Building Bottom-up Health and Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes

As a backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2016-2030), the United Nations pointed out that more than 6 million children still died before the age of five by 2015. At least 1.8 billion people across the world still consumed fecally contaminated drinking water and 2.4 million lacked access to basic sanitation services such as toilets or latrines, while nearly 1,000 children died every day of preventable water and sanitation-related diarrhoeal diseases. Rural areas fare far worse: Children in rural areas are about 1.7 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday as those in urban areas. About 16 per cent of the rural population do not use improved drinking water sources, compared to 4 per cent of the urban population. About 50 per cent of people living in rural areas lack improved sanitation facilities, compared to only 18 per cent of people in urban areas.

Far too many one-off rural on-site public health knowledge transfer projects fail to deliver results in the long run, and the knowledge in question cannot be retained in the rural communities after the NGO and development workers are gone. In addition to external constraints, this is often due to a lack of theoretical understanding among NGO practitioners and volunteers and basis for evaluation and improvement of health relief programmes. Based on public health theories and illustrated by relevant examples, this book introduces how health, emergency and disaster preparedness education programmes could be organised in remote rural Asia, which could become useful reference materials for organisers and volunteers of rural development projects. This book is an introductory to intermediate level textbook and reference book for healthcare professionals, fieldworkers, volunteers and students who are interested in promoting health and emergency and disaster risk reduction.

The book is developed from the experience and insights gained from the long-established CCOUC Ethnic Minority Health Project in China. It also incorporates new lessons from CCOUC's recent projects in Asia countries like Bhutan, Nepal and Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Emily Ying Yang Chan, Associate Director and Professor, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Centre Director, Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC), Hong Kong

Professor Chan received academic training from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong (HKU), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Currently, she serves in CUHK as Professor and Assistant Dean at Faculty of Medicine, Associate Director at JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Director at Centre for Global Health and Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC), as well as at Oxford University Nuffield Department of Medicine as Visiting Professor and in Harvard University as Senior Fellow at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Visiting Scholar at FXB Center. Professor Chan also serves as a member of Asia Science Technology and Academia Advisory Group of United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR ASTAAG) and Co-chairperson of WHO Thematic Platform for Health Emergency & Disaster Risk Management Research Group.