Talk:Emergency management

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bpeif.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Please add a section like "Disaster reflection" to the Phases section

I added this to 2022 in science:

One science journalist reflects on the global management of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to science, investigating the question "Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne" – a finding hundreds of scientists reaffirmed in an open letter in July 2020 – with one indication that this may be one valid major concern to many expert scientists being several writings published by news outlets.

I then searched for a Wikipedia section about "Disaster reflection" as well as for relevant high-quality material but couldn't really find either.

I'm sure there are studies and other WP:RS about disaster reflection though so could please add a section about it if have/find any? What I'm basically referring to is:

Disaster reflection (maybe it often goes by other terms like "catastrophe retrospection") is routinely and systematically analyzing past problems in the management of a disaster as well as the causes that lead to the disaster or its severity and helps with delineating potential measures to address these issues for the future (during and especially after the phase of "Recovery"). It identifies and assesses major issues, systemic (often cascading or intertwined) faults and leverage points.

Possibly relevant to this:

• Lessons learned
• de:Hochwasser in West- und Mitteleuropa 2021#Kritik (in German) – in particular issues such as insufficient/dysfunctional warning systems
• in some or many cases like pandemic prevention it may be important to clarify that reflection on prior experience – disaster management and causes – may not be sufficient to be able to well prepare for future disasters of the same broad type no matter how we it's being done. For example, new risks/causes could emerge that haven't yet caused the respective disaster or weren't identified as such, if you only ever prepare or prevent the things that have already happened in the past, you run into various risks that include survivorship bias or taking measures too late (all of this also applies to smaller emergencies & disasters)
• things like Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic#Personal protective equipment
• things like [1] / generally: R&D / Disaster response#Disaster response technologies

Any feedback / comments / additional relevant material?

References

Prototyperspective (talk) 21:24, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

No, I don't think there's a place for this in the article. It's over-reliant on one disaster type and one disaster in particular of that type. Not everything one reads about in the news and mentioned as a phrase in other articles needs to be its own article and reflection seems to be captured as one of the phases for the planning/recovery of the next disaster. A lot of this is way too specific as well, and will be nerfed shortly. JesseRafe (talk) 13:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand your point. This is about disaster-reflection in general, not "over-reliant on one disaster type and one disaster in particular of that type". COVID-19 would just be a notable example. Again, I don't see why you're opposing inclusion of brief info about disaster-reflection in the article and maybe you misunderstood what I was proposing. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:34, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I would argue this is inappropriate as the phases, as understood in practice and research refer to a specific subset and categorization scheme of activities and actions. Although there are many different ways in which the phases are discussed (ex. preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation OR prevention, preparedness, response, mitigation OR residual risk reduction, risk reduction, etc.). We should not be adding on terms that are not reflected within the discipline itself.

Reflection as you describe it would likely fall under preparedness and mitigation, where assessment and analysis would take place to guide other actions within those phases.

This article should reflect what is known in research and and practice and mirror the language commonly identified by said groups.

I think your topic is relevant, but this really important, but would be far more appropriate for a piece specifically on disaster mitigation or preparedness. Risky Bussiness (talk) 16:57, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, these are good points. That's why I only put it on the talk page...moreover I thought something like that existed – for example maybe under another name than "Disaster reflection" and put under the scope of preparedness rather than described as a separate such phase (in that case it could be a subsection of Preparedness).

Alternatively, if it doesn't yet exist people could revisit this in maybe a year from now and by then there may be new sources describing exactly that (in which case this post may also provide some useful resources). In any case, there's various new sources that could be useful for such a (sub)section, like this:

the failure to ensure adequate global supplies and equitable distribution of key commodities—including protective gear, diagnostics, medicines, medical devices, and vaccines—especially for LMICs
[...]
the poor enforcement of appropriate levels of biosafety regulations in the lead-up to the pandemic, raising the possibility of a laboratory-related outbreak

There's probably more and maybe somebody could check if there's something like a review or aggregated lists of issues of what went wrong / was problematic per disaster (or disaster disaster-type and most likely COVID-19 and possibly the Russo-Ukrainian War emergency management) and e.g. could be done better next time (something showing notable systematic reflection of peri-disaster issues).

----

(Maybe I revisit this at some point and implement it myself, possibly in another article such as Disaster studies if I find more sources, and then archive this talk page post.) Further resources:

The “science” of disaster management is spread across more than 900 different multi-disciplinary journals. The existing evidence-base is overwhelmingly descriptive and lacking in objective, post-disaster evaluations.

However, disasters also have an ‘experiential’ reality, the memory of which creates a critical reflection of the past disaster for better preparedness in the present and for future disasters

Prototyperspective (talk) 11:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Restructure for page

This page is a mess. I argue for a complete restructuring of this page. I think a general template could be as follows.

purpose: provide a high level overview of emergency management as a discipline and profession

Outline (general) 1 What em is

2 difference between emergency, disaster, catastrophe

2.1 difference between hazards and disasters

3 phases of emergency management

3.1 preparedness

3.2 mitigation

3.3 response

3.4 recovery

3.5 other terminology (risk reduction, prevention, etc.)

4. profession of EM

5. Discipline of EM

6. EM practices within nations (this would be where the national system section goes, but could also have other relevant information)

7. international EM organizations (this should include UNDRR and information about the Sendai Framework).

I think there is a lot of great informationin on this page, but it really belongs elsewhere or in its own dedicated article (ex. emergency planning ideals)

This article also needs to be less US centric. Not all nations and subnational governments practice EM as the US does, and the article heavily emphisises the US system which is activly misleading.

i think this page should be clearer and simpler. Risky Bussiness (talk) 17:13, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree and like the layout you set out. I don't know why, for instance, the 'Health and safety of workers' section—while relevant—is so high up. A reader coming to Wikipedia for info on emergency management as a practice should not reading about mold exposure before the Sendai Framework. Penitentes (talk) 18:52, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I also partially wonder if it would be better to cut out discussion of specific national approaches and give those their own joint page or individual articles. Not sure where I stand on this, as on the one side, some basic information is useful, but on the other side, there is now just enough information about each to be actively misleading (ex. listing national EM agencies makes it seem like said agenceis are actual management bodies, where in many cases, they actually play a minor role relative to other structures in the country ex. Japans FDMA vs japans national disaster prevention council (added today) or Canadas PSC vs provincial EM bodies (also added clarity regarding this today). Risky Bussiness (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I want to clean up this talk page and remove old, now irrelevant discussions. Anyone have issues with this?

See title Risky Bussiness (talk) 20:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Risky Bussiness:. I've set up automatic archiving. It should happen (automatically) within the next day or so. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:31, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Fantastic, you are an absolute gem Risky Bussiness (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Disaster Mitigation section/article

I am considering adding information about disaster management to either this page or as a separate child article, as a project for a university course. Would this be an advisable action? I could not seem to find a current article about natural disaster mitigation, specifically, but am unsure if it is too similar to this article or another, or if it should instead be a subtopic in this article.

To do this, I would describe disproportionate effects of disasters on certain communities, and actions they could take to lessen impacts of the future. Furthermore, I would go through a history of actions intended to mitigate the effects of natural disasters. </ref> Natural Disaster Mitigation : a Scientific and Practical Approach / InterAcademy Panel on International Issues. Beijing: Science Press, 2009. Print. </ref>

D0T1ro (talk) 17:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)