Mass Casualty Management

When disaster strikes, the greatest imperative is to rescue people, save lives, and treat the injured. The objective of mass-casualty management is to organize logistical facilities, search-and-rescue services, and medical resources in such a way as to minimize loss of life and ensure the complete recovery of as many survivors as possible. Conversely, inefficiency in medical response can result in the loss of lives that could have been saved by more timely and effective intervention.

Disaster epidemiology is the study of the human impact of catastrophe in terms of patterns of death, injury, and disease. Recently, despite considerable increases in population, worldwide disaster mortality has remained fairly constant at about 110,000 persons per year. However, very large variations in the numbers of casualties occur from one ...