(A44) Roadmap to Disaster Medicine and Public Health Information

Abstract

Reliable & easily accessible health information is needed before, during, and after disasters. The U.S. National Library of Medicine's Disaster Information Management Research Center has developed a portal linking to resources, guides, and tools for use by disaster/emergency personnel in preparing for, responding, to and recovering from disasters (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov). This session will introduce you to many of the disaster health information sources available on the Internet. Disaster information tools, such as the Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) and the Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) resource will be demonstrated. WISER assists responders in HazMat/CBRN incidents. Capabilities include support for substance identification, on-site incident management, and health management/guidance. The REMM tool provides guidance for health care personnel about clinical diagnosis & treatment of radiation injury during radiological & nuclear emergencies. WISER and REMM are available on the Web and as apps for a variety of mobile devices including the Blackberry and iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. In addition how to access the disaster health literature from PubMed, the Resource Guide for Public Health Preparedness, and other sources will be discussed. Social medial tools for keeping up-to-date will be presented. Topics to be presented: NLM and other US resources for disaster health information. Other sources of disaster health information, including associations; non-governmental organizations, and international organizations. Databases and information aggregators. Disaster information tools and mobile applications Evaluating/assessing information on the web. How to stay up-to-date: listservs, RSS feeds, blogs, Twitter, etc.