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The American Medical Association recently launched its newest peer-reviewed academic journal, focused on public health and disaster preparedness and response. Such an announcement would usually be occasion for eye-glazing and nap time, but in view of what has and has not happened in the past couple of years it's certainly worth noting.
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (why, oh why, can't such publications be given snappier titles?) is aimed at providing health care professionals with a forum for specifically debating the issues concerning a raft of possible situation, including man-made disasters, pandemics, terrorist attacks and so on. It comes out for times a year.
Fittingly, the inaugural issue looks at some of the more recent disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesia Tsunami, and at the lessons learned from more distant ones such as the Oklahoma City bombing. The idea, according to editor-in-chief James J. James, is to provide a resource for all of the interdisciplinary skills needed to deal with emergencies and disasters.
It's a very timely thing. Given the fiasco of the immediate situation during Katrina, and the developing policy fiasco of the aftermath, a publication just about the issues surrounding that disaster would be justified.
A recent AP story said many in the medical community believe Katrina is responsible for a large number of continuing deaths in the Gulf region, from the effects of psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in the dwellings, and because of various financial problems. Add to that a reported tripling in the mental health problems compared to before the hurricane, and you sense this is only the beginning of what the region will go through in the coming years.
The health care community is still a long way from any kind of consensus view of what's needed to deal with these kinds of situations. Jeffrey Runge, the acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Health Affairs and the Chief Medical Officer of the US Department of Homeland Security made that point in one of the first editorials in the new journal.
We are a long way from universities and academic centers’ acknowledging the importance of this discipline by encouraging and rewarding their faculties for the pursuit of this nontraditional academic niche. Perhaps by having its own journal with strict criteria for research, the discipline of disaster medicine can enter the mainstream of academics. There are glimmers of a coordinated effort at dealing with preparedeness and response. Craig Vanderwagen was recently appointed the first Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, and he will be the point man for coordinating the government's response in emergency situations.
A large part of the poor reaction in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and during the following months was largely due to the confusion among government agencies, so having a single point of reference should go a long way to preventing that in the future. Vanderwagen described some of his observations about his new job in this recent GHIT podcast.
It may seem a little thing but, given the lack of political and industry coordination that has marked previous emergencies, perhaps the AMA's new journal marks a turning point towards a truly considered response to disasters. Here's hoping!
By Brian Robinson, GHIT Contributing Writer
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