Core Competencies in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Disaster response demands a large workforce covering diverse professional sectors. Throughout this article, we illustrate the results of a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies to identify existing competency sets for disaster management and humanitarian assistance that would serve as guidance for the development of a common disaster curriculum. A systematic review of English-language articles was performed on PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, ERIC, and Cochrane Library. Studies were included if reporting competency domains, abilities, knowledge, skills, or attitudes for professionals involved disaster relief or humanitarian assistance. Exclusion criteria included abstracts, citations, case studies, and studies not dealing with disasters or humanitarian assistance. Thirty-eight papers were analyzed. Target audience was defined in all articles. Five references (13%) reported cross-sectorial competencies. Most of the articles (81.6%) were specific to health care. Eighteen (47%) papers included competencies for at least 2 different disciplines and 18 (47%) for different professional groups. Nursing was the most widely represented cadre. Eighteen papers (47%) defined competency domains and 36 (94%) reported list of competencies. Nineteen articles (50%) adopted consensus-building to define competencies, and 12 (31%) included competencies adapted to different professional responsibility levels. This systematic review revealed that the largest number of papers were mainly focused on the health care sector and presented a lack of agreement on the terminology used for competency-based definition. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:430-439) Key Words: disaster medicine education, competency-based education, professionalization, humanitarian aid G lobally, 2013 was characterized by 330 natural disasters.1 The poorest countries are typically the most affected, with a total of 5 low-or lower-middle income countries among the top 10 in terms of disaster mortality. Aid workers are often required to operate within disrupted political systems with no pre-existing disaster plans 2 and to perform tasks that fall outside their area of expertise, especially the management of refugees and internally displaced populations, communicable diseases, and the lack of critical resources.3 Lessons learned from relevant disasters-such as Haiti (2010), the Asian tsunami (2004), the Haiyan Typhoon (2013), and the current Ebola virus disease tragedies in West Africacall for attention to the limited capability of foreign medical teams to meet challenges posed by complex emergencies. [4][5][6][7][8][9] These concerns have prompted the international community to devise means for the development of both competence and professionalism within the humanitarian assistance sector. 4,6 Disaster response demands a large workforce with diverse professional disciplines, subspecialty categories, and levels of professional experience and cultural expertise. Regardless of their professional background, education for personnel operating i...

Factors Affecting the Disaster Response Competency of Emergency Medical Technicians in South Korea

“…It comprised four items: (a) Korea is geopolitically vulnerable to disasters; (b) A disaster can paralyze social functions such as shutting down transportation, communication, and power networks, threatening public safety and national security, and so on; (c) A disaster can cause economic crises such as inflation, pricing bubbles, and so on; (d) I think that the area I live in has a high likelihood of future disaster occurrence since a detailed safety inspection of the buildings is not conducted regularly. Each item is measured using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from "strongly disagree (1)" to "strongly agree (5)." The range of possible total scores is from 4 to 20.…”

“…At all disaster levels, disaster response competency refers to the specialized knowledge and skills associated with disasters as the capacity required for EMTs [4,5]. The questionnaire was a modified version of the one used by Uhm et al [19] and was based on the onscene emergency care guidelines for EMTs in South Korea [20] and expert group consultations.…”

“…One item "I can choose a hospital to transfer victims to in order to prevent overcrowding" was added to the original questionnaire after a pilot test (n ¼ 20). Each item was rated on a fivepoint scale ranging from "strongly disagree (1)" to "strongly agree (5)." The range of possible total scores is from 31 to 155.…”

“…If EMTs fail to act as first responders in the disaster response phase, secondary disasters may occur. Hence, it is necessary to implement practical measures reflecting the reality to build up and understand factors that strengthen the disaster response competency, which is the specialized knowledge and skills associated with disasters as the capacity required for EMTs to minimize damage to the victim [4,5].…”

Estimating Risk Pressure Factor (RPF) with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to Locate Search and Rescue (SAR) Team Station.

“…Many of these medical surveys are showed that children are more vulnerable than an adult person when disaster strikes [26]. In respect to clinical and field research in paediatrics, some research provides that people have to more care about their children in any catastrophic situation [29,30].People in disaster are waiting for help in order to recover them by emergency relief services, public services or local volunteers [31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Search and rescue teams are working hard in the disaster area.…”