Dialogue in Emergencies - Interpreters of Sign Language in Israel

Abstract

preparedness and having children residing in the household were positively associated with community resilience in lower resilience quantiles (Q10, Q25). Age was negatively associated with community resilience in a low quantile (Q25). The results of the linear model failed to reveal the association between the preparedness measure and community resilience, and demonstrated only the association with age and having children in the household. Conclusion: Encouragement to take actions to increase preparedness, could also help raise resilience in an earthquake scenario. Efforts to enhance community resilience should focus on specific population groups such as childless households (often the elderly). Study/Objective: An interdisciplinary social science framework is presented to answer the question: how to anticipate the psychosocial impact of disasters and crises? Background: The scientific knowledge on health effects, and the quality of aftercare in a disaster context is strongly rooted in epidemiology and mental health care research. Although this knowledge base is sufficient to understand the psychosocial impact, conceptualizing an adequate reaction requires a broader approach incorporating less traditional disciplines such as public administration, organization studies, implementation science, sociology and disaster risk reduction. Methods: The starting point for the development of the framework was a model proposed by Alexander (2012), in which the combination of exposure, cultural and historical factors influences the vulnerability of human socioeconomic systems. This "plexus of context and consequences" determines the human consequences of disaster. Recent research findings from different disciplines were combined into a framework focusing on the psychosocial dimension of disasters and crises. Results: The framework contains three domains. Exposure has a direct impact on the well-being, functioning and health of affected people ("health"). Exposure, history and culture directly influence interrelated sets of capacities at the individual, community and society level ("capacity"). Capacity is linked to health, partly in a paradoxical way -as well as, a third domain: psychosocial support provided by professionals and comprehensive inter-organizational programs ("psychosocial support"). The relationship between psychosocial support and health is amply understood. Theoretically, psychosocial support is most effective when capacity is strengthened and utilized. Conclusion: The framework emphasizes two complicated causal attribution issues, and encourages interdisciplinary research into mechanisms linking domains that generally have been studied as isolated topics. Background: 'Mindfulness' is derived from Buddhist meditation practice. Mindfulness programs have been shown to improve clinicians' perceived stress, anxiety and performance in medical practice. Mindfulness, specifically MBSR, an evidence based approach that uses mindfulness meditation, is successfully used for treatment of PTSD in populations such as vete...

Accessing the NDIS: signing deaf people’s experiences

“…Researchers have quantified the economic disadvantage that flows from obstructed access and have called to address this imbalance through policy measures to provide increased access (Kim, Byrne, and Parish 2018). While access can improve a deaf person's employment opportunities and quality of life, it can also prove critical in times of personal emergency, such as in hospital emergency wards (Tannenbaum-Baruchi, Feder-Bubis, and Aharonson-Daniel 2017) and in wider community crisis events, such as pandemics or bushfires, where access to real-time community announcements is vital (Deaf Australia 2013; WFD-EUD 2020).…”