10/14/09 EMForum.org Background Page: Long-term Human Disaster Recovery

The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations
in Long-Term Human Recovery After Disaster

Anita Chandra, Dr.P.H.
Behavioral Scientist
RAND Corporation

October 14, 2009

Contents:
Live Meeting Recording (WMV) This is a large file and requires Windows Media Player or Windows Media Components for QuickTime, or a similar product to view.
Transcript (HTML)
Transcript (MS Word)
Reviews
Rate/Review This Session

Related Websites:
Full Report, The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations in Long-Term Human Recover
Report Summary
9/23/09 Press Release
RAND Gulf States Policy Institute
RAND Health
HHS National Health Security Strategy

RATINGS
		19 Ratings Submitted
	4 (21%)	Academia 2 (11%)
	7 (37%)	Business 4 (21%)
	8 (42%)	Government 5 (26%)
	0 (0%)	Volunteers 7 (37%)
	0 (0%)	Other 1 (5%)

REVIEWS

"Good overview."
Lee Sapaden
SRA International Inc.

"I only managed to catch a brief portion of today's presentation, look forward to viewing the recording. Found background links very useful & will share with colleagues. "

"Well done. I hope that FEMA and others will look at these recomendations seriously as we move forward."
Eric Evans
University of Missouri Extension

"Case management is hugely important in the individual's recovery, but we must not forget the importance of knowledgeable, consistent construction management through a long term recovery group, to help homeowners understand the process and help them with the walk they may have little or no understanding of."
Jean Peercy
Lutheran Disaster Response

"This is an excellent presentation as far as getting us thinking about needs. Where does Homeland Security fit into recovery operations? Where does it fit with response operations? It seems that the coordination between local/state/FEMA and Homeland Security is gravely lacking. This puts NGO's in a very difficult position."
Janice Oldham

"Very interesting overview of the studies presented. Seems to confirm the impression that local, state, and national levels of response to different emergency scenarios are about the same overall. I was hoping that the communications capability amid the response infrastructure had improved, since the population has increased so much more and needs to be addressed. The ability and capability of private sector and volunteers who help with disasters is now severely overworked, thus the systems are suffering, from the input I've had for some time. We seem to have some confusion with individuals who are part of the leadership of a public sector agency in their interpretation of rules and how they relate to volunteers. I hope these problems have been addressed and corrected. "
Gilbert Gibbs
Port Aransas Emergnecy Managment volunteer, RACES and ARES member

"Very good presentation. It was good to learn about the efforts being made to address this "most neglected area within recovery.

"This was a very informative and useful presentation. Thank you very much for making this one available."

ANITA CHANDRA

Dr. Anita Chandra (Dr.P.H., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; M.P.H., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is a Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation. She has a background in public health systems research, child and adolescent health, and community-based participatory research and evaluation.

Throughout her career, Dr. Chandra has been engaged in working with community partners to address disparities in health care access and to improve public health intervention programs, to expand our understanding of the needs of children and families dealing with stress, and to build evaluation capacity among community-based organizations particularly those that serve children.

In the area of public health systems research and preparedness, Dr. Chandra has been actively involved in a series of projects with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). She currently co-leads a task on preparedness planning for special needs populations, resulting in a toolkit for state and local planners. In addition, she has been instrumental in developing the special needs population and community resilience components of the draft National Health Security Strategy, for which RAND is working with DHHS.

She has been an investigator on several related efforts, including: identifying strategies to improve the public health volunteer corps; examining the public health response to the Hurricanes of 2005 with attention to at-risk or special needs populations; developing infrastructure standards for points of dispensing of mass prophylaxis with a national expert panel; and evaluating the 24/7 response of local health departments to communicable disease reports.