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Introduction
Public health emergencies and disaster events have challenged the world’s preparedness and response capabilities for decades (Figure 1). Since the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, U.S. government agencies have redoubled their efforts to strengthen national preparedness, response, and recovery. With this national multiagency effort and continued exposure to new public health emergencies and disasters, the field of disaster research has evolved and has become commonplace in the post-disaster setting.
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Figure 1. Timeline of major global public health emergencies and disasters, 2001–2016. Figure 1 is adapted with permission from Lurie et al. (2013). We modified it significantly by extending the timeline, formatting color, and stratifying disasters by international and domestic.
From a government agency perspective, disaster research is the study of individual, community and organizational preparedness, response, and recovery from a broad range of disaster types. Disaster research is essential to understanding how to prepare for and respond to catastrophic events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, disease outbreaks and pandemics, hazardous material spills, and large-scale acts of terrorism, as well as understanding their impact on human health.
A unique feature of most disaster studies is the urgency of initiating data collection soon after the event to capture ephemeral baseline data that may be lost or subject to recall bias if collected later. Although the value of well-designed research studies in the immediate aftermath of disasters is recognized, there remain significant challenges that must be addressed to facilitate their administration. Some key challenges include time pressures related to the development of protocols and study materials, acquisition of rapid funding to support research work, concerns of the study team interfering with life-saving disaster response activities, and compromising a frail community (Lurie et al. 2013; Miller et al. 2016).
Despite its recognized value, research involving human subjects after disasters may pose ethical concerns (Ferreira et al. 2015; O’Mathúna 2009). For example, the lack of coordination across investigators conducting research after a disaster can result in survivors being approached to join research by multiple research teams asking similar questions and requesting duplicative sample collections. In addition to the burden this may place on survivors, it can lead to unnecessary confusion when representatives from aid organizations offering direct assistance are in the field...