Introduction: Recent years have witnessed community disaster resilience becoming one of the most heavily supported and advocated approach to disaster risk management. However, its application has been influenced by the lack of assessment tools. This study reviews studies conducted using the resilience concept and examines the tools, models, and methods adopted. It examines the domains, indicators, and indices have been considered in the tools. It provides a critical analysis of the assessment tools available for evaluating community disaster resilience (CDR). Methods: We investigated international electronic databases including Scopus, MEDLINE through PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), and Google Scholar with no limitation on date, and type of articles. The search terms and strategy were as follow: (Disaster* OR Emergenc*) AND (Resilience OR Resilient OR Resiliency) that were applied for titles, abstracts and keywords. Extracted data were analyzed in terms of studied hazards, types of methodology, domains, and indicators of CDR assessment. Results: Of 675 publications initially identified, the final analysis was conducted on 17 full text articles. These studies presented ten models, tools, or indices for CDR assessment. These evinced a diverse set of models with regard to the domains, indicators and the kind of hazard described. Considerable inter dependency between and among domains and indicators also emerged from this analysis. Conclusion: The disparity between the articles using the resilience concept and those that offer some approach to measurement (675 vs. 17) indicates the conceptual and measurement complexity in CDR and the fact that the concept may be being used without regard to how CDR should be operationalized and assessed. Of those that have attempted to assess CDR, the level of conceptual diversity indicates limited agreement about how to operationalize the concept. As a way forward we summarize the models identified in the literature and suggest that, as a starting point for the systematic operationalization of CDR, that existing indicators of community disaster resilience be classified in five domains. These are social, economic, institutional, physical and natural domains. A need to use appropriate and effective methods to quantify and weigh them with regard to their relative contributions to resilience is identified, as is a need to consider how these levels interrelate to influence resilience. Although assessment of disaster resilience especially at the community level will inform disaster risk reduction strategies, attempts to systematically do so are in preliminary phases. Further empirical investigation is needed to develop a operational and measurable CDR model.

Background: Dust storms and their impacts on health are becoming a major public health issue. The current study examines the health impacts of dust storms around the world to provide an overview of this issue. Method: In this systematic review, 140 relevant and authoritative English articles on the impacts of dust storms on health (up to September 2019) were identified and extracted from 28 968 articles using valid keywords from various databases (PubMed, WOS, EMBASE, and Scopus) and multiple screening steps. Selected papers were then qualitatively examined and evaluated. Evaluation results were summarized using an Extraction Table. Results: The results of the study are divided into two parts: short and long-term impacts of dust storms. Short-term impacts include mortality, visitation, emergency medical dispatch, hospitalization, increased symptoms, and decreased pulmonary function. Long-term impacts include pregnancy, cognitive difficulties, and birth problems. Additionally, this study shows that dust storms have devastating impacts on health, affecting cardiovascular and respiratory health in particular. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that dust storms have significant public health impacts. More attention should be paid to these natural hazards to prepare for, respond to, and mitigate these hazardous events to reduce their negative health impacts. Registration: PROSPERO registration number CRD42018093325

Background: Hospitals play a vital role in disaster stricken regions. The resilient hospitals will be able to provide essential services to affected people and it can mitigate the risk of injuries during and after disasters. This study aimed to obtain the indicators required for the evaluation of hospital resilience.Methods: This systematic review was conducted in 2018. Through this systematic review, international electronic databases were investigated for the research studies published in English. The exclusion and inclusion criteria were determined to extract the hospital resilience indicators. These indicators will be used in order to develop a model to keep the system performance at an acceptable level during disasters.Results: Out of 1794 research studies published until September 2018, 89 articles and guidelines with full text were surveyed. Thirty-two articles and guidelines were then selected and analyzed to collect the indicators related to hospital disaster resilience (HDR). The domains and the indicators were extracted from these selected research studies. The authors collected and categorized them into three domains and twenty seven subdomains. The three domains included constructive, infrastructural, and administrative resilience. The relevant indicators were designed for each subdomain to assess HDR.Conclusion: Since diverse indicators affect hospital resilience, other studies should be conducted to propose some models or tools to quantify the hospital resilience in different countries and scopes with an all hazards approach.

To present epidemiological data, probable causes and lessons learned from the outbreak of methanol poisoning in Iran in September 2018, and relate this to the increasing incidence of methanol poisoning worldwide over recent decades. Analysis of all available reliable field information, official news reports and reports from the country's forensic medicine organization and the Ministry of Health. Overall, 768 people in Iran were documented as poisoned from September 7 to October 7 2018 by consuming an informal alcohol containing methanol, of whom 76 died (10.1% fatality rate); 460 subjects attended state hospitals due to acute methanol poisoning of whom 42 (9.13%) died. Those who were hospitalized comprised 177 subjects (38.4%), with 241 subjects (52.3%) seen and discharged. Males comprised 93% of the deaths. About 41% of those poisoned were aged 25-36. Outbreaks were reported in 21 provinces. These data indicate a high fatality rate of methanol poisoning in Iran, something seen also in some other countries. Considering that such outbreaks take place more in low-income and Islamic countries due to ignorance and legal constraints, it seems necessary to seek an effective educational model for raising public awareness and a fully native and early warning system in this regard to reduce the damage and enhance readiness to deal with the health effects of such outbreaks.