It was a new way of addressing disaster in 1971 when it was founded.
“It’s simple really: go where the patients are. It seems obvious, but at the time it was a revolutionary concept because borders got in the way. It’s no coincidence that we called it ‘Médecins Sans Frontières.’”
There were many personal interviews along with overall analysis of the system through history of the industry and related companies. He combined both personal subjective experience and objective events to strengthen his arguement.
This article covers the investigation procedure following a tragedy, and how the outcomes of these investigations tend to be muddled due to factors outside of logic and reason. These influencing factors make it difficult to draw conclusions as to what contributing factors were most significant in the damage sustained during the tragedy, and how to best avoid them in the future. For this reason, it addresses how difficult it is to improve disaster-response when so little useful information can be gleaned from the modern investigatory procedure.
The program's advocacy targets the public, health providers, and policy makers in order to enact real change in the system. It is designed to educate others on prisoners and their issues within the prison system.
They use aggregated interviews wherein all or many of the survivors repeat the same issues with long term effects of the disaster.
They also study the socioeconomic longterm effects of the disaster by comparing New Orleans years later to the past, showing how permanent an effect the storm had despite eventual recovery.
They also used sociological surveys that showed widespread mental health disorders that developed throughout the survivor population in greater frequency than that of the normal population due to the events that occured.
The policy defines what an Institute for Mental Disorders is and and payment exclusions for those under medicaid (<21 or 22 y/o or >65 y/o).
I read through some information about the Bhopal disaster that was referenced, as well as some other articles on Nuclear Emergency Response. I also found some protocol for Radiation Sickness. (Potassium Iodide, Prussian Blue, DTPA, Neupogen)
The author speaks of Dr. Per Bech, a Dutch Psychiatrist, and his co-author Lone Lindberg, and his patient who suffered from mental illness over the course of his life, and how the vignette Bech wrote about this patient had value and relevance for understanding the use of Zoloft.
More studies referencing corpses and their effects on epidemics
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/envsan/tn08/en/
Emergency preparedness in developing nations
How EMS deals epidemics