Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management, Mumbai, India.
Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2011 Jun;5(2):112-6. doi: 10.1001/dmp.2011.35.
The technology and resource-rich solutions of the developed world may not be completely applicable to or replicable in disasters occurring in the developing world. With the current looming hazards of pandemics, climate change, global terrorism and conflicts around the world, policy makers and governments will need high-quality scientific data to make informed decisions for preparedness and mitigation. The evidence on disasters in peer-reviewed journals about the developing world was examined for quality and quantity in this systematic review.
PubMed was searched using the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms disasters, disaster medicine, rescue work, relief work, and conflict and then refined using the MeSH term developing country. The final list of selected manuscripts were analyzed by type of article, level of evidence, theme of the manuscript and topic, author affiliation, and region of the study.
After searching and refining, <1% of the citations in PubMed addressed disasters in developing countries. The majority was original research articles or reviews, and most of the original research articles were level IV or V evidence. Less than 25% of the authors were from the developing world. The predominant themes were missions, health care provision, and humanitarian aid during the acute phase of disasters in the developing world.
Considering that 85% of disasters and 95% of disaster-related deaths occur in the developing world, the overwhelming number of casualties has contributed insignificantly to the world's peer-reviewed literature. Less than 1% of all disaster-related publications are about disasters in the developing world. This may be a publication bias, or it may be a genuine lack of submissions dealing with these disasters. Authors in this part of the world need to contribute to future disaster research through better-quality systematic research and better funding priorities. Aid for sustaining long-term disaster research may be a more useful investment in mitigating future disasters than short-term humanitarian aid missions to the developing world.
发达国家技术和资源丰富的解决方案可能不完全适用于或无法复制到发展中国家发生的灾害中。随着当前大流行病、气候变化、全球恐怖主义和世界各地冲突的潜在威胁，政策制定者和政府将需要高质量的科学数据，以便为备灾和缓解做出明智的决策。本系统评价旨在检查关于发展中国家灾害的同行评议期刊中的证据的质量和数量。
使用医学主题词（MeSH）术语灾害、灾害医学、救援工作、救济工作和冲突在 PubMed 中进行搜索，然后使用 MeSH 术语发展中国家进行精炼。使用文章类型、证据水平、手稿主题和主题、作者隶属关系和研究区域对选定手稿的最终列表进行分析。
经过搜索和精炼，PubMed 中只有不到 1%的引文涉及发展中国家的灾害。大多数是原始研究文章或综述，其中大部分原始研究文章的证据水平为 IV 级或 V 级。不到 25%的作者来自发展中国家。主要主题是发展中国家灾难急性期的任务、医疗保健提供和人道主义援助。
考虑到 85%的灾害和 95%的灾害相关死亡发生在发展中国家，绝大多数受灾者对世界同行评议文献的贡献微不足道。与灾害相关的出版物中只有不到 1%是关于发展中国家的灾害。这可能是一种发表偏倚，也可能是由于提交的关于这些灾害的文章确实很少。世界这一地区的作者需要通过更优质的系统研究和更好的资金优先事项为未来的灾害研究做出贡献。为维持长期灾害研究提供援助可能比对发展中国家的短期人道主义援助任务更有助于减轻未来的灾害。
