Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response
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To serve as a platform for research, education and community knowledge transfer in the areas of disaster and medical humanitarian crisis policy development, planning, and response.
To minimise the negative health impact of disasters experienced by vulnerable populations in Greater China and the Asia-Pacific Region.
Sphere Country Focal Point for China
www.ccouc.org
Our Work at CCOUC
I. Research
To contribute to scientific advancement, identify solutions and strategies that may alleviate human suffering resulting from disasters, and strengthen the evidence for more effective public health intervention in medical humanitarian actions, CCOUC focuses its research agenda on the following major areas:
- Disaster Preparedness and Response Planning
- Disaster Epidemiology
- Clinical Effectiveness
- Guidelineand Policy Development
- Climate Change and Health
II. Education and Training
To serve as an education platform specialising in the preparedness, response and policy development of disaster and medical humanitarian crisis, CCOUC publishes monographs and conducts activities to share research findings and experiences, which include:
i. Credit-bearing courses:
- Disaster & Humanitarian Crisis (1.5 graduate credit unit)
- Climate Change & Health (1.0 graduate credit unit)
ii. Non-credit-bearing courses:
- Croucher Summer Course
- Online Course such as:
“Public Health Principles in Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response”(http://phpidccouc.conted.ox.ac.uk/)
iii. Mobile application: Global Health 1001
iv. Disaster Seminar Series
v. International and Regional Conferences
III. Community Service and Knowledge Transfer
i. Ethnic Minority Health Project
Constituting 8.4% of China’s population, non-Han Chinese generally fare worse in economic and health status than the Han majority and reside disproportionately in natural-disaster-prone areas. While disaster preparedness can reduce the negative impact of disaster toward human health, CCOUC conducts health needs assessment, intervention and evaluation in remote, extremely poor, disaster-prone, ethnic minority communities in China to
- Empower the vulnerable communities to prepare and mitigate the adverse impact of natural disasters;
- Bring science to the people by adapting technical “know-how” developed in academic settings to concrete practice in the field;
- Develop human resources to work in rural and remote communities by offering practice and field-based trainings;
- Raise global