Lessons learned from deploying crowdsourced technology for disaster relief during Kerala floods

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the lessons to be learned from disaster relief operations from the “Kerala Flood Response 2018” -a southern state in the Indian Union. Design/methodology/approach The present study employed a qualitative approach, with thematic analysis and a purposive and convenience sampling method. Data was collected through fieldwork done in March 2019 and a follow-up visit in July 2019 from the Idukki and Wayanad Districts of Kerala, the federal state of India. Data were collected from 105 respondents through focused group discussions (FGDs), in-depth interviews, observation and document review. In-depth interviews with 25 respondents were randomly selected from the field locations. Twenty-four pre-selected key informants were interviewed. Seven FGDs (56 participants) were conducted. Twelve disaster-affected locations were visited to collect observation data. Findings The following themes have emerged from the study: (1) differential impact of the disaster on the population; (2) the critical role of volunteers in disaster mitigation; (3) the impact of the disaster on health still needs closer analysis; (4) the local administrator’s indifference to the people in crisis; (5) non-governmental organisation’s extensive partnership and goodwill with the local government and the district officials; (6) lack of compliance with building construction code; (8) lack of skilled human resources for building construction; (9) lack of opportunities for local-level problem-solving related to flood relief; (10) they need to heed the early warning; and (11) lack of facilities for crop insurance. Research limitations/implications The data for this study was collected from representatives of various community groups involved in reconstructing the flood-affected areas. Sustainable recovery is a process that promotes democratic principles and good governance at all levels, as well as the development of more effective, accountable and transparent institutions and environmentally conscious policies and programmes. Therefore, the perspective presented in this study is skewed towards the opinion of civil society alone. This study does not reflect government officials’ and elected officials’ views. Practical implications The disaster response is confined to mitigating the immediate impact of the disasters, and policymakers did not feel the need for a robust theory-based reaction to disaster mitigation. Although social scientists questioned the validity of using the concept of resilience, building resilience is universally agreed upon as the direction of disaster mitigation efforts. Stability is concerned with coping with stress or, more precisely, returning to a reasonable condition after a period of stress. Resilience is often promoted as a boundary concept to integrate sustainability’s social and natural dimensions. Social implications Despite being recognised as a meaningful paradigm among scholars and a few practitioners, achieving sustainable recovery following disasters was not widely applied in the recovery from the Kerala flood disasters, owing mainly to the current recovery model in use today. As a result, this paper aims to present a few lessons to be learned in achieving sustainable recovery. Originality/value Although considerable data about the “Kerala flood” and associated disasters has been generated, this study contributes to the lessons learned in developing sustainable disaster recovery. Flood relief is still an unfinished agenda. The disaster relief presented a long list of mismanagement and lost opportunities. The impact of the August disaster on upstream areas and downstream areas is different. The upstream regions were affected mainly by a landslide, mostly in Idukki and Wayanad districts. Many people who lost their houses are caught up in producing land ownership papers. Many are caught up in the interdepartmental labyrinth. There is a general perception in these districts that the classification as minor flood-affected was an excuse for distributing money to many intelligible, politically connected recipients. Reconstruction was an opportunity to create a discourse about appropriate building culture in Kerala. There needs to be more respect for building standards and inappropriate, environmentally unsustainable architectural designs. Rehabilitation has not taken into consideration promotion. There is a need to develop a recovery theory that helps clarify our understanding of how sustainable recovery can be achieved.

Exploring Blockchain for Disaster Prevention and Relief: A Comprehensive Framework Based on Industry Case Studies

Psychological First Aid (PFA) is becoming a universally accepted intervention in providing psychosocial support to individuals and families affected by trauma or disaster. Our study aimed to measure the effectiveness of a didactic and simulation based Psychological First Aid (PFA) training program in Alberta, Canada. Social work students, practitioners, and human service professionals from Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge were invited to attend the training. A total of 90 participants attended the training at three different sites. A pre and post survey questionnaire was administered to all the participants before and after the training. Findings showed that the training has significantly improved participants’ PFA knowledge and perceived competence in PFA skill. PFA training enhanced their confidence, disaster preparedness, and self-care strategies needed to provide psychosocial support to individuals and families in disaster situations. Our study provides preliminary evidence supporting the effectiveness of the PFA training program among social work students, practitioners and human service professionals for future disaster preparedness in Alberta, Canada.Keywords: Psychological first aid, social work, disaster preparedness, training, competency, effectiveness, Canada

