Health Emergencies and Disasters Preparedness

Dear Colleagues,

Infectious disease outbreaks and natural, technological and other hazards may have adverse effects on people’s health, the economy, politics and society. However, they can also be health emergencies in their own nature such as the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the mpox emergency and seasonal infectious diseases, among others. Emergencies and disasters can trigger a variety of hazards in the affected areas, threatening all involved in the emergency response and recovery efforts. These associated hazards may be different from the main emergency event. A typical example comprises geophysical hazards with considerable impact capable of causing outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The complexity of an emergency response is greater when hazards of different types occur simultaneously or evolve in parallel. A typical recent example is the evolving COVID-19 pandemic that created many challenges, especially in disaster management and public health. These challenges are attributed to incompatibilities between the emergency response actions to manage disaster impact and the pandemic's mitigation measures. They also highlighted as never before the importance and necessity of effective preparedness, not only of Civil Protection staff and Public Health organizations but also the personal preparedness of individuals, families and communities. 

The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect original research papers and reviews covering recent advances in health emergencies and disasters preparedness realted to the following topics:

• Descriptive studies of past and active health emergencies and disasters related to pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks as well as to natural and technological hazards;
• Health assessment and surveillance studies following health emergencies and disasters associated with natural hazards;
• Effective policies, plans, strategies and initiatives to increase preparedness of institutions, communities, families and individuals to a range of public health threats, including, but not limited to, infectious diseases, non-infectious diseases, natural hazards and technological accidents and disasters;
• Health emergencies and disasters preparedness perception studies;
• Studies on lessons learned during responses to health emergencies.

Dr. Maria D. Mavrouli
Dr. Spyridon Mavroulis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• health emergencies
• preparedness
• disasters
• response
• pandemics
• infectious disease outbreaks
• natural hazards
• surveillance
• health assessment studies
• early detection
• risk perception