development. What we should be looking at are the underlying social and economic processes within developing countries which structure the impact of natural disasters, rather than at disasters as unforeseen events requiring large scale intervention. An important feature of the book is the deconstruction of the notion of disaster. Disasters, the author points out, cannot be analysed in isolation from the particular social and political setting in which they occur.

One of the most urgent issues facing the United States today is how to establish a comprehensive health insurance program at a time when nearly one in seven Americans lack insurance and costs for health care and medical fees are increasing at about 20 percent annually. An interdisciplinary team of experts provides a unique overview of the most important current problems and speaks to the key questions of risk, allocation, and equity. This text is designed for college, university, and professional courses in health and medical policy, public policy, public administration, law and society, bioethics, nursing, science and technology, and hospital administration. This public policy study offers a general framework for assessing health insurance from many vantage points, in terms of health policy impacts, the care of the needy, health insurance implementation, and prevention and risk. Chapters assess various national health insurance proposals, current congressional action and Medicare decisions, the social impacts of health insurance policy, coverage for displaced workers, the uninsured and hospital care in the inner city, charity care and community benefits, insuring high-risk persons, preventive health care screening for older women, and medical malpractice insurance, among other subjects. These analyses with real-life examples provide a solid introduction to all who want to understand health insurance and public policy issues today.

Fighting an Invisible Enemy narrates the founding and growth of the internationally. renowned National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa, from its foundations in the early twentieth century as the South African Institute for Medical Research to, later, the National Institute for Virology. It started humbly, as did many of its sister public health institutions around the world, and faced daunting obstacles: financial restrictions, bureaucratic straitjacketing, international isolation during the apartheid era and, in later years, the calumny of governmental AIDS denial. Following the triumph of the eradication of the once dreaded smallpox, the NICD plays a crucial role in the ongoing global effort to eradicate polio. While South Africa carries the misfortune of the largest HIV/AIDS pandemic in the world, the institute's HIV research unit has become a world leader.

More remote from public notice are the laboratories and epidemiologists supporting the constant surveillance of communicable diseases and the alerts they provide for impending outbreaks or pandemics, such as Ebola or the Covid-19 pandemic.

The NICD is a flagship organisation in public health in South Africa and this book, by its first executive director and internationally recognised virologist Dr Barry Schoub, paints a vivid portrait of its accomplishments. Enhanced by a collection of images of its projects and facilities, the bookwill be of interest to public health specialists and activists, as well as a more general audience.

Health research has made spectacular strides over the past few decades. The value of health research is obvious and irrefutable. What is not so apparent is that people who participate in research may be harmed during the process. Africa prides itself in having some of the most respected universities globally. It is a continent of immense research potential. At the same time, Africa suffers from many of the health burdens of low-income regions. While it affords many research opportunities, this creates the potential for the misuse of power on vulnerable individuals and populations.

This book explores why participants in health research require protection. It also explains how ethical principles and the law can assist inter alia research ethics committees, researchers, funders and institutions at which research is conducted, to safeguard the rights and dignity of individuals contributing to the research enterprise. It engages with this imbalance and examines how well-intentioned aims of ethical health research can be achieved while simultaneously maximising the protection of research participants. It draws on local and international documents and expertise to inform the resolution of many ethical dilemmas and complexities that inevitably arise in health research.

Health Research Ethics: Safeguarding the Interests of Research Participants provides a solid understanding of the normative values for protecting research participants against exploitation, harm and wrong. Since research ethics is multidisciplinary, this book will be of value to a range of professionals and academics inter alia those from the health sciences, social sciences, and legal disciplines.

Medicine and Money: A Study of the Role of Beneficence in Health Care Cost Containment is a frank discussion of the moral problems associated with the need to control health care costs. The book provides a base for physicians to address these concerns and examines the events leading to America's current health care crisis, diminishing beneficence. After a brief definition of the problem, Frank H. Marsh and Mark Yarborough continue by describing the threat of cost containment and justifying beneficence-based health care system. Special importance is given to Medicine and Money by the lengthy suggestions on implementing beneficence in the health care system. Marsh and Yarborough address the problem of eroding morality and rising cost concerns of our present health care system. They argue that if the central role of beneficence is abandoned, the medical profession will be unable to properly meet the challenge it faces. Medicine and Money divides its argument into two sections. In the first section, the current crisis in health care is examined and a justification for beneficence is given. The second section describes how beneficence can be implemented in the health care system as a means to control health care costs. Medicine and Money is written for every member of the medical and philosophical communities.

