Emergency and disaster preparedness for chronically ill patients: a review of recommendations

Emergency and disaster preparedness for chronically ill patients: a review of recommendations

Blog Article

Jun Tomio,1 Hajime Sato2 1Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of Health Policy and Technology Assessment, National Institute of Public Riding Gaiters Health, Wako, Japan Abstract: Recent disasters, especially those in developed countries, have highlighted the importance of disaster preparedness measures for chronic diseases.A number of surviving patients experienced the exacerbation of a chronic illness, such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases, due to disaster-related stress, interruption of care, or both; for some patients, these exacerbations resulted in death.Here, we review reports from recent disasters in developed countries and summarize the recommendations for disaster preparedness of chronically ill Support Bracket patients.

A considerable number of recommendations based on the lessons learned from recent disasters have been developed, and they provide practical and essential steps to prevent treatment interruption during and after a disaster.To improve preparedness efforts, we suggest that health care providers should be aware of the following three suggestions: 1) recommendations should be evidence-based; 2) recommendations should contain consistent messages; and 3) recommendations should be feasible.Keywords: disaster, chronic illness, preparedness.