This manual is a guide to psychosocial interventions to help people cope with the emotional effects of disasters. Some are direct responses to the trauma of disasters, while others are longer-term responses. Even more than the physical effects of disasters, the emotional effects cause long-lasting s...uffering, disability and loss of income
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Disaster Preparedness Training Programme
Contact No 175 - October December 2001
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has produced a three-volume series entitled Managing Hazardous Material Incidents. The series is designed to help emergency response and health care professionals plan for and respond to hazardous material emergencies.
- Volume I Emergenc...y Medical Services: A Planning Guide for the Management of Contaminated Patients
- Volume II Hospital Emergency Departments: A Planning Guide for the Management of Contaminated Patients
- Volume III Medical Management Guidelines for Acute Chemical Exposures
Volumes I and II are planning guides to assist first responders and hospital emergency department personnel in planning for incidents that involve hazardous materials.
Volume III is a guide for health care professionals who treat persons who have been exposed to hazardous materials.
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In support of the African decade of disabled persons | 1st January 199 - 31st of December 2009
Mental health issues are usually given very low priority in health service policies. Although this is changing, African countries are still confronted with so many problems caused by communicable diseases and malnutrition that they have not woken up to the impact of mental disorders. Every country m...ust formulate a mental health policy based on its own social and cultural realities. Such policies must take into account the scope of mental health problems, provide proven and affordable interventions, safeguard patients’ rights, and ensure equity.
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The rise of the discourse of 'trauma' as a major articulator of suffering within Western culture is a facet of the medicalization of life that has gathered pace in the last century. In recent years, Western mental health professionals have been increasingly involved in services addressing the plight... of war-affected populations - largely non-Western - in war zones or as refugees. Querying the extent to which their experiences can be reduced to a matter of mental health, this article addresses child refugees from war via three questions that go to the heart of the debate about how they are to be understood, the implications for their future maturation as individuals and citizens, and the role of psychological therapies aimed at catharsis of 'traumatic' memory.
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