Addressing the Health Care Needs of Displaced Populations Following a Disaster: Development of Clinical Tools and Tracking Methods

Triage approaches for treating individuals in disaster settings historically have been focused on identifying acute decompensation, injuries, and death. For displaced populations that had limited function prior to ta disaster event, the emphasis during and after a disaster becomes identification of the proper level of support needed to survive in a shelter and selection of an appropriate post-shelter destination. The US Public Health Service Rapid Deployment Force team PHS-1 developed tools to address the needs of such displaced populations. The tools, described in detail in this report, address assessment, tracking, planning, resource utilization, and decision making and were field tested over the course of multiple deployments to refine them and validate their utility.