Purpose Despite the increasing number of literature that identifies the roles of various rehabilitation professionals in disaster-related work, there is still limited evidence that examines how these professionals prepare for and function in the various phases of disasters. This study describes the roles and responsibilities practiced by Filipino occupational therapists in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. The study also describes the preparations undertaken for the therapists to assume these roles. Materials and methods A survey was conducted among licensed occupational therapists with prior experiences in disaster response. The survey consisted of 23 items - seven were related to preparedness, ten to disaster response, and six to the recovery phase. The participants were asked to indicate their degree of involvement in specific roles and responsibilities using a 5-point Likert scale. The questionnaire also explored their personal preparation for disaster-related work. Results The participants were mostly engaged in roles related to the recovery phase, followed by the response phase, and were least engaged in the preparedness phase. The roles most frequently performed include: encourage connectedness and social interactions among survivors (recovery); provide supportive mental health services to survivors and their families (response); and attend trainings in disaster response to be part of a response team (preparedness). The majority of the participants received training in mental health responses and orientation prior to deployment. They identified the need to gain additional knowledge on emergency response and the effects of human displacement in disaster situations. Conclusions Given additional training and orientation, occupational therapists are able to perform various roles and responsibilities in the different phases of disasters. They can serve as additional resources for government and non-government organizations to address the needs of vulnerable populations in disasters. The study results could inform professional organizations on how rehabilitation professionals could be further trained to address disaster-related concerns. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION With additional orientation and training, occupational therapists could serve as an important health human resource especially in providing mental health services to people with special needs in disasters. There is a need to intentionally integrate disaster preparedness in the scope of practice of rehabilitation professionals to prepare people with special needs for disasters. Additional knowledge and skills in humanitarian action need to be integrated with clinical expertise to benefit government and non-government disaster management activities.

There exist certain behaviors that people tend to do in disaster situations before evacuation. Such behaviors include warning confirmation behavior (for example, seeking information) and family-oriented behavior (for example, contacting one’s family). Identifying factors that affect these behaviors is of particular importance in building a better understanding of why people often fail to respond quickly to evacuation orders. For this purpose, the present study employed some of the established factors affecting evacuation behavior as predictor variables along with the timing of an evacuation order. A total of 518 participants took part in a 12-item online questionnaire survey that contained a hypothetical disaster scenario. The results of ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed that only risk area residence and disaster preparedness were associated with warning confirmation behavior, while gender, age, disaster preparedness, and risk perception had some associations with family-oriented behavior. Also, the participants were not more likely to engage in these behaviors in the morning and the afternoon than the evening in the hypothetical scenario. These findings imply the possibility that people engage in warning confirmation behavior and family-oriented behavior before evacuation regardless of individual characteristics and the circumstances surrounding them.

As healthcare professionals, nursing educators need to be prepared to manage and deliver care in what are often dangerous conditions. This research aims to determine and compare nursing educators' perceptions of disaster preparedness and response (DP&R) in Istanbul and Miyazaki. An 18 question descriptive questionnaire was used. One hundred and forty-four nursing educators representing two state university nursing schools in Istanbul, Turkey, and one state and two private universities in Miyazaki, Japan were enrolled. Educators had an average age of 40 years and had been educators for 1-15 years. Just over half of the participants had basic knowledge regarding DP&R with most of them considering taking special courses in the future. The majority considered "caregiver" as a role they could undertake in a disaster situation. The existence of major concerns and conflicts in disaster responses were low. The top ranked item was in the area of conflict between family and job responsibilities. Age and academic levels showed significant differences in basic knowledge on DP&R. Regardless of knowledge in this subject area, no statistical significance on personal preparedness or being a volunteer to disaster events was found. Nursing educators were not thinking about what kinds of disasters occur in the areas where they currently teach and were underprepared to deal with disaster situations. To improve the perceptions of the nursing educators on DP&R, mass casualty care and disaster management skills need to be incorporated into formal education and training on disaster preparedness and workplace preparedness.

Tempurejo Subdistrict is a cantilever for Meru Betiri National Park in the southern part of the Jember Regency. In every rainy season, several villages in this sub-district are flooded. Hence flood disaster preparedness education becomes very necessary. Knowledge and understanding of disaster preparedness must be known to anticipate disaster situations quickly and accurately. The purpose of this activity is to provide education to the community regarding before, during, and after disaster management. In addition, to maintain the sustainability of the community, a sub-district disaster preparedness team was formed and continuously assisted. The activity was held in October 2021 with the target of Karang Wreda Abiyoso members. Counseling materials were related to flooding disaster preparedness and the risk disease of post-flood through videos and disaster response pocketbooks. As a result, there was an increase in the post-test than the pre-test, so this counseling effectively increased the participants' knowledge.Furthermore, disaster response training was carried out, and one of the training courses was preparing a disaster preparedness bag. As a result, 9 out of 10 participants could simulate the preparation of a disaster preparedness bag within the allotted time. Furthermore, continuous assistance was carried out through the WhatsApp Group. This team is expected to be able to disseminate disaster preparedness knowledge to residents and increase understanding regarding appropriate disaster preparedness in their area.

