EDAN in the Health Sector Expanded to Include Assessment Forms

Several months ago, PAHO/WHO published a new manual on Health Damage and Needs Assessment for Disaster Situations to assist health workers to conduct field evaluations in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Due to the high demand in countries in Latin America for additional material, particularly in the context of regional and national response teams, PAHO/WHO, together with a large group of regional experts, has produced a new CD-ROM with a variety of information on the topic, including Powerpoint presentations for training personnel who will conduct health sector damage and needs assessments, assessment forms, the original publication and other reference materials. In its current format the material can be adapted to regional or national needs.

All material (in Spanish only at present) is on the web at www.disaster-info.net/edan. For a copy of the CD-ROM, write to disaster-publications@paho.org.

New Materials Improve the Hospital Disaster Planning Course

In 2003, PAHO published a training module to support the organization of hospital disaster planning workshops.

Suggestions and comments on how to improve the content were gathered from the participants at many of these workshops. At the same time, PAHO began working with other experts to develop complementary material to train trainers.

The result is the second version of Hospital Disaster Preparedness, a technical training tool that now includes the methodology to train trainers to carry out these courses. The revised version includes lesson plans, guidelines for instructors, visual aids, evaluation forms and reference material.

Presently, this material is available in Spanish only and is on the web at www.disaster-info.net/planeamiento04. All material is also available on a new CD-ROM. Visit the web site or request the Spanish language materials from disaster-publications@paho.org.