Running Head: COMMUNITY HEALTH AND NATURAL DISASTER 1

Community Health and Natural Disaster

Name

Affiliation

Date
COMMUNITY HEALTH AND NATURAL DISASTER 2

Introduction

Natural disasters are older than the human being that is why no one can avoid them. What

one can do is manage the best way possible to minimize the risk associated with them. That will

help reduce the damage that will be done by the natural calamities. The natural calamities consist

of volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. It will not be wrong to say that these

natural disasters are increasing in number and becoming fiercer with time because of the human

activity itself. The more pollution we create and the more fossil fuels we burn are altering the

climate. Which is destroying our eco-system but it is too slow to be seen by the normal eye. In

this regard, countries around the world are using strategic plans that are focused on community

health in case of natural disasters. Quality improvement and risk management by developing a

natural disaster strategic plan for community health have become a necessity (Merry, & Crago

2001). The plan that can achieve it is the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and

Partnerships Process also known as MAPP.

MAPP is a collaboration of various stakeholders that are working in the civil service

sector, development sector, infrastructure sector, climate control, financial institutions and many

more that are related to humanities services (Jones, 2019). These stakeholders come together

under the platform or the process of MAPP, and they plan strategically to minimize the risks that

are associated with natural disasters. The outcome or the target is to strive for maximum

community health service being provided in terms of quality and minimizing risks. In terms of

the perceivable damage that is done by natural disasters (Fallon, Begun, & Riley, 2013). MAPP

has become a centralized mechanism that allows the stakeholders to come together and work

with a seamless flow of communication that helps raise the efficiency of the operation in the

overall context.
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Significance of Natural Disasters

Natural disasters are of many sorts and types. Their magnitude also plays an important

role in the destruction they leave behind them. As per the reports of the United Nations and

similar organizations, billions of dollars are lost in property damages and livelihoods of the

people. Similarly, lives are lost in the thousands if not millions around the world (Bagian, 2005).

After the natural disasters pass on they leave behind massive room for rehabilitation which

imposes great pressure on the global economies. In these aspects, climate specialists are left with

no other choice but to prepare for the damages each year that result in the occurrence of natural

disasters. The more damages these natural disasters create are in the underdeveloped nations

around the world, but they do not leave behind the developed nations as well when it comes to

the damages of property (Brehm, Ruddick, & Lundquist, 2003).

Natural disasters cannot be controlled nor can they be contained. Therefore the only way

out is to make sure those human beings are not its way of destruction. There have been instances

where whole communities are moved to safer places in times of floods, earthquakes, and even

tsunamis. The displaced communities are then forced to live poverty-stricken conditions and

poor health conditions (Plebani, 2005). All these aspects are due to the ever increasing natural

disasters. The effect of such catastrophes has been able to help evolve the human beings in

various ways as well. The infrastructure, for example, is now being made in earthquake-proof

materials and designs. These changes in the architecture are not restricted to rise in the cost of

construction, but it involves many other industries to be affected as well. The healthcare service

providers, for example, have become more prone towards managing situations of emergency in

the time of natural disasters (Nash & Goldfarb, 2006).

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Community Health and Natural Disasters

There is a large room left to be filled in terms of raising the quality of the services in time

of emergency and minimizing the risks that are related to natural disasters. Every year

communities around the world face a natural disaster, perhaps not the magnitude of recent

storms, but of sufficient size to cause an emergency in some part of the country. Moreover, all

the years are the same stories. The lack of foresight, devastated infrastructure, the complicity of

officials and developers, isolated communities, resources that do not reach in time and at the

right place. Perhaps, we cannot control natural phenomena, but we can mitigate their destructive

effects. Hurricanes and earthquakes are the work of Providence, but calamities are the

responsibility of the communities (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 2008).

Natural disasters are only quantified or measured, they only matter, concerning the

impact they have on human life and the economic activities. In other words, neither earthquakes

nor floods are a concern in depopulated areas, nor do they cause disasters or constitute risks in

them. They are disasters or constitute risks according to their consequences, not their origin.

