This book presents a decade of advances in the psychological, biological and social responses to disasters, helping medics and leaders prepare and react.

Examines risks to mental health for people facing emergencies, incidents, disasters, and pandemics and how to meet their needs.

The physical effects of COVID-19 are felt globally. However, one issue that has not been sufficiently addressed is the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, citizens worldwide are enduring widespread lockdowns; children are out of school; and millions have lost their jobs, which has caused anxiety, depression, insomnia, and distress. Mental Health Effects of COVID-19 provides a comprehensive analysis of mental health problems resulting from COVID-19, including depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, trauma, and PTSD. The book includes chapters detailing the impact of COVID-19 on the family's well-being and society dynamics. The book concludes with an explanation on how meditation and online treatment methods can be used to combat the effects on mental health. - Discusses family dynamics, domestic violence, and aggression due to COVID-19 - Details the psychological impact of COVID-19 on children and adolescents - Includes key information on depression, anxiety, and suicide as a result of COVID-19

Written by a highly respected team of authors brought together by the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), this book provides accessible insights into pressing social problems in the United States in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and proposes public policy responses for victims and justice, precarious populations, employment dilemmas and health and well-being.

Urban slum dwellers—especially in emerging-economy countries—are often poor, live in squalor, and suffer unnecessarily from disease, disability, premature death, and reduced life expectancy. Yet living in a city can and should be healthy. Slum Health exposes how and why slums can be unhealthy; reveals that not all slums are equal in terms of the hazards and health issues faced by residents; and suggests how slum dwellers, scientists, and social movements can come together to make slum life safer, more just, and healthier. Editors Jason Corburn and Lee Riley argue that valuing both new biologic and “street” science—professional and lay knowledge—is crucial for improving the well-being of the millions of urban poor living in slums.

This book, written by members of the core faculty responsible for European courses on Medical Response to Major Incidents (MRMI), is a practical guide for all medical staff on how to respond to a wide range of disaster scenarios. The entire spectrum of knowledge is covered, from command and coordination through to the management of individual casualties. Central importance is attached to the key component of decision making by explaining what needs to be done for patients in particular situations and the required order and timing of treatment measures. Simplified methods receive due attention, as it is often necessary for medical staff to administer primary treatment outside of their own specialty. This book will prove an invaluable aid to all who may be involved in the response to major accidents and disasters, including medical and nursing students, ambulance crew, and military personnel as well as medical specialists.

This book reviews all important aspects of anxiety disorders with the aim of shedding new light on these disorders through combined understanding of traditional and novel paradigms. The book is divided into five sections, the first of which reinterprets anxiety from a network science perspective, examining the altered topological properties of brain networks in anxiety disorders. The second section discusses recent advances in understanding of the neurobiology of anxiety disorders, covering, for example, gene-environmental interactions and the roles of neurotransmitter systems and the oxytocin system. A wide range of diagnostic and clinical issues in anxiety disorders are then addressed, before turning attention to contemporary treatment approaches in the context of novel bio-psychosocial-behavioral models, including bio- and neurofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, neurostimulation, virtual reality exposure therapy, pharmacological interventions, psychodynamic therapy, and CAM options. The final section is devoted to precision psychiatry in anxiety disorders, an increasingly important area as we move toward personalized treatment. Anxiety Disorders will be of interest for all researchers and clinicians in the field.

Intensely practical and down to earth, this timely new text covers the breadth of health emergency preparedness, resilience and response topics in the context of inter-disciplinary and whole society responses to a range of threats. It includes public, private and third sector roles in preparation for and in response to natural and man-made events, such as: major incident planning; infectious disease epidemics and pandemics; natural disasters; terrorist threats; and business and service continuity management. The book builds upon the basics of risk assessment and writing an emergency plan, and then covers inter-agency working, command and control, communication, personal impact and business continuity as well as training, exercises and post-incident follow up. Detailing the full emergency preparedness and civil protection planning cycle, the book is illustrated throughout with real-life examples and case studies from global experts in the field for countries with both advanced and developing healthcare systems. This practical handbook covering the essential aspects of major incident and disaster management is ideal for undergraduate and master's students in emergency management and public health, as well as for practitioners in emergency preparedness and civil protection. It will be valuable to all health practitioners from ambulance, hospital, primary and community care, mental health and public health backgrounds.

Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.

Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP) for advanced cancer patients is a highly effective intervention for advanced cancer patients, developed and tested in randomized controlled trials by Breitbart and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. This treatment manual for group therapy provides clinicians in the oncology and palliative care settings a highly effective, brief, structured intervention shown to be effective in helping patients sustain meaning, hope and quality of life.