Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

C o l l eg e o f h e a lt h P r o f e s s i o n s Disaster Nursing and Public Health Preparedness Marie-Claire Roberts Ph.D., R.N. Pace University, College of Health Professions The second Summit on Resilience at Pace University focused on the lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy. Speakers discussed the various infrastructures and their strengths, as well as their failures. The conversations and presentations focused on the "general" population without specifying any underlying variation within a given population; variation that could impact the ultimate success of a nation or population to recover from a large-scale disaster. Introduction: The overarching aim of this paper is to discuss the resilience of a community from the perspective of vulnerable populations. In disaster preparedness the focus is on preparing the system as a whole: assessing existing resources; planning courses of action; and implementing protocols to direct action in the case of a disaster or emergency. In this model, one of the predominant underlying assumptions is that for the majority the population includes fully capable and functioning resources (people, equipment, structures). Any action plan depends on the healthy and capable members of a community to fulfill their roles and execute their tasks, as well as for the members at large to comply and execute protocols and procedures on a macro scale. In this paper, we will address the specific situations in which a population is by definition not prepared or able to act in the full capacity that any standard preparedness plan assumes. There are many vulnerable/underserved populations; for the purposes of this paper we will limit our discussion to populations who are elderly, incarcerated or substance dependent. Background and Definitions: A society, community, or population is as much defined by members who are included by as those who are excluded according to any given definition. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related conditions for all ages developed by the WHO in 2001 (World Health Organization 2001). The classification terminology defines disability in terms of: impairments, activity limitations, or participation restrictions. Using this terminology, the three vulnerable/underserved populations that will be discussed in this paper are defined in Table 1 below: 51

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