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The All-Hazards Preparedness Approach: How Can We Be Better Prepared for the Next Public Health Crisis?
Series | All-Hazards Preparedness and Response
Authors: Elizabeth Diago, Clara Marín, Antoni Plasència, Gonzalo Fanjul and Elisabeth Cardis (ISGlobal)* [ This document is one of a series of discussion notes addressing fundamental questions about global health. Its purpose is to transfer scientific knowledge into the public conversation and the decisionmaking process. These documents are based on the best information available and may be updated as new information comes to light. ]
The COVID-19 pandemic was, first and foremost, a public health crisis: health systems worldwide were overwhelmed, by March 16th 2023 more than 760 million of cases, almost 8 million of deaths and many more were hospitalized. However, it also had undeniable effects on other areas of society; from the economy to transportation, from gender equality to labour laws, it is difficult to find an aspect of daily life that has not been affected. The pandemic, however, is just one of the latest systemic crises we have had to endure - not the first and surely not the last. Indeed, the last decades have seen an increase in public health and environmental crises that may directly
28 March 2023
* Elizabeth Diago, Coordinator of the ISGlobal Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Resilience working group. Clara Marín, coordinator of ISGlobal’s Global Analysis and Development department. Antoni Plasència is Director General of ISGlobal. Gonzalo Fanjul, ISGlobal’s Policy Director. Elisabeth Cardis, ISGlobal’s Radiaton Programme Director.
Photo: Risk map of La Esperanza (Nicaragua). EC/ECHO/Silvio Balladaress
or indirectly threaten our health at different levels.1 Adding to the existing permanent basal health stresses, including non-communicable diseases,2 such crises further strain our health systems and the capacities and resilience of communities and society. Depending on the type of crisis, the impact can be local, regional, national or even global (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, or the Chernobyl nuclear accident). It can be restricted to the direct effects of the particular hazard (for example the health effect of a particular chemical or biological agent) or, as often observed, have wide-ranging indirect consequences on the physical
1 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (2020), CredCrunch 61. Human cost of disasters. An overview of the last 20 years 2000-2019. https://cred.be/sites/default/files/CRED-Disaster-Report-Human-Cost2000-2019.pdf Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. (2021), 2020 The Non-Covid year in disasters: Global trends and perspectives. https://cred.be/sites/default/files/CRED-NaturalDisaster2020-v06-2.pdf Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (2022), Disasters in numbers. https://cred.be/sites/default/files/2021_EMDAT_report.pdf 2
WHO Regional Director for Europe. (2022), Statement: The European Region is in a “permacrisis” that stretches well beyond the pandemic, climate change and war. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/27-09-2022-statement-the-european-region-is-in-a-permacrisis-that-stretches-well-beyond-the-pandemic-climate-change-and-war
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