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The system is primarily used by researchers, scholars, and organizations with humanitarian interests. The app also has functions which would attract users that are beginning research and do not have established connections within the field as the app provides a support system.

This article discusses public health and biosecurity. The authors discuss the need for preparedness and risks that start outbreaks. The article is broken into four domains: emerging infection disease, bioterrorism, cutting-edge life-sciences, and food safety in order to highlight their arguments. Through public health initiatives, it is important to identify security risks and prevent them from negatively impacting the world. 

The methods used in this paper include interviews from 11 different representatives of organizations working in complex security environments, information from research workshops that included researchers and practitioners in the fields of health and humanitarian aid delivery and policy, and overall analysis of organizational efforts made to address this type of violence.

Emergency response is addressed both in short term, through the interviews with survivors about their escape from the floodwaters and transport out of the city, as well as the lasting effects of the program and response efforts. The immediate response was not as effective as it could have been, in great part the collaborative efforts of communities rather than response groups. The delay in the arrival of response groups such as the National Guard and the Red Cross was in part due to a lack of communication, after the hurricane a significant amount of damage was done to the infrastructure of the city, creating difficulties for the rest of the country to know how serious the flooding was when the levees broke. This delayed the response and likely was responsible for the loss of many lives and continued traumatic experiences of many survivors. The following years showed an immediate lack of interest by the nation once the initial disaster was over. The article highlights this problem with emergency response, that rebuilding after a disaster can be even more challenging then the initial response and requires continued support for those effected.

Because this organization works primarily within workplaces, their goal to prevent disasters and emergencies provides them with an interesting outlook. Their focus on ensuring safety for workers gives them a proactive perspective as opposed to one that responds to disasters. 

I was interested in the accident prevention mindset that was in part responsible for poor response in past nuclear disasters, so I read a summary of “Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity” by Ulrich Beck, one of the works referenced in Schmid’s article. The summary better explained the societal mindset that a structured set of rules for accident prevention was more reliable that the educated and adaptive individual.

The point that nuclear fallout does not respect national borders was interesting, so I looked at how far fallout can spread. An understanding of how geological features such as mountains and valleys can affect the immediate fallout zone and how meteorological conditions can spread eradiated rain and wind significant distances from the site of a disaster would be important in the evacuation and clean up portions of a response to a nuclear disaster.

When discussing existing emergency response groups that dealt with nuclear disasters the IAEA was mentioned several times, so I looked into the organization and their responsibilities. Although the IEAE is often criticized for its slow response to Fukushima, I found that the organizations stated missions are to promote peaceful use of nuclear energy and safety, as well as implement safeguards meant to prevent military use of nuclear energy. While an international group that works closely with the nuclear industry it does not claim any responsibility to act as a response group to nuclear disasters.

• “interest in how disasters could influence communities and result in large-scale effects, as well as interest in the mental and physical health consequences of different types of disasters, the influence of context on risk to mental health, and the distinct needs of different types of disaster victims.” (170)
• “Consistent with life-course epidemiologic perspectives (37), characteristics or experiences of individuals before, during, and after a disaster may influence mental health outcomes and interact to produce psychopathology.” (174)
• “The key functions of pre-disaster preparation efforts are to prevent or minimize exposure to potentially traumatic disaster-related events and reduce likelihood of additional post-disaster stressors, which are both associated with post-disaster mental disorders. Local governments and communities can reduce the likelihood and severity of disaster exposure” (176)

The entirety of this document illustrates how vulnerable refugees are. They define refugee to be someone who has been persecuted for reasons of "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." They discuss the fear that refugees feel and that they should be treated favorably, sympathetically, and like other citizens of the contracting state. 

The bibliography shows references to several papers by many of the same authors, showing it was produced as a continuation of previous ideas but showing new information learned through the PIH’s activities in Haiti and Rwanda. The bibliography also shows many references from the early to mid 1990’s showing similar thoughts to initial research done in Baltimore and other places with high rates of AIDS.