About Disaster Epidemiology

Overview

Collecting health and needs information during a disaster helps to provide situational awareness. When we know what is happening, we can determine what the needs are, plan the response, and gather the appropriate resources. These actions can help to decrease mortality and morbidity and improve prevention and mitigation strategies for future disasters.

Typically, the main objectives of disaster epidemiology are the following:

• Prevent or reduce the number of deaths, illnesses, and injuries caused by disasters
• Provide timely and accurate health information for decision-makers
• Improve prevention and mitigation strategies for future disasters by gaining information for future response preparation

Available tools

State, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments should look first at the tools they are using in non-disaster settings to assess their applicability for adaption to a disaster response.

CDC provides various tools for public health disaster response including template forms for morbidity surveillance, mortality surveillance, shelter assessments, and the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response, CASPER toolkit.

Request CDC assistance

CDC provides scientific consultation, technical assistance, and disaster epidemiology training to STLT, federal, and international public health partners to help them respond to natural and human-induced disasters. There are several ways you can request CDC assistance.

If you would like more information on CDC consultation, technical assistance, or disaster epidemiology training, please visit the training and technical assistance webpage.

Public health surveillance during a disaster

Public health surveillance is the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of deaths, injuries, and illnesses to provide information about any adverse health effects related to a disaster event in a community. It allows us to assess the human health impacts of a disaster and evaluate potential problems related to planning and prevention.

Purpose

Public health morbidity surveillance allows us to detect disease outbreaks and track disease and injury trends. A common myth is that epidemics are inevitable during a disaster. Early detection and response, however, can lessen the likelihood for outbreaks. Additionally, conducting health surveillance allows public health leaders and decision makers to make informed decisions about action items such as allocating resources, tailoring interventions to meet specific needs, and planning for future disasters.

In addition to public health morbidity surveillance, mortality surveillance can provide information that can prevent excess death. The number of deaths is a strong indicator of the impact of the disaster.

Disasters can overwhelm local medical examiners and emergency systems, disrupting typical reporting methods. Most mortality surveillance data (such as Vital Statistics) are collected in a way that is not timely or detailed enough to be useful for disaster response. Thus, implementing active mortality surveillance following a disaster provides a critical aspect to response.

Available tools

CDC has several ready-to-use templates for morbidity and mortality surveillance. These tools can supplement existing surveillance systems or replace surveillance systems that have been hindered or destroyed due to a disaster. For more information, review the Tools and Resources page.

Creating a surveillance system

During disasters, several steps may need to be conducted simultaneously when planning a surveillance system. Just as purpose and objective should be clear in any disaster response effort, the surveillance system should have well-defined objectives. Additionally, data sources need to be identified and selected.

Facility-based surveillance of hospitals and emergency medical operations can provide information on those seeking care during a disaster, yet there is often the need to use additional nontraditional sources of information (such as a shelters, pharmacies, or physician offices) as well. Ideally, data collection instruments for surveillance should be developed, tested, and distributed before the disaster occurs (e.g., CDC-developed surveillance tools). However, these instruments will need to be modified for each disaster and location.

The data collection instrument should collect only the most essential information and should have easy data entry. For information to be useful, it must be disseminated in a timely fashion through appropriate channels (e.g., public health and other government officials, relief workers, the affected community, and the media).

Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER)

The Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) is a type of rapid needs assessment (RNA). The assessment is designed to provide public health leaders and emergency managers with household-based information about a community. It is quick, reliable, relatively inexpensive, and flexible.

CASPER uses valid statistical methods to gather information. They can be conducted throughout the disaster cycle (preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation) and in non-disaster situations.

The information generated can be used to:

• Initiate public health action
• Identify information gaps
• Facilitate disaster planning, response, and recovery activities
• Allocate resources
• Assess new or changing needs in the community

Epidemiologic studies

Public health disaster studies help identify associations between disasters and mortality or morbidity. It can also help evaluate programs or response techniques to yield decisions and assess the successfulness of the program or response.

CDC conducts epidemiologic studies and research on various disaster-related topics. Our subject matter experts also provide technical assistance to partners in conducting their own research.