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Evidence-Based Decision-Making (Part II): Applications in Disaster Relief Operations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

David A. Bradt
David A. Bradt*
Affiliation:
Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Johns Hopkins Medical Insitutions, Baltimore, Maryland USA
*
Center for Refugee and Disaster ResponseJohns Hopkins Medical InsitutionsMarburg B-187600 North Wolfe Street Baltimore, Maryland 21287-2080 USA E-mail: dbradt@jhsph.edu
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Abstract

Recognized limitations to data in disaster management have led to dozens of initiatives to strengthen data gathering and decision-making during disasters. These initiatives are complicated by fundamental problems of definitions of terms, ambiguity of concepts, lack of standardization in methods of data collection, and inadequate attempts to strengthen the analytic capability of field organizations. Cross-cutting issues in needs assessment, coordination, and evaluation illustrate additional recurring challenges in dealing with evidence in humanitarian assistance. These challenges include lack of agency expertise, dyscoordination at the field level, inappropriate reliance on indicators that measure process rather than outcome, flawed scientific inference, and erosion of the concept of minimum standards.

Decision-making in disaster management currently places a premium on expert or eminence-based decisions. By contrast, scientific advances in disaster medicine call for evidence-based decisions whose strength of evidence is established by the methods of data acquisition. At present, disaster relief operations may be data driven, but that does not mean that they are soundly evidence-based.

Options for strengthening evidence-based activities include rigorously adhering to evidenced-based interventions, using evidence-based tools to identify new approaches to problems of concern, studying model programs as well as failed ones to identify approaches that deserve replication, and improving standards for evidence of effectiveness in disaster science and services.

Keywords

decision-makingdisasterevidenceevidence baseevidence-based medicinehumanitarian assistance
Type
Applied Research
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 479 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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