Objective: A scoping exercise to establish how common hospital evacuations are, identify hospital evacuation policies and review case studies to identify triggers, processes and challenges involved in the evacuation of hospitals globally. Design: A systematic search of PubMed and disaster agency online resources, search of grey literature and media reports. Results: This study showed that hospitals are vulnerable to both natural and man made disasters and that hospital evacuations do occur globally. It highlighted the paucity of published data and policy on hospital evacuation and emphasised the vital need to collect data on triggers, reasons for evacuation, sheltering facilities and the process of evacuation.

Primary Health Care is very important for effective health emergency management during response and recovery, but also for risk reduction, including preparedness. There is need to; increase the quality of this research, clarify terminology, encourage paper authorship from LICs, develop and validate PHC- specific disaster indicators and to encourage organizations involved in PHC disaster activities to publish data. Lessons learned from high-income countries need contextual analysis about applicability in low-income countries.

The intersection of health and disaster risk reduction (DRR) has emerged in recent years as a field of critical inquiry. Health is recognized as an outcome and a goal of DRR, and the integration of both fields is essential to ensure the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (Health-EDRM) has emerged as an umbrella field that encompasses emergency and disaster medicine, DRR, humanitarian response, community health resilience, and health systems resilience. In September 2016, an international group of experts met in Hong Kong to assess the current status and potential of the Health-EDRM research field, a research area that these scholars characterized as underdeveloped and fragmented. Key challenges identified include research overlap, lack of strategic research agenda, absence of consensus regarding terminology, and limited coordination between stakeholders. The Sendai Framework provides a useful paradigm within which to shape the research field's strategic development. The WHO Thematic Platform for Health-EDRM Research Group was established to coordinate activities, promote information-sharing, develop partnerships, and provide technical advice to strengthen the Health-EDRM research field. This group will promote the generation of robust and scientific health research to support the meaningful implementation of the Sendai Framework.Keywords Health disaster risk reduction Á Health emergency and disaster risk management Á Health-EDRM Á Sendai FrameworkThe intersection of health and disaster risk reduction (DRR) is a field of critical inquiry that is essential to ensure the comprehensive implementation of

The WHO Thematic Platform for Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Research Network (TPRN) was established in 2016 in response to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. The TPRN facilitates global collaborative action for improving the scientific evidence base in health emergency and disaster risk management (Health EDRM). In 2018, the WHO convened a meeting to identify key research questions, bringing together leading experts from WHO, TPRN, World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and delegates to the Asia Pacific Conference on Disaster Medicine (APCDM). The meeting identified research questions in five major areas for Health EDRM: health data management, psychosocial management, community risk management, health workforce development, and research methods and ethics. Funding these key research questions is essential to accelerate evidence-based actions during emergencies and disasters.

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