ABSTRACT
In all catastrophes, whether or not the event is caused by a health phenomenon like a pandemic, the event will cause significant threat or actual damage to the affected population at the very time that people need their very best physical, mental, and emotional performance capability to deal with losses and move productively toward stabilization and some kind of recovery. The role of public health (PH) in this context must not be underestimated: it plays a direct role in helping people survive and recover from physical insults, and a crucial role in helping both individuals and communities marshal their resources for the daunting tasks ahead in reconstruction and recovery.1 PH also plays an important role in protecting the health of disaster response personnel.2 We will see some of these issues discussed more in the pandemic and New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) scenarios, but you would do well to think about PH considerations throughout the chapters that follow, so that you can start integrating the PH viewpoint into your emergency management (EM) thinking. Note: This chapter and the explanations of PH principles and techniques as they relate to catastrophes are not meant to make you “public health savvy,” but rather to give you sufficient understanding that you can contribute to bridging some of the gaps that tend to exist between PH practitioners and emergency managers in the context of catastrophes.
