Rapid risk assessment for communicable diseases in humanitarian emergencies: validation of a rapid risk assessment tool for communicable disease risk in humanitarian emergencies

Hammer, Charlotte, Brainard, Julii and Hunter, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5608-6144 (2019) Rapid risk assessment for communicable diseases in humanitarian emergencies: validation of a rapid risk assessment tool for communicable disease risk in humanitarian emergencies. Global Biosecurity, 1 (2).

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Abstract

Background: Communicable diseases pose a significant risk in humanitarian emergencies. This paper reports on the development and validation of a rapid risk assessment tool for communicable diseases in humanitarian emergencies. Methods: We developed a tool assessing the 20 most critical risk factors for disease outbreaks in humanitarian emergencies. This paper reports on the development and validation of the tool consisting of face and content validation with key informant interviews (n=25) and a reliability validation (inter-rater reliability test) with groups of volunteer aid workers (n=4 groups). Findings: Face and content validation confirmed the importance of rapid risk assessment methods and the suitability and usefulness of the developed tool. Participants without prior health protection experience were able fill in the tool with an accuracy of 81·25% (SD 77·17-85·33) across both scenarios (82·35% and 80·15% for scenarios 1 and 2 respectively). Errors primarily occurred when judging the severity of risk factors that could not be captured quantitatively. Revisions of the tool have been made based on the validation process. Conclusion: The tool was successfully validated for the use in different humanitarian emergency settings and is suitable for users with and without experience in health protection.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: communicable diseases,disasters,epidemiology,health protection,humanitarian emergencies,risk assessment,medicine(all),sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2700
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Epidemiology and Public Health
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Public Health and Health Services Research (former - to 2023)
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Water Security Research Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Population Health
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 05 Jun 2019 11:30
Last Modified: 19 Oct 2023 02:27
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/71253
DOI: 10.31646/gbio.24

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