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Chapter 12 - The Common Ground in the Mental Health Impacts of Emergencies, Incidents, Disasters, Disease Outbreaks, and Conflict, and a Framework for Responding to People’s Needs

from Section 1 - The Nature and Impacts of Twenty-First-Century Healthcare Emergencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

By
Richard Williams ,
John Stancombe  and
James Ryan
Edited by
Richard Williams ,
Verity Kemp ,
Keith Porter ,
Tim Healing  and
John Drury
Richard Williams
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Verity Kemp
Affiliation:
Independent Health Emergency Planning Consultant
Keith Porter
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Tim Healing
Affiliation:
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London
John Drury
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

This chapter introduces themes that recur throughout this book, and reflects on a collection of topics that are covered. One key theme concerns the common areas and differences in people’s responses and needs before, during, and after emergencies, incidents, disasters, and disease outbreaks (EIDD). It presents a strategic approach to meeting people’s mental health needs. Four areas common to EIDD are identified. First, preparedness before EIDD is critical to shaping how societies, communities, families, and people respond and recover. Second, a wide range of stressors have impacts on people affected by EIDD, and adversity and socioeconomic disadvantage play substantial parts in how people react, cope, and adapt. Third, the impacts of displacement are huge. Fourth, the wellbeing, psychosocial, and mental health agendas of care are extremely important aspects of the care that is required to meet the needs of survivors of EIDD and, often, those of their relatives.

Keywords

mental healthcarepsychosocial carestepped model of carestrategictrajectoriestypologies of incidentswellbeing
Type
Chapter
Information
Major Incidents, Pandemics and Mental Health
The Psychosocial Aspects of Health Emergencies, Incidents, Disasters and Disease Outbreaks
 , pp. 63 - 78
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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