From this perspective, they are anything but natural. In this aspect, there is a realization that loss

to human beings makes these natural occurrences a disaster or a calamity. If the loss on human

communities is minimized the devastation of these natural disasters will also be reduced if not

removed in its entirety. For these purposes, the governments are working with organizations like

the United Nations, World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross and

many others. The result is the strategic planning system or a set of processes that will be

activating in case of an event of a natural disaster ("The Patient-Centered Medical Home," 2019).
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That said, it is not less accurate than the territories occupied by a man, and his economic

activities have physical characteristics. The natural conditions cannot be ignored by those who

have to act on them. Of these characteristics and conditions, some can be considered regular

behavior and others of episodic or occasional behavior; it is these latter that are generally related

to natural disasters. The creation of natural disaster management departments in the national

setting has limited resources, and therefore they need the international assistance of the

organizations mentioned earlier. The organizations like the UN have billions of dollars,

thousands of specialized personnel and mobility based vehicles that are utilized in cases of

natural disasters (Jones, 2007). Still, the processes and programs like MAPP make sure that these

resources are utilized in the most efficient way possible.

In the current conditions of scientific advances and technological development, the Public

Administrations, when making their decisions, cannot be exempted from the knowledge of the

physical reality of their territories. Moreover, this must be valid both for the construction of the

roads and the properties of the soils on which they have to pass. As well as for establishing levels

of resistance to the seismic movements of buildings and other public constructions, for example,

need for bridges, without going any further. To establish precautions for the occupation of soils

in those subject to flood risks or to predict the effects of prolonged drought on the development

of human life and its economic activities a collaborated approach is a must (Hochrainer & Pflug,

2009).

Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP)

MAPP, as the name suggests, is the collaboration of people, money, resources,

transportations, professional knowledge and all other elements that can be combined to minimize
COMMUNITY HEALTH AND NATURAL DISASTER 6

the risks associated with the natural disasters. The MAPP in itself is a set of protocols that are

not restricted to certain people or locations but set of rules and standard operating procedures

that can work at random locations and with various available resources. The MAPP is a platform

where all the stakeholders of the natural calamity are brought in and streamlined according to the

role they will have and need to play to minimize the risks of the disaster. Further, it will become

the guiding process for the people involved to utilize, manage and evaluate the resources as per

the need and the requirement of the situation in case of the disaster (Sarena D. Seifer & Annika

Sgambelluri, 2008).

MAPP integrates the community in the efforts of the stakeholders that are sometimes not

familiar with the localities where the disaster has occurred. The communities become the most

integral and essential aspect of the MAPP as they are the ones at ground zero and are most

familiar of the surroundings and the consequences of the disaster that is being managed through

this massive collaboration (Yoko Matsuda, 2016). The communities take the role of the real-time

communicators among the stakeholders who are partnered from various organizations sometimes

local and sometimes international to assist serving the community health services. The

communication in the process of MAPP holds the key aspect which makes the whole operation

successful as they can manage the resources accordingly (Healy & Link, 2012).

The natural disasters cannot be managed without strategic planning, and MAPP is the

platform that allows the strategic plans to be executed. The stakeholders are the partners that

work in the plan and execute them according to the requirements and the magnitude of the

disaster at hand. There are many examples where MAPP has been executed, and with the time it

has been improving its operations and including works that are now more targeted towards the

pre-disaster aspects rather than the post-disaster aspects. MAPP now integrates personnel from
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the development sector, infrastructure sector, policymakers and healthcare service providers to

manage and plan the communities that will keep in mind the chance of a natural disaster

happening. The realization of having pre-disaster preparations allowed the MAPP stakeholders to

position themselves better to minimize the risk associated with the disasters and the

accompanying costs as well (Healy & Link, 2012).

Risk management in MAPP

As MAPP stakeholders identify all the possible risks that can harm a community in case

of a disaster, it must choose the ones that are most likely to happen. It will base its decision on

the past experiences regarding the probability of occurrence, its intuition, the lessons learned,

and the historical data, among others. At the beginning of a MAPP process, it is more at risk than

as it moves near its completion. Consequently, risk management in MAPP is done at the

beginning of the project, as well as continuously. The significance is that chance and hazard, as a

rule, generally remain high amid undertaking arranging, yet because of the moderately low

dimension of speculation now, what is in question stays low. Despite what might be expected,

amid the execution of the undertaking, the hazard falls dynamically to bring down dimensions as

the obscure end up known (Yoko Matsuda, 2016).

In the meantime, the stakes increment consistently as the fundamental assets are

contributed continuously to finish the venture. The basic point is that administration is a

consistent procedure and all things considered is done toward the start of the task, the

implementation of the MAPP processes in times of natural disasters and bringing services to the

community health. The community health and wellbeing is not restricted to the level of health

conditions they are having. They also include other aspects like their economies, living standards
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and all the aspects that fall under the livelihood of the community. MAPP provides a

comprehensive risk management protocol to the people who suffer from natural disasters.

