Health crisis

Health crisis
A health crisis or public health crisis is a difficult situation or complex health system that affects humans in one or more geographic areas (mainly occurred in natural hazards), from a particular locality to encompass the entire planet. Health crises generally have significant impacts on community health, loss of life, and on the economy. They may result from disease, industrial processes or poor policy.
Its severity is often measured by the number of people affected by its geographical extent, or the disease or death of the pathogenic process which it originates.
Features
Generally there are three key components in health crises:
Public health problem
Problem health coordination
Alarm care: Poor communication of risks to the population resulting in social upheaval.
Types
Environmental
Food
Toxic
Examples
1858: Swill milk scandal
1905: American meat scandal due to the publishing of Upton Sinclair's book "The Jungle".
1918-1920: Spanish flu
1963: Birth defects by thalidomide
1981: Toxic oil syndrome or simply toxic syndrome
HIV/AIDS
1996: Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad-cow disease
1998: Doñana disaster, also known as the Aznalcollar Disaster or Guadiamar Disaster
2001: Anthrax attacks in the United States, also known as Amerithrax
2003: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
2004: Avian influenza (H5N1), sometimes avian flu, and commonly bird flu
2006: Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump
Trans fat toxicity
2007: Lead paint on toys from China
2008: The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident in China, involving milk and infant formula, and other food materials and components, adulterated with melamine.
Canada listeriosis outbreak and Chile
2009: Pandemic H1N1/09 Influenza
2010: Haiti earthquake
2011: Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
E. coli O104:H4 outbreak
2012: Fraud on breast implants Poly Implant Prothèses (PIP)
2013-16: Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
2015: Zika virus outbreak
2019-ongoing: COVID-19 pandemic
2022: 2022 monkeypox outbreak
Prevention and control
Using the health warning systems. A health system responsive to the needs of the population is required to refine the instruments to ensure adequate preparation before their hatching.
Transparency of the institutions public or private. The perception of crisis can escape the control of experts or health institutions, and be determined by stakeholders to provide solutions propagate or concerned. This requires a difficult balancing of the need to articulate clear answers and the little-founded fears.
Adequate information policy. Irrationality arise when information is distorted, or hidden. Face a health crisis involves: respect for society, coordination of organizations and an institution with scientific weight to the people and to the media, who acted as spokesman in situations of public health risk, to get confidence citizens. The technical capacity of health professionals is more proven than the public officials, which suggests a greater share of the former and better training of the second.
Evaluate the previous crisis or others experiences. Crises are challenges that must be learned from both the mistakes and successes, since they serve to bring about to the devices and improve the response to other crises. It is important to perform analysis of previous responses, audit risk and vulnerability, research and testing, and drills to prepare themselves against future crises.
Having objectives: "first, to reduce the impact of illness and death, and second, to avoid social fracture".
Preparing contingency plans. Preparation is key to the crisis because it allows a strong response, organized, and scientifically based. Action plans must meet the professional early enough and properly trained, and politicians must be consistent in their actions and coordinate all available resources. It is essential to invest in public health resources to prepare preventive measures and reducing health inequalities to minimize the impact of health crises, as they generally always the poorest suffer most.
It is important to include all health professions especially primary health care (family physicians, pharmacists, etc.), as often it is these practitioners that are on the front-line in health crises.
See also
Global health
Health policy
Crisis theory
Disease mongering
Health administration
Health care
Health policy
Health law
Medicalization
Primary health care
Routine health outcomes measurement
Thalidomide
Universal health care
References
Bibliography
Bashir SA. Home Is Where the Harm Is: Inadequate Housing as a Public Health Crisis. American Journal of Public Health. 2002; 92(5):733-8.
Gross J. The Next Public Health Crisis: Longevity. The New York Times. 2010/10/21.
Navarro V. Spain is experiencing a Period of intense Social Crisis. Social Europe Journal. 12/11/2012.
External links
CDCynergy
WHO: Humanitarian Health Action
US Health Crisis
Crisis
Health disasters
Health policy
Public health
Health economics
Health education
Health law
Global health
Health sciences