Social media has been a critical factor in providing improved disaster relief across the world in the past 15 years. However, our analysis of Chennai flood relief efforts revealed many downsides to the relief efforts based on social media such as inaccurate, inconsistent, incomplete, and stale information, user anonymity, information misuse, lack of geographical information etc. To address these issues, we propose the following technical, security, and operational considerations for building a robust disaster relief application. We classify the technical considerations into performance and resilience. Security considerations cover data integrity, trust, and privacy. Operational considerations include multilingual support, GIS support, data organization, live status updates, and disaster boundary demarcation. We illustrate these considerations in the context of Amrita-Kripa, a disaster relief application based on crowdsourcing. Amrita-Kripa was deployed during 2018 and 2019 Kerala floods and provided relief to thousands of victims.

Meteorological disasters frequently occur in China and around the world. These natural hazards can cause huge economic losses and threaten the personal safety of citizens. The public’s willingness to engage with disaster relief efforts and the degree of participation is critical to reduce the impact of such disasters. This study conducted a survey with 62,903 respondents from China. The study utilized statistical analysis and correlation analysis in order to understand the differences and similarities of the public’s willingness to take part in disaster relief across gender and age. The study found that: (1) the public’s awareness of insurance and willingness to make donations during climate disasters is low, and that more than half of the public are only willing to insure for very less money; (2) although the public has very high enthusiasm to participate in disaster relief, they are less willing to learn the basic skills of reducing disasters and for participating in training for disaster reduction as volunteers. This was especially the case for elderly citizens and females; (3) the willingness of the public to prevent and reduce disasters is high, and this was the case across various gender and age groups. Finally, the study puts forward several measures to improve the uptake of disaster relief and disaster prevention among citizens.

BackgroundOne of the tests to evaluate cognitive decline is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), as a result, various technological developments have automated and digitized this test. Some of these systems present the test only in its digitalized form, while others integrate virtual reality and artificial intelligence with sophisticated signal processing methods that take into account the information from each item on the test to obtain systems that support diagnosis for professionals in this field.This type of system is contributing to the counterbalance of the expected scenario for the year 2050, according to the World Health Organization, which predicts that 140 million people will suffer from dementia.MethodIn this research, we present an automatic method based on image quality to obtain the illustrations made by patients during the visuospatial and executive function tests of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Specifically, this method performs an automatic analysis and image processing that identifies the illustration with the best focus and quality for each of the three tests: Trail Making, Cube, and Clock.ResultThis optimization in the acquisition of information in cognitive domains, both in visuoconstructional skills and executive functions, provides robustness to our interactive web platform. In addition, when performing the MoCA test, the patient can save an estimated time between 50% and 70% by being able to capture and save the images immediately.This method avoids the most common problems when capturing images, such as having low‐quality images due to being captured in environments where with too low or too bright lighting, as well as instability in the movement of capture device.ConclusionFor the test database, the automatic scoring of each MoCA item and the score set for each of the three illustrations by the specialist, the results of our web application are obtained with 100% accuracy and equal to the evaluations carried out by specialists.The Web platform stores the tests performed so that the specialist doctor can analyze them and continuously monitor patients. This information is managed by the doctor and can be consulted by the patient's caregiver or family member.

Objective: Within the scope of medical services provided during disasters, the aim is to reduce fatalities as much as possible. Therefore, it is crucial to assess, through pre-disaster training for volunteers currently involved or with high potential for involvement, their willingness to volunteer in disaster situations and their sense of preparedness for emergencies. This study investigates the disaster awareness level, perceived preparedness for disaster events, thoughts on the safety of their living environments against disasters, reasons for willingness or unwillingness to volunteer in disasters, and the level of disaster preparedness among healthcare personnel working in emergency medicine clinics of public hospitals on the European side of Istanbul, who are either currently involved or have high potential for involvement in disasters. Methods: The study included personnel working in emergency medicine clinics of public hospitals affiliated with the Istanbul European Side Public Hospitals Association. Personnel working in the emergency medicine clinics of these hospitals were asked to voluntarily answer the questionnaire provided in Appendix 1. The data obtained were recorded in an Excel file. Results: Of the 338 participants, 196 (58%) were male and 142 (42%) were female, with a mean age of 29.49 ± 8.11 years. 185 participants (54.7%) were single. Participants informed about the hospital disaster plan had greater belief that the hospital's disaster response plan administrators could report to their posts very quickly. Those who had previously lost a close relative had received disaster training at a higher rate. It was found that those who had received training before had a stronger belief in their own adequacy. Conclusion: Recent pre-disaster training programs have shown an increase in the willingness to volunteer during disasters and the sense of preparedness for emergencies. Our study predicts that the level of disaster awareness and preparedness is directly proportional to the willingness to volunteer during disasters. bunu tıbbı dılde turlceye cevır

