Search

This report was published by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. 

Dr. Ticktin states in her introduction the report came about through both her personal experience with humanitarian efforts & sexual violence treatment and through supplemental studies. Her bibliography reflects this, and includes multiple studies/reports from humanitarian organizations. Additionally, she utilized multiple independent media sources discussing sexual violence in conflicts, the targeting of female populations, and humanitarian efforts within this realm. The bibliography also includes a multitude of research articles from various human rights journals and publications pertaining to female rights during conflicts.

Much of the data for this paper was drawn from historical examples of response to major disease outbreaks such as AIDS and the policies created by organization such as the World Health Organization, like the smallpox caccination program, to cope with them. This data, the timeline it presents, and the results illustrate the ever changing nature of international health security.

Sonja D. Schmid, Ph.D., works as an assistant professor of STS (science and technology studies) at Virginia Tech. Her expertise includes history of technology, social studies of risk, and energy policy with a concentration on nuclear industry and proliferation. Dr. Schmid appears to have an extensive list of publications following the Fukushima incident, including a book on the development of the Soviet Nuclear industry (MIT 2015). 

This article was meant to highlight the gaps in data available for violence against health care/aid workers in unsecured areas. As such, a large portion of the methods segment is dedicated to discussing the difficulties in locating this data and any patterns in data gaps. The primary method of collection, it appears, was through an initial search for peer-reviewed work that transformed into an accumulation of accounts from media, documentary, and editorial reports. It should be noted that some data is available from various organizations, regarding their specific statistics; however, this mainly tends to focus on larger incidents, such as kidnappings and deaths (as mentioned in the paper). There is also some information available through Aid Workers Security Database, but shortcomings in this area are also heavily noted.

The main point of this article is to look at the shortcomings of the response to the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 by the NYPD, PAPD, and FDNY. The article shows that the response was plauged by communication breakdowns between fire companies and commanders, a complete lack of communication between fire and law enforcement agencies with heavy roots in the history of the two departments, and an uncoordinated response by off duty firefighters, who swarmed the area after the attacks. The article discusses various improvements that could have been made after the 1993 bombing and would have significantly effected response on 9/11 such as the improvement and standardization of radio hardware and channels between departments, joint training drills, more rigid command durring response, and the adoption of the FEMA incident command system.

1) Haitian government instability: Despite some knowledge of the Dominican Republic, I hadn't fully grasped the political instability in Haiti. This is an important factor when looking at disaster relief as political climate can often dictate how well or poorly aid is received.

2) USAID: I've chosen to delve into more about the USAID, including what countries are currently being given aid and how, including Haiti.

3) UN Peacekeeping units: obviously, a force meant to be helpful and to bring the world a little closer. Yet, the article seems to indicate peacekeeping forces can do more harm than good; I'm curious to see if this is a common theme, and if so, why this continues to occur.

With resources available I was unable to determine where else this book has been referenced externally, however the themes and topics presented in this work appear in some of Fassin's other works.

While there was criticism of the policy (see the Washington Post's rebuttal), the policy appeared to be well received until implementation of quarantine for returning health care workers. This, and the backlash, caused the policy to be revised and invited confusion about guidelines. Leaders may have lost political points by staying firm with their guidelines, but chose to revoke their initial decisions-- leading to confusion and worry in the general population.