Tansey Catherine M, Pringle John, Davé Anushree, Boulanger Renaud, Hunt Matthew
Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada and McMaster University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Assistant Professor at the Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada and McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
PLoS Curr. 2018 Aug 30;10:ecurrents.dis.57d98a902a326361d88d54521e68b016. doi: 10.1371/currents.dis.57d98a902a326361d88d54521e68b016.
Health-related disaster research is a relatively small; but growing field of inquiry. A better understanding of the scope and scale of health-related disaster research that has occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) would be useful to funders, researchers, humanitarian aid organizations, and governments as they strive to identify gaps, disparities, trends, and needs of populations affected by disasters.
We performed a scoping review using the process outlined by Arksey & O'Malley to assess the characteristics of peer-reviewed publications of empirical health-related disaster research conducted in LMICs and published in the years 2003-2012.
Five hundred and eighty-two relevant publications were identified. Earthquakes were by far the most commonly researched events (62% of articles) in the review's timeframe. More articles were published about disasters in China & South Asia/South East Asia than all other regions. Just over half of the articles (51%) were published by research teams in which all the authors' primary listed affiliations were with an institution located in the same country where the research was conducted. Most of the articles were classified as either mental health, neurology and stress physiology (35%) or as traumatology, wounds and surgery (19%). In just over half of the articles (54%), data collection was initiated within 3 months of the disaster, and in 13% research was initiated between 3 and 6 months following the disaster. The articles in our review were published in 282 different journals.
The high number of publications studying consequences of an earthquake may not be surprising, given that earthquakes are devastating sudden onset events in LMICs. Researchers study topics that require immediate attention following a disaster, such as trauma surgery, as well as health problems that manifest later, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. One neglected area of study during the review's timeframe was the impact of disasters on non-communicable and chronic diseases (excluding mental health), and the management of these conditions in the aftermath of disasters. Strengthening disaster research capacity is critical for fostering robust research in the aftermath of disasters, a particular need in LMICs.
与健康相关的灾害研究是一个规模相对较小但仍在不断发展的研究领域。更好地了解低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）已开展的与健康相关的灾害研究的范围和规模，对于资助者、研究人员、人道主义援助组织和政府而言是有益的，因为他们致力于找出受灾害影响人群的差距、差异、趋势和需求。
我们采用阿克西和奥马利概述的流程进行了一项范围综述，以评估2003年至2012年间在低收入和中等收入国家开展并发表的、经同行评审的与健康相关的实证灾害研究出版物的特征。
共识别出582篇相关出版物。在综述的时间范围内，地震是迄今为止研究最普遍的事件（占文章的62%）。关于中国及南亚/东南亚灾害的文章比其他所有地区都多。略超过一半（51%）的文章由研究团队发表，这些团队所有作者的主要列出机构都位于开展研究所在的同一个国家。大多数文章被归类为心理健康、神经学和应激生理学（35%）或创伤学、伤口与外科（19%）。略超过一半（54%）的文章在灾害发生后3个月内开始数据收集，13%的研究在灾害发生后3至6个月开始。我们综述中的文章发表在282种不同的期刊上。
鉴于地震在低收入和中等收入国家是具有毁灭性的突发灾害事件，研究地震后果的出版物数量众多或许并不令人惊讶。研究人员既研究灾害后需要立即关注的主题，如创伤外科，也研究后来出现的健康问题，如创伤后应激障碍。在综述的时间范围内，一个被忽视的研究领域是灾害对非传染性和慢性疾病（不包括心理健康）的影响以及灾害后对这些疾病的管理。加强灾害研究能力对于促进灾害后的有力研究至关重要，这在低收入和中等收入国家尤为必要。
