Modeling an ontology on accessible evacuation routes for emergencies

Providing alert communication in emergency situations is vital to reduce the number of victims. However, this is a challenging goal for researchers and professionals due to the diverse pool of prospective users, e.g. people with disabilities as well as other vulnerable groups. Moreover, in the event of an emergency situation, many people could become vulnerable because of exceptional circumstances such as stress, an unknown environment or even visual impairment (e.g. fire causing smoke). Within this scope, a crucial activity is to notify affected people about safe places and available evacuation routes. In order to address this need, we propose to extend an ontology, called SEMA4A (Simple EMergency Alert 4 [for] All), developed in a previous work for managing knowledge about accessibility guidelines, emergency situations and communication technologies. In this paper, we introduce a semi-automatic technique for knowledge acquisition and modeling on accessible evacuation routes. We introduce a use case to show applications of the ontology and conclude with an evaluation involving several experts in evacuation procedures. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The human rights-based approach to disability in emergency preparedness

Il presente lavoro è stato incentrato sull’analisi delle procedure di inclusione delle persone con disabilità nella pianificazione dell’emergenza in alcuni Comuni della Regione Marche e in alcune Strutture Socio-Sanitarie Assistenziali e Istituti di Riabilitazione della Regione Marche e dello Stato del New Jersey (USA). L’affermarsi, a livello mondiale, dei principi sui diritti umani anche nell’ambito della disabilità, hanno portato ad una graduale sostituzione del modello paternalistico e caritatevole, con quello basato sul riconoscimento e il rispetto della diversità dei singoli in un’ottica di inclusione sociale. Con riferimento al contesto delle emergenze, il processo di inclusione sociale consiste nel coinvolgimento delle persone con disabilità nei programmi di pianificazione e gestione dell’emergenza promossi dai governi locali, dalle aziende private e dalle associazioni di volontariato». I risultati conseguiti dal diritto internazionale in materia di disabilità sono stati consolidati nella Convenzione dell’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite sui Diritti delle Persone con Disabilità, ratificata in Italia con la Legge 3 marzo 2009, n.18. In base all’articolo 1 di tale convenzione, le persone con disabilità sono «coloro che presentano deficienze fisiche, mentali, intellettive o sensoriali di lungo periodo che, in interazione con varie barriere, possono impedire il loro pieno sviluppo ed effettiva partecipazione alla vita della comunità». La questione della disabilità, dunque, non deve essere più vista come un problema da risolvere, ma piuttosto come caratteristica propria dell’individuo e quindi meritevole di rispetto, inclusione e pari opportunità.nLo studio ha messo in evidenza la necessità di una più solida collaborazione tra le amministrazioni comunali, le varie associazioni che si occupano di problematiche legate alla disabilità nonché le strutture di tipo socio-sanitario dislocate sul territorio. Questo studio ha inoltre confermato e rafforzato l’importanza di costruire un dialogo sull’inclusione delle persone con disabilità nella pianificazione dell’emergenza. Un tale impegno rappresenterebbe l’espressione di una concreta volontà di tutela dei diritti umani e permetterebbe un confronto costruttivo tra i responsabili della gestione dell’emergenza, i rappresentanti delle associazioni che si occupano di problematiche legate alla disabilità ed i disabili stessi.According to the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA), disability needs to be considered in emergency planning of municipalities and long-term care facilities (LTCFs). The results of the study have confirmed and reinforced the importance of building a dialogue on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in emergency preparedness among municipal emergency managers, administrators of LTCFs and citizens themselves. In the context of LTCFs, US and Italian facilities should view physical impaired residents as potential resources during an emergency. Furthermore, administrators of such facilities should provide specific training to their staff to raise the sensitivity to issues of disability. This can provide a positive contribution that can make emergency services more accommodating for the residents of the facility. Finally, US and Italian long-term facilities should immediately clarify that a proactive collaboration in terms of emergency preparation is expected from residents. This would ensure a stronger involvement of the residents in best preparing for an emergency. Also at the municipal level, this study confirms that the inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency preparedness plays a key role in the protection of their rights. People with disabilities are the true experts of their own situations and therefore are in the ideal position to give recommendations on best strategies for including disability needs into disaster preparedness and response. Building a dialogue on the inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency preparedness is crucial to define and share best practices to raise public awareness on the issue of self-protective behaviors, to create strategies along with the civil protection professionals, medical staff, social workers, aimed to enhance the residual skills of persons with disabilities. All these actions would be decisive for a shift from the medical model to the human-rights based approach to disability. Therefore, those involved in disaster management should involve persons with disabilities in the leadership and in decision-making processes

Common areas for improvement from After Action Reports (AARs) generated after exercises or actual disasters, as reported by a national sample of U.S. hospitals

Many hospitals conduct exercises every year, and they conclude the process with an After-Action Report and Improvement Plan. Therefore, there are thousands of AAR/IP’s across the country with limited opportunity to compare them or to learn from them collectively. Our project has gathered Improvement Plans (IP’s) and conducted a qualitative analysis which determined whether the “lessons learned” can be categorized into common themes

Knowledge and Skills of Emergency Care During Disaster for Community Health Volunteers: a Literature Review

Background: Nowadays, disaster preparedness and responses are essential for everyone to be involved since the disaster becomes increasing. The Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) in particular are the key partners required adequately prepared in emergency care during disaster event. Purpose: The study aims to examine the essential knowledge and skills of emergency care during natural disaster for CHVs. Method: The reviews published during 2000 and 2011 searching from PubMed, Science Direct, CINAHL, ProQuest Medical Library were conducted. Result: Twenty-four articles and documents related to community-based disaster preparedness programs were intensively reviewed. Based on the review, six components of knowledge and skills for emergency care in natural disaster for CHVs are required including 1) early warning, 2) disaster triage, 3) first aid, 4) search and rescue, 5) logistic and communication, and 6) team organizations. Conclusion: There was a few studies focusing on the emergency care in disaster management and some factors related to knowledge and skills were shown. It is therefore recommended that the current CHVs' knowledge and skills should be explored in order to assist people in their community following disaster event when professional responders are not immediately available to help

