ABSTRACT
The aim of this book has been to combine findings from studies across different disciplines in order to explore how flooding impacts upon health and how individuals, communities and agencies charged with protecting health respond to those threats. Detailed experiences from the UK, Mozambique, Viet Nam and the US in Chapters 4–7 have been brought together with reports from a wide range of countries reviewed in Chapters 2 and 3. The different approaches of the chapters reflect the different disciplinary backgrounds of the authors – among them specialists in epidemiology, medicine, public health, human geography, civil engineering and hazards research – and yet together the discussions yield many common issues and lessons. Above all, they affirm the need to take a broad, long-term approach to addressing health risks and point to the crucial role that health considerations must take in overall risk reduction.