RS plays an increasingly important role in disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery. With RS data, we can correctly assess the disaster situations and make appropriate decisions. However, due to the explosive growth of RS data in disaster fields, how to effectively discover, utilize and integrate the relevant data to meet the needs of people from different fields in the distributed environment is a key issue to solve. This study is to develop a RS data portal for disaster situations based on OGC WCS and open source GIS. The portal includes four primary parts named as Application Client, Application Server, Catalog Server, and Data Share Center, which bridges the gap between data providers and data users, and simplifies the discovery and use of imagery data. The portal can effectively publish many kinds of imagery or gridded data, and can be deployed in distributed network environment, and follows OGC standard GetCapabilities, DescribeCoverage and GetCoverage interface. In addition, some key technologies including spatial database storage and index, spatial metadata are described in detail. It is proved to be a feasible architecture to integrate and share RS data for disaster management.

The aim of this study is to develop an estimation method of the plan for local disaster preparedness. To achieve this purpose, a computer simulation model of communication processes among the public agencies is developed according to the local disaster preparedness plan. Each agency is modeled as an object which is activated by disaster information and send the new information based on its task. The task of each public agencies is expressed in a rule format based on the provision of the plan. Then communication network among the public agencies under the disaster situation is simulated to analyze the performance of local disaster preparedness plan.

Predicting and planning healthcare utilization in disaster situations is a complex and evolving challenge that requires new tools to augment existing systems of practice. Disasters and humanitarian emergencies are an inevitable threat to the health of populations across all continents and demographics. Morbidity and mortality from natural and infectious disasters are increasing at an alarming rate, leaving health systems unprepared and overwhelmed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a tool with tremendous capabilities in processing vast amounts of data to provide the best available evidence to inform disaster response strategies. This study described the role, implementation, and implications of AI-augmented disaster prediction and planning. Disaster prediction was previously beyond our grasp but with the advent of AI modelling and data-driven prediction technologies are becoming a growing reality. AI technologies have demonstrated the capability to incorporate, analyse, and summarize multifaceted data sources including climate factors, environmental factors, social media feeds, movements patterns, health data, and historical records. This technology can extract meaningful patterns to provide the likelihood and severity of catastrophic events. Examples include models that analyse existing earthquake data to identify patterns of seismic activity to forecast earthquake events with growing accuracy. Similarly, the Global Public Health Intelligence Network scans headlines across the globe to detect emerging health threats. Disaster planning involves optimizing resources and supports to vulnerable populations to prepare for the possibility of acute events capable of causing mass injuries and loss of life. There are insufficient resources available to prepare all health regions and populations for the possibility of disasters. By simulating different scenarios and outcomes, AI algorithms identify high risk geographic regions and populations to inform strategic resource allocation and deployment strategies. By analysing population densities, infrastructure stability, healthcare capacity, transportation networks, shelters, AI-augmented systems can optimize evacuation roots to appropriate healthcare resources while providing specific health needs assessments of affected populations. In these ways, the implementation of AI technologies can strengthen existing disaster preparedness strategies in an iterative and evidence driven way. While advancements in certain silos are being made on a consistent basis, a collaborative system has yet to be established. The accuracy of insights provided by AI systems is contingent on availability and validity of data. AI-systems are a relatively novel rapidly evolving field with inherent weakness such as assumptions, biases, lack of explainability and data privacy concerns that pose unforeseen challenges to regulatory and legislative frameworks. While evidence driven decisions may provide the highest probability of successful disaster planning and response strategies, they can not account for the ethical and social factors that are essential to effective implementation. Effective disaster planning and preparedness is a complex and iterative process that requires collaboration among medical, policy leaders, governmental programs, non-governmental organizations, communities, and other stakeholders. Only by integrating diverse perspectives and utilizing the best tools available, can we promote resiliency and health protection for vulnerable populations across the globe.

Incorporating the perspectives of volunteers who undertake various roles in disaster situations is crucial for developing effective response strategies and mitigating future disasters, ultimately contributing to creating disaster-resilient societies. This study examines the experiences of individuals who voluntarily participated in intervention activities during the acute phase of the 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and explores how their experiences influence disaster preparedness behaviors. The research was conducted using an in-depth interview methodology, with twelve volunteers selected through purposeful sampling. Both face-to-face and virtual interviews were conducted, and the collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The study identified five key themes – motivation, environmental conditions, experience, capacity, and reaction – that shape the post-disaster gains of volunteers. These findings provide valuable insights into the role of spontaneous volunteers in disaster management and their contributions to enhancing community resilience.