Governance, Institutions and People within the Interface of a Tsunami Early Warning System

The interface mechanism in a tsunami early warning system (TEWS) occurs between receiving tsunami information at the country level and disseminating warning and evacuation orders to the public. Three crucial actions take place during the interface: issuing the warning, disseminating it, and ordering an evacuation. Using two case studies in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, a study was undertaken to understand the nature of the interface mechanism and the social, cultural and political dynamics of its operationalisation. In this article, a comparative analysis of the two case studies is presented, focusing on the role of governance, institutions and people in this interface. The nature of governance, hierarchies and structures influence the interface mechanism and the associated decision-making mechanisms. The institutions who act as key stakeholders are also shaped by the governance structures and hierarchies within it. The efficiency of the institutions is determined by the nature of their human resources and are affected by political factors. The communities are also affected by the overall governance structure, the political dynamics and the institutional factors. The complex relationships between governance, institutions and officers that exist in the two countries affect the communities in different ways. Yet, the overall governance and institutional dynamics of TEWSs lead to a common thread of decisions and actions when operationalising the interface. The results are presented in a framework that illustrates the complex relationships between governance, institutions, officers and communities. The framework provides a basis for future research on how the interface of TEWS can be operationalised to effectively protect communities at risk from tsunami

Intelligent evacuation management systems: A review

Crowd and evacuation management have been active areas of research and study in the recent past. Various developments continue to take place in the process of efficient evacuation of crowds in mass gatherings. This article is intended to provide a review of intelligent evacuation management systems covering the aspects of crowd monitoring, crowd disaster prediction, evacuation modelling, and evacuation path guidelines. Soft computing approaches play a vital role in the design and deployment of intelligent evacuation applications pertaining to crowd control management. While the review deals with video and nonvideo based aspects of crowd monitoring and crowd disaster prediction, evacuation techniques are reviewed via the theme of soft computing, along with a brief review on the evacuation navigation path. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing reliable automated evacuation systems that will help in ensuring the safety of the evacuees especially during emergency evacuation scenarios

The Impact of Federal Emergency Management Legislation on At-Risk and Vulnerable Populations for Disaster Preparedness and Response

It is well documented that in the aftermath of a natural or human caused disaster, certain at-risk and vulnerable populations suffer significantly more than do other population groups. As a result, Congress enacted the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) in part to address deficiencies in providing aid to vulnerable populations, though little is known if the PKEMRA has resulted as it was intended. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to assess the impact of the PKEMRA on addressing emergency preparedness deficits related to at-risk and vulnerable populations. The theoretical framework followed Howard\u27s conceptualization of game and drama theory. The research questions focused on the extent to which the PKEMRA recommendations improved disaster lifecycle outcomes for at-risk and vulnerable groups in Orleans Parish, LA between Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Isaac in 2012. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 5 emergency managers with knowledge and experience local to Orleans Parish, LA. Interview data were systematically reviewed using inductive coding and categorized for thematic analysis. Key study findings indicated that the improvements made to family location registries, evacuation procedures, and disaster resources for these populations in Orleans Parish were not a result of the PKEMRA, but of the state and local emergency agencies without input from the federal government. This study contributes to social change by promoting greater transparency of federal programs targeting at-risk and vulnerable populations, making direct recommendations to use Orleans Parish as a relevant example to address the needs of these populations. Such a review will serve as an exportable model for similar communities across the country

BUILDING PRELIMINARY GUIDELINE FOR EARTHQUAKE EVACUATION

Disaster frequency appears to be increasing. The impact of those disasters has increased substantially in terms of mortality and economic losses. Evacuation, as an inevitable part of disaster management systems, plays a critical role in disaster mitigation. The efficiency of all-hazard disaster evacuation could be increased by making appropriate decisions on policies and practices for planning, preparedness and response, and taking certain traffic operations, management and control. Common principles for large disaster evacuation have been established, mostly based on the experience of hurricane events. However, earthquakes have a series of special characteristics, which are different from other disasters, such as being hard to predict and leading to a great deal of secondary disasters. The 1994 Northridge earthquake in California and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China are chosen as examples to track and compare disaster response, including evacuation effectiveness. A primary guideline for earthquake evacuation plan is developed in this study

Approaches to ‘vulnerability’ in eight European disaster management systems

Orru, K., Hansson, S., Gabel, F., Tammpuu, P., Krüger, M., Savadori, L., Meyer, S.F., Torpan, S., Jukarainen, P., Schieffelers, A., Lovasz, G. and Rhinard, M. (2022), Approaches to ‘vulnerability’ in eight European disaster management systems. Disasters, 46: 742-767. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12481While social vulnerability in the face of disasters has received increasing academic attention, relatively little is known about the extent to which that knowledge is reflected in practice by institutions involved in disaster management. In this study, we chart the practitioners’ approaches to disaster vulnerability in eight European countries: Germany, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia. The study draws from a comparative document analysis and 95 interviews with disaster managers and reveals significant differences across countries in terms of the ontology of vulnerability, its sources, reduction strategies, and the allocation of related duties. To advance the debate and provide conceptual clarity, we put forward a model for explicating different understandings of vulnerability along the dimensions of human agency and technological structures as well as social support through private relations and state actors.acceptedVersio