Disaster Response Plan

For this assignment you will be developing a disaster plan to address a hypothetical disaster that could plausibly strike the community that you observed for your Windshield Survey.  

A disaster can come in many forms. We might tend to associate disasters with mass natural disaster, like Hurricane Katrina or the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan. However, disasters also include relatively small man-made disasters, such as a fire in an apartment building or a gas leak in a factory (Maurer & Smith, 2013). 

You will also be asked to select one of the articles from the list below that addresses a response to a disaster, or provides guidelines for creating a disaster response plan. You will briefly evaluate the article’s disaster response practices and also explain aspects for the article’s disaster response that would be appropriate to incorporate into your plan, as well as aspects that would not be feasible to incorporate. By evaluating responses to disasters in communities outside of your own, you will be able to bring in global perspectives as well as gain a deeper understanding of aspects of disaster response plans that are universal, as well as aspects that are only primarily applicable to specific communities.  

Choose one of the following articles (see the Resources area for links to these articles): 

•Almutairi and Rondney’s 2013 article, “Critical Cultural Competence for Culturally Diverse Workforces: Toward Equitable and Peaceful Health Care,” from Advances in Nursing Science, volume 36, issue 3, pages 200–212. 

•ÖztekÄ°n, et al.’s 2014 article, “Educational Needs Concerning Disaster Preparedness and Response: A Comparison of Undergraduate Nursing Students From Istanbul, Turkey, and Miyazaki, Japan,” from Japan Journal of Nursing Science, volume 11, issue 2, pages 94–101. •Yamashita & Kudo’s 2014 article, “How Should We Prepare Differently for the Next Disaster?” from Nursing and Health Sciences, volume 16, issue 1, pages 56–59. 

•Zaré, et al.’s 2012 article, “Crisis Management of Tohoku; Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, 11 March 2011,” from Iranian Journal of Public Health, volume 41, issue 6, pages 12–20.  

Your plan should address and include the following:  

Section 1: Article Evaluation (1–2 pages) 

•An evaluation of the disaster response presented in the article you selected from the provided list. 

•An explanation of aspects of the article’s disaster response that you plan on incorporating into your own Disaster Response Plan. Please include your rationale for why you are choosing to incorporate these aspects into your plan. 

•An explanation of aspects of the article’s disaster response that would not be appropriate or plausible to include in your disaster response plan. Please include your rationale for why these aspects would not be appropriate or plausible to incorporate these aspects into your plan.  

Section 2: Community Disaster Response Plan (5–7 pages) 

•Describe the hypothetical disaster for your surveyed community that your plan will be addressing. Be sure to include details such as: 

◦Scope of the disaster. 

◦Intensity of the disaster. 

◾Effects on the community environment as a result of the disaster. 

◾Immediate health impacts on people in the community. 

◾Medium and long-term health impacts on people in the community.   

•Communication procedures: When and how should public health department nurses communicate with each other in a disaster? When should they communicate with other first responders, law enforcement, and other resources/responders in a disaster? 

•Communication procedures for coordinating care with hospitals and other resources. 

◦Note: During disasters, acute care hospitals become overwhelmed—less critical patients may be treated at field hospitals, leaving room for critical patients in functioning acute care facilities. Identify who will communicate with whom.  

•The triage system you would use for assessing victims. 

•How will you address the needs of vulnerable populations (the elderly, children, mentally ill, homeless, and so on)? 

•How will you address cultural groups and non-English speaking persons? 

•Housing and shelter: 

◦How will you let the residents of your community know where to go? 

◦What system will you use to fill shelters? 

◦How will you communicate shelter capacity to prevent overcrowding the shelters? What resources will you use to help staff shelters? 

◦How many nurses will you allocate for shelters? Will you use nurses to staff shelters? 

◦Will you use other nursing resources to staff shelters, such as Red Cross, U.S. Commissioned Corps, military nurses, and so on?  

•What resources will you use to help provide food, water, and toilet facilities for victims? 

◦Who will you call and when will you call?  

•What procedures will you implement to prevent disease outbreak? 

•How will you care for the needs of the public health department nursing staff?  Other requirements and considerations:

 •Your plan should be as detailed as possible. 

•Use a minimum of four peer-reviewed journal articles (the article you select from the provided list counts as one of the four) to support the effectiveness of your plan. Be sure to use proper APA style and formatting. •Include a title page. 

•Include a reference page. 

Be sure to use proper APA style and formatting. 

•Times New Roman font, 12 pt.