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Public Health and Disasters

Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management in Asia

  • Comprises a seminal work chartering the contours of the emerging field of health emergency and disaster risk management (H-EDRM)
  • Includes cutting-edge information in H-EDRM contributed by scholars and practitioners with specific expertise in their own subfields
  • Provides an interdisciplinary framework and insights into the field of H-EDRM from multidisciplinary scholars
  • Presents illustrative examples from the most disaster-prone continent – Asia

Part of the book series: Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

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Table of contents (23 chapters)

  1. The Development of Health Vulnerability Index with Open Access Data

    • Emily Ying Yang Chan, Holly Ching Yu Lam, Zhe Huang
    Pages 313-321
  2. Technical Review of Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Literature in Rural Asia

    • Emily Ying Yang Chan, Asta Yi Tao Man, Holly Ching Yu Lam
    Pages 323-332
  3. Health-EDRM: Lessons Learnt in Asia

    • Emily Ying Yang Chan, Chi Shing Wong, Rajib Shaw
    Pages 333-340
  4. Future Perspectives of Health-EDRM and Risk Reduction in Asia

    • Emily Ying Yang Chan, Rajib Shaw
    Pages 341-343

About this book

This book presents the health emergency and disaster risk management (H-EDRM) research landscape, with examples from Asia. In recent years, the intersection of health and disaster risk reduction (DRR) has emerged as an important interdisciplinary field. In several landmark UN agreements adopted in 2015–2016, including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris climate agreement, and the New Urban Agenda (Habitat III), health is acknowledged as an inevitable outcome and a natural goal of disaster risk reduction, and the cross-over of the two fields is essential for the successful implementation of the Sendai Framework. 
H-EDRM has emerged as an umbrella field that encompasses emergency and disaster medicine, DRR, humanitarian response, community health resilience, and health system resilience. However, this fragmented, nascent field has yet to be developed into a coherent discipline. Key challenges include redundant research, lack of a strategic research agenda, limited development of multisectoral and interdisciplinary approaches, deficiencies in the science–policy–practice nexus, absence of standardized terminology, and insufficient coordination among stakeholders. This book provides a timely and invaluable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, scholars, and frontline practitioners as well as policymakers from across the component domains of H-EDRM.

Editors and Affiliations

  • JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Emily Ying Yang Chan

  • Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Fujisawa, Japan

    Rajib Shaw

About the editors

Professor Emily Ying Yang Chan is a Professor, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and Associate Director, of the JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK); Director of the Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC), Centre for Global Health (CGH) and Centre of Excellence (ICoE-CCOUC), Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR); Co-chair of the WHO Thematic Platform for Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Research Group; and a member of the Asia Science Technology and Academia Advisory Group (ASTAAG). She is also a visiting professor at the University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine; senior fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and visiting scholar, FXB Center, Harvard University. Her research interests include disaster and humanitarian medicine, climate change and health, global and planetary health, human health security and health emergency and disaster risk management (H-EDRM), remote rural health, implementation and translational science, ethnic minority health, injury and violence epidemiology, and primary care. Awarded the American Public Health Association’s 2007 Nobuo Maeda International Research Award, Professor Chan has published more than 200 international peer-reviewed academic, technical, and conference articles and eight academic books. She also has extensive experience as an international frontline emergency relief practitioner in the mid-1990s.


Rajib Shaw is a Professor at the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University’s Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC). Before that, he was the Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), a decade-long research program co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). He is also a senior fellow of the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan, and the chair of SEEDS Asia, CWS Japan, two Japanese NGOs. He was  a Professor at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies. His expertise includes community-based disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, urban risk management, and disaster and environmental education. He is the Chair of the United Nations Global Science Technology Advisory Group (STAG); and is the co-chair of the Asia Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (ASTAAG). He serves as the Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Asia chapter of IPCC 6th Assessment Report on Climate change impact, adaptation and vulnerability. He is the editor of a book series on disaster risk reduction, published by Springer. Prof. Shaw has published more than 45 books and over 300 academic papers and book chapters.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Public Health and Disasters

  • Book Subtitle: Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management in Asia

  • Editors: Emily Ying Yang Chan, Rajib Shaw

  • Series Title: Disaster Risk Reduction

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0924-7

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-0923-0Published: 25 February 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-0926-1Published: 25 February 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-0924-7Published: 24 February 2020

  • Series ISSN: 2196-4106

  • Series E-ISSN: 2196-4114

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 343

  • Number of Illustrations: 14 b/w illustrations, 35 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Natural Hazards, Public Health, Sustainable Development

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access