Strategic Plan for Community Health

Earthquakes, floods, storms, hurricanes in short the nature itself, in many cases, become a

threat to urban centers. We must know the main risks they face, according to their location, and

be prepared with prevention and action plans. It is about making the cities resilient, that is,

capable of adapting to their environment and absorbing in a short time the effects of disasters or

any crisis. In short, make them safer and for the communities that are living in them. The United

Nations UN-Habitat resilient cities program aims to raise awareness among state administrations

and local governments of the need for this foresight work. These programs work in line with the

MAPP and sometimes are the stakeholders within the process of MAPP in a certain geographic

location around the world (SHI et al., 2011).

The US is an international benchmark for this program and, moreover, it forms part of the

Network of hundred Resilient Nations promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation which among the

top Non-Governmental Organizations working for the rehabilitation of communities in case of a

natural disaster, which has especially valued the innovative approach of MAPP and its action

plans. The capital cities have an Incident Control Center whose function is to manage risks using

information and data systems to know the situations and communicate them to the population in

real time also comes under the process of MAPP. On the other hand, resilience tables have been

created, made up of multidisciplinary teams, to identify the vulnerable points of the cities,

especially related to infrastructures and service networks. These collaborations are done to

centrally manage the response under the process of MAPP in times of a natural disaster.
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Programs like this must be continuous; they cannot be just specific actions. The task of

transforming a city to be able to withstand and respond to crises requires time and a significant

investment; on the other hand, it is very profitable as well. According to UN experts on natural

disasters, by all the money invested in urban resilience brings in between ten times of returns in

economic losses. In these scenarios, the execution of the MAPP process becomes the tool that

makes sure the resources are well managed, and the results are considerably less damaging then

they would have been without such processes (Healy & Link, 2012).

Objectives of the MAPP Process

We speak of security, economy, and habitability, because a prepared city is also a city

with a higher quality of life, as the MAPP process assures in its main operations (SHI et al.,

2011):

• That the population has adequate services and infrastructures, with buildings that

comply with safe building codes, erected on stable lands and far from alluvial areas.

• That the local authorities and the population know and understand the threats,

arranging information and rapid response systems. Japanese cities are a good example

of this: from kindergarten children are taught how to detect and react to earthquakes.

There are monitoring and preparation programs in which the entire community is

involved.

• That ecosystems and natural buffer zones be protected to mitigate floods, storm

surges and other threats to which a city may be vulnerable. Adapting to climate

change also helps reduce risks.

• Those technologies are implemented to monitor risks and facilitate early warning.
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• That there are assistance strategies, recovery, and rehabilitation of goods and

infrastructure to overcome the crisis in the shortest possible time. For example,

enabling health care, transportation, water, food, shelter, etc.

The city or the location of the disaster must be conceived as a system of systems, a

complex entity that, similar to the human body, requires the proper functioning of the different

organs to enjoy good health that is the overall function of MAPP in safeguarding the community

health. Organs first of all of the prevention, but also well prepared and with the collaboration of

the communities (Healy & Link, 2012).

Conclusion

The service quality given to the community in maintaining their health is based on the

minimal risks assessed and maintained by the stakeholders of the community. Natural disasters

have no confirmed timelines or location targets. They can occur anytime and reasonably at any

place, and there is no assurance if the disasters will happen simultaneously or not. In these

circumstances, the communities and their stakeholders can only prepare themselves for the

worst. MAPP is the framework of the preparation for such calamities. It is indeed proven over

time and has claimed enough evidence that MAPP is the process that can highly minimize the

risks associated with the natural disasters and can be the most important aspect while keeping

community health in mind and rehabilitating them in the better localities within the shortest

period of time and by being efficient in its proceeding.

Organizations like the UN and governmental bodies have already collaborated under the

platform of MAPP and keep on training the personnel to become more efficient in the times to

come. There is still no way that natural disasters can be avoided, but there are many ways that
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these disasters can be restricted to destroy the communities that are living around the world.

Human beings are growing in numbers and the more they grow, the more potential risk they face.

Programs and collaborations under the MAPP are perhaps the most promising ways that these

natural disasters are leaving fewer damages as they make their way in and out of the

communities. The advancement of MAPP will be directly proportional to the risk associated with

natural disasters as time progresses for every community in the world.

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