Stress in disaster response: a risk management approach

Abstract

Using a risk management framework, this paper discusses an approach to conceptualising disaster stress risk that can be used to develop readiness strategies that facilitate an adaptive response to disaster stress in emergency managers. It illustrates this process by describing how incident, operational and organisational demands interact with resilience and vulnerability factors to affect stress risk during the mobilisation, response and reintegration phases of disaster response. It argues for stress risk management to be integrated with the application of the risk management paradigm to other aspects of disaster management.