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Delivery of Mental Health Care in a Large Disaster Shelter
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2015
Abstract
Large numbers of evacuees arrived in Dallas, Texas, from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita just 3 weeks apart in 2005 and from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike just 3 weeks apart again in 2008. The Dallas community needed to locate, organize, and manage the response to provide shelter and health care with locally available resources. With each successive hurricane, disaster response leaders applied many lessons learned from prior operations to become more efficient and effective in the provision of services. Mental health services proved to be an essential component. From these experiences, a set of operating guidelines for large evacuee shelter mental health services in Dallas was developed, with involvement of key stakeholders. A generic description of the processes and procedures used in Dallas that highlights the important concepts, key considerations, and organizational steps was then created for potential adaptation by other communities. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:423–429)
- Type
- Concepts in Disaster Medicine
- Information
- Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 9 , Supplement 4 , August 2015 , pp. 423 - 429
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2015
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