Dr. Gregory G. Homish, assistant professor of community health and health behavior at UB, is the first author of an article in the current issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness; the article deals with disaster response in the wake of the recent Flight 3407 tragedy.
"Immediate intervention [after a disaster] usually reduces tension, which can mitigate the negative impact on individual, family, and work life and improve health," Homish said.
Emergency mental health is a field of practice designed to help survivors, their significant others, emergency responders, disaster workers, and the community at large to effectively cope with the extreme stresses they may face in the aftermath of a disaster. The goals are to ensure rapid deployment of specially trained emergency mental health responders during a disaster and provide psychological first aid, crisis intervention, and critical incident stress management services.
The main points of the article detail the importance of an integrated and comprehensive emergency mental health function through the use of traditional and non-traditional providers who have received specialized training in disaster and emergency mental health.
"[After Flight 3407], it was necessary to provide ongoing assessment of psychological needs and to meet those needs through utilization of a variety of resources," said Bonita S. Frazer, emergency mental health planning coordinator of Metropolitan Medical Response System and contributing author. "In addition to specially trained behavioral health responders, spiritual care providers, massage therapists, and canine therapy teams were deployed and proved very effective in offering comfort and support, which resulted in mitigation of acute stress symptoms."
Follow-up services, which ranged from a single phone call, in which intervention was delivered, to regular face-to-face contacts and possible referral to a trauma therapist, continued for 14 months following the crash.
"Recruitment and retention of volunteers needs to be an ongoing, dynamic process with the goal of preparing for the next emergency," Frazer said.
New members are provided with frequent free or low-cost training, which keeps all responders current and familiar with other team members and provides the essential skills training needed for increased efficiency during a deployment.
Daniel P. McCartan, program coordinator for the Western New York Regional Resource Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response also contributed to the article.
"In my opinion, the single most important ingredient [to a successful emergency response formula] is communications," McCartan said. "This can't happen at the time of the disaster but must be in place beforehand. You can't walk into a disaster and meet someone for the first time and expect to hit the ground running, but when you walk in and see people that you have worked with, trained with, and planned with going through the same door, you instantly know that everyone there has had the same training and knows the process that needs to be followed."
If a similar tragedy were to occur, the authors indicate some changes that would have to be made to the response plan. The orientation of emergency mental health responders would include instruction to responders to maintain ongoing contact with the team supervisor and greater emphasis would be placed on self-care. In addition, increased attention would be given to the scheduling of volunteers and employing a team approach to improve coordination of this task.
The article also featured a contribution from Anthony J. Billittier M.D., commissioner of the Erie County Department of Health and director of the Office of Pre-hospital Care at UB.
Emergency mental health is an evolving field with multiple rewards for recipients and providers of care alike. Those interested can contact Frazer at 716-218-2398 or bonitafrazer@yahoo.com for more information on becoming a volunteer team member.
E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
