Psychological perspectives of health workers toward disaster response and recovery efforts: Current applied research insights and future directions

In this presentation, Professor Dan Barnett, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, describes the current state of research on health workers' willingness to participate in response- and recovery-phase efforts following emergencies and disasters. The presentation characterizes leading attitudinal and perceptual modifiers of willingness; articulates how such willingness varies by disaster categories and by health workforce cohorts; delineates the implications of willingness gaps with regard to surge capacity in disasters; and describes novel evidence-based, efficacy-focused training curricula for enhancing health workers' willingness to participate in disaster response- and recovery-phase activities.