This text examines the impact of a crisis - big or small - and the threat of negative publicity to corporate reputation. Arguing that most companies have no crisis management plans and hope that disaster will never strike, the author of this book theorizes that consumerism, legislation, environmentalism, pressure groups and investigative media all necessitate the development of a crisis communications plan. The book shows how a crisis can be managed effectively or even turned to advantage through publicity giving the company's reputation a long term boost.;Case studies examine the activities of six companies facing crises and the lessons to be learned from their approaches. Checklists are included as a quick reference for the practising PR professional.

This text on the interaction between public health policies and social inequality probes three issues: what groups wield the greatest influence over the policy process? Who gains most from health policies? And how can we best understand the policy link between health and social inequalities? A theory of social opportunities clarifies the reasons for policy effectiveness, particularly the impact of public programmes on the environmental and personal conditions that improve people's health.

Crisis management is of increasing importance to organisations. With the rise of single-issue pressure groups, the development of sophisticated and informed consumers and volatile voters, no organisation in the public or private sector can afford to neglect preparation for dealing with the disasters that may befall it. This book aims to improve the relationship between the media and those subject to media scrutiny at a time of crisis or disaster by generating mutual understanding of their needs. Drawing on the experience of practitioners, it aims to disseminate good practice. Part I sets the context and raises some general issues on the theme of communicating at a time of crisis or disaster. Part II looks at the relationships between media and those who are trying to manage the crisis in public relations and public information terms. It contains a number of case studies, each contributed by an expert, clearly explaining how a variety of crises and disasters were managed by the organisations concerned, and how they were reported by the media. Part III is an extended case study of the Hillsborough disaster, taking a candid look at what happened from the perspective of four very different people who were closely involved in the aftermath. The final section includes chapters on the value of training and rehearsal, and some of the lessons learned from Dunblane.

This book is a thorough, balanced, and insightful study of what is happening and what should be happening in health care financing. Americans want unlimited access to the best care at affordable prices. Fiscal pressures in American health care point in all different directions, like a pile of jackstraws. This important book analyzes how new payment incentives stimulate planned competition or reregulation; and the far-reaching impact these changes have on hospitals, physicians, long-term care facilities, HMOs, public health clinics, and multihospital systems. Tools for survival include better financial planning, productivity improvement, better scheduling systems, and total quality management.

Steven R. Eastaugh begins his book with a general overview of cost management, accounting, product-line selection, and new payment incentives. Part II provides an in-depth survey of fiscal trends in long-term care, managed care, HMOs, and PPOs. Part III analyzes five basic strategies that a provider may consider; with special focus on market analysis, diversification, and pricing. The next part reviews physician payment options, the new Medicare 1992 payment systems for hospitals and physicians, and cost analysis of hospital patient care, research, and education. Part V considers productivity enhancement methods, incentives to assist productivity programs, and the Deming method of total quality management. Part VI focuses on investment, financing, and capital structure decisions in health care institutions and also in large multifacility systems. The last part summarizes major strategies for success in the 1990s, future policy alternatives, and suggests a number of alternative roads to universal entitlement and national health care reform. As Eastaugh suggests in this book, Our health system faces . . . immense opportunity and danger in a reformation on four fronts: access, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of life. The challenge for providers and managers during this period of unparalleled opportunity is to win a clear victory on all four fronts, and not erode either access or quality in the name of efficiency. The range of coverage in Health Care Finance is extremely wide and detailed--making it essential and useful reading for health care professionals and students alike.

Recent flood events in Europe, the USA and elsewhere have shown the devastating impact that flooding can have on people and property. Flood warning and forecasting systems provide a well-established way to help to reduce the effects of flooding by allowing people to be evacuated from areas at risk, and for measures to be taken to reduce damage to property. With sufficient warning, temporary defences (sandbags, flood gates etc) can also be installed, and river control structures operated to mitigate the effects of flooding.

Many countries and local authorities now operate some form of flood warning system, and the underlying technology requires knowledge across a range of technical areas, including rainfall and tidal detection systems, river and coastal flood forecasting models, flood warning dissemination systems, and emergency response procedures.

This book provides a comprehensive account of the flood forecasting, warning and emergency response process, including techniques for predicting the development of flood events, and for issuing appropriate warnings. Related topics, such as telemetry and information systems, and flood warning economics, are also discussed. For perhaps the first time, this book brings together in a single volume the many strands of this interesting multidisciplinary topic, and will serve as a reference for researchers, policy makers and engineers. The material on meteorological, hydrological and coastal modelling and monitoring may also be of interest to a wider audience.

Properly addressing a crisis requires more than just guesswork and a reaction; it requires a properly structured approach supported by good information. With the rapid evolution of information systems and information technology, including hardware, software, the internet, and communications capabilities, there are abundant opportunities to apply these technology capabilities and resources to support and improve responses to and management of crisis situations. Approaches to crisis response and management include the design, development, implementation, and application of systematic methodologies on how to respond, as well as how to apply information systems to enhance and extend responses to crises. Information Technology Applications for Crisis Response and Management provides a multi-disciplinary perspective on current and cutting-edge research exploring and extending our understanding of the use of information systems and information technology to support responses to crises of all kindsOCoeaccidental, intentional, and acts of nature. The chapters in this book focus on the design, development, implementation, use, and evaluation of information system technologies and methodologies to support crisis response and management, as well as technology management-related issues for crisis response and management. While highlighting technical, cognitive, organizational, and human-focused issues within the field, this book is ideal for policymakers, IT specialists, government officials, crisis response teams, managers, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the use of information technology and information systems to support diverse types of crises.

Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World, Third Edition provides valuable information for navigating these priorities in the age of evolving media. The emergence of new media like the Internet, email, blogs, text messaging, cell phone photos, and the increasing influence of first informers are redefining the roles of government and media. The tools and rules of communications are evolving, and disaster communications must also evolve to accommodate these changes and exploit the opportunities they provide. This book illuminates the path to effective disaster communication, including the need for transparency, increased accessibility, trustworthiness and reliability, and partnerships with the media.

This book brings together a variety of the best papers from an international research symposium on organisational behaviour in healthcare. It includes contributions from key names such as Sandra Dawson and Peter Spurgeon with a foreword by Rosemary Stewart. Also including chapters from Australia, Canada and Europe, it is consciously international in perspective and aims to relate the public sector agenda as a comparator for developments in the US.

Critical incidents all too often explode onto the social conscious and challenge our sense of security. This comprehensive handbook brings together a range of experts who provide a foundation for the field of critical incident analysis by examining specific incidents9/11, the Virginia Tech massacre, the H1N1 pandemic, the BP oil spill, and more--through various methodological and disciplinary lenses.

The American State Normal School is the first comprehensive history of the state normal schools in the United States. Although nearly two-hundred state colleges and regional universities throughout the U.S. began as 'normal' schools, the institutions themselves have buried their history, and scholars have largely overlooked them. As these institutions later became state colleges and/or regional universities, they distanced themselves from the low status of elementary-literally erasing physical evidence of their normal-school past. In doing so, they buried the rich history of generations of students for whom attending normal school was an enriching, and sometimes life-changing experience. Focusing on these students, the first wave of 'non-traditional' students in higher education, The American State Normal School is a much-needed re-examination of the state normal school.This book was subject of an annual History of Education Society panel for best new books in the field.

This volume explores issues connected with quality, planning of services and access concerns especially as linked with providers of care, health care institutions, and patients. Changes have continued to occur within the field but have been led by overall marketplace trends. Papers in this volume are presented in four parts covering changing models of health care. In Part I topics come from a broad perspective to include: development of newer models of care, more traditional areas such as the medical profession and the patient or the hospital and the patient, the changes that alternative medicine brings to issues of quality of care and access and planning, and of citizen participation in health planning. Part II deals with federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and access and quality issues within those programs. Part III covers the challenges of planning for long-term care needs and services. And Part IV explores other aspects of the changing health care delivery system: changes in nursing, midwifery, and rural health care and provides linkages to quality, access, and planning issues. This excellent work helps the reader to think more carefully and more creatively about issues of quality of care, access to care, and planning for services.

Disaster management is generally understood to consist of four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. While these phases are all important and interrelated, response and recovery are often considered to be the most critical in terms of saving lives. Response is the acute phase occurring after the event, and includes all arrangements to remove detriments and a long-term inventory of supplies to deal with irreversible damage. The timely provision of geospatial information is crucial in the decision-making process, and can save lives and rescue citizens. The aim of this volume is to share technological advances that allow wider, faster and more effective utilization of geospatial information in emergency response situations. The volume describes current accomplishments and challenges in providing geospatial information with these attributes, and is organized in six parts: - Practice and legislation, with a focus on the utilization of geospatial information in recent disaster events, as well as resulting legislative attempts to share and access data. - Data collection and data products. - Data management and routing in 3D. - Emerging technologies, including positioning, virtual reality and simulation models. - Integration of heterogeneous data. - Applications and solutions. This volume is aimed at researchers, practitioners and students who work in the variety of disciplines related to geospatial information technology for emergency response, and represents the very best of current thinking from a number of pioneering studies over the past four years.

Health care in the United States at the end of the 20th century occupies a completely different place in the economy, in the public consciousness, and in its impact on government, than it did at the beginning of the century, or even in the early years of the Clinton Administration. Health care is now a multi-billion dollar industry; one that consumes more than 15 percent of the nation's GNP. Citizens now regard health care as essential to the quality of their lives, and a steady stream of new medications and procedures point to ways to extend the lives of our aging population and restore those injured on or off the job. At the same time, the changing patterns of health care have stirred a national debate over the growth of managed care and the role that government can play in providing solid health care standards--a medical safety net--within tightening budgetary restraints. This book explores the role of the federal government in health care policy development from the years of the Founding Fathers to the present.

Kronenfeld reviews the key features of the American health care system, its infrastructure, and federal legislative process and outcomes in the health care arena. The current situation in health care is examined, with particular attention given to the attempt at major reform in the first Clinton administration, and to the modest changes that were ultimately passed. She closes with an examination of the future of health care and the role of government, emphasizing how current health care issues and concerns may set the stage for a changed federal role in funding and delivery of health care services in the next century. This comprehensive examination of the role of government in the health care system will be of great interest to students and researchers of public policy and the social aspects of American health care.

Brutally dragged 780 metres beneath a taxi – a young woman’s inspiring story of survival, courage, and the will to live.

13 September 2011. The story would shock thousands and be remembered by many for years to come. It would be plastered all over the papers and continue to attract interest well after the shock factor of what happened had passed. Reports and articles would be written, and “facts”, as given to reporters by some of those involved and willing to be interviewed, would be recounted and repeated in all forms of public media over the months and even years that followed. And although these versions would generate widespread outrage, none was entirely accurate.

"The stories were about me. I was there. I am Kim McCusker - the girl who was dragged by a taxi. This, as I experienced it, is the true version of events."

The contemporary world is characterized by the massive use of digital communication platforms and services that allow people to stay in touch with each other and their organizations. On the other hand, it is also a world with great challenges in terms of crisis, disaster, and emergency situations of various kinds. Thus, it is crucial to understand the role of digital platforms/services in the context of crisis, disaster, and emergency situations. The Handbook of Research on Digital Services in Crisis, Disaster, and Emergency Situations presents recent studies on crisis, disaster, and emergency situations in which digital technologies are considered as a key mediator. Featuring multi- and interdisciplinary research findings, this comprehensive reference work highlights the relevance of society's digitization and its usefulness and contribution to the different phases and types of risk scenarios. Thus, the book investigates the design of digital services that are specifically developed for use in crisis situations and examines services such as online social networks that can be used for communication purposes in emergency events. Highlighting themes that include crisis management communication, risk monitoring, digital crisis intervention, and smartphone applications, this book is of particular use to governments, institutions, corporations, and professionals who deal with crisis, disaster, and emergency scenarios, as well as researchers, academicians, and students working in fields such as communications, multimedia, sociology, political science, and engineering.

With the deregulation of commercial airlines in 1978, the United States airline industry has changed dramatically. Route entry and exit flexibility, as well as fare setting have stimulated competition, forcing airlines to emphasize cost control, increased productivity, and effective marketing. How have these changes in both public and private policies influenced airline safety? Do airplanes have more accidents now than ever before? This work examines the causes of airplane accidents and what private and public policies are needed to improve aviation safety. It begins by examining the safety record of the United States commuter airline industry in the post-deregulation era characterized by increased emphasis by airlines on cost control and growing pressures on the air traffic control and airport system. The authors go beyond the safety of the scheduled airlines to examine the reasons for accidents in the nonscheduled and general aviation segments of the United States industry, where the bulk of fatalities occur and where airline pilots increasingly receive most of their training and experience. They then turn to an examination of aviation safety throughout the world, first with a detailed comparison of Canadian and American aviation safety, and then with a look at air safety in all regions of the world and the safety performances of all the world's major airlines. Three emerging issues are then examined in greater detail: assessing the margin of safety, worldwide aging of all airline fleets, and terrorism. Clearly written, this careful and systematic analysis of well over 15,000 individual aviation accidents will provide greater insight for government officials, aviation industrymanagers, and researchers, as well as laypeople and other frequent flyers.