Objective of this module

This module provides an overview of the health sector’s role in managing risk, and of its relationships and interaction with other sectors.

It deals with the sector’s areas of responsibility and basic disaster management activities. All of this falls under the direction of the health authority, which at the national level is the ministry of health.

Finally, it offers guidelines, recommendations, and a model of the organizational structure needed to satisfactorily cover all disaster risk management functions.

In this section:

1. National entities and policy

2. Functions of the health sector

3.Risk management in the health sector

4. Strengthening response capacity

5. Mobilizing for emergencies and disasters

6. Monitoring and evaluation of disaster risk reduction in the health sector

7. General responsibilities of the health sector

National health authorities have inescapable and often exclusive responsibilities for protecting the health of the population in emergencies and disasters of any origin and magnitude.

In order to fulfill that responsibility, each country’s health sector has established formal mechanisms for coordinating and mobilizing response by all the components of the health sector that play a role in reducing the impact of disasters on health. These include: providing health services, monitoring the quality of water for human consumption, conducting epidemiological surveillance, mobilizing critical inputs and drugs, carrying out public communication, and operating health programs, among other things.

In most countries, the health sector’s emergency and disaster arrangements are the responsibility of an office, division, department, or unit of the health ministry. This entity’s central responsibilities are to coordinate risk management, preparedness, and response. It serves as the sector’s liaison with national emergency systems, as well as coordinating activities within the sector for emergency and disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

In general, national responsibility for disaster management in the countries of the Americas rests with each country’s highest-ranking governmental authority, which directs the national disaster management system. The system usually includes a mechanism to generate risk reduction policies, plus a mechanism at a more operational level to facilitate coordination of response activities. Each country has designed its systems so as to encourage the broadest possible participation by both public and private actors.

National civil defense systems were created in the 1970s to improve disaster preparedness and response. The responsibilities for these systems were assigned to a central agency with operational and coordination capacity. Over time, additional responsibilities for risk reduction were gradually incorporated and were ‘institutionalized’ in agencies whose principal functions consisted of coordinating multisectoral efforts and ensuring that disaster risk reduction is a part of the development process. In most cases, these systems are known as national civil defense systems or disaster risk management and response systems.

An excellent publication that traces the journey of Latin American and Caribbean from an improvised response to disasters to the incorporation of disaster risk management in development is the publication A World Safe from Natural Disasters: The Journey of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Countries in Latin America have made significant progress in the last decades in developing norms, standards, and legislation dealing with health and disasters. In addition to national regulations, collective policies and plans have been put in place by groups of countries in Central America, the Andean region, and the Caribbean. For an overview of arrangements in the Caribbean, see Comprehensive Disaster Management: Strategy and Programme Framework.

The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction publication Living with Risk (view volumes one and two) reviews worldwide disaster reduction initiatives that contribute to more informed decision-making, including improved planning, better regulatory mechanisms and, most of all, innovation in development and environmental protection activities.

Go to: Functions of the health sector

The health sector is defined as the set of values, standards, institutions, and actors that produce, distribute, and consume goods and services whose principal or exclusive objectives are to safeguard the health of individuals or populations.

The activities of these institutions and actors are designed to prevent and control disease, care for the ill, and conduct health research and training.

Along with other sectors, the health sector must have a disaster risk reduction policy with specific short-, medium- and long-term objectives and strategies to achieve the objectives efficiently and effectively, with an overall description of program activities that will be carried out. The essential public health functions (EPHF) are the fundamental set of actions that should be performed in order to achieve public health’s central objective: improving the health of populations.

The Pan American Health Organization defined the eleven Essential Public Health Functions necessary to strengthen public health practice, and developed a methodology that allows countries to evaluate their public health capacity.