No one can stop hurricanes or droughts or earthquakes, but we know from decades of responding to disasters that we can identify historical vulnerabilities of certain areas like Tornadoes in the South and Central U.S., Typhoons in the Philippines, Floods in Kentucky, Hurricanes in the Caribbean, and Earthquakes in Indonesia. 

In the case of disease, we anticipate the conditions that contribute to such outbreaks and work to limit their impact. As the Global Pandemic of COVID extended into a fourth year, our focus on protecting health workers and health facilities here at home and around the world highlighted the critical nature of providing health workers on the front lines of any disaster with the means to stay safe and continue meeting the health needs of their communities. 

We can mitigate the potential threat to health care services and save more lives by raising the level of local preparedness, making the health system more resilient and capable of caring for survivors during and after an emergency. In the United States, we are helping free clinics around the country build greater resilience in the face of the climate crisis and extreme weather events.

Even in civil conflicts and other man-made disasters such as the War in Ukraine, we can strengthen supply chain capabilities globally and locally and expand partnerships with other disaster and health organizations to be better prepared to meet health needs should a crisis arise. And now with human activity and climate change contributing to the magnitude of natural and manmade disasters and the increasing frequency of different types of disasters, disaster preparedness is rapidly becoming a matter of survival. 

Planning for a disaster requires dynamic, direct action at the local level – a continuous process that takes place before, during and after a disaster. And a good plan needs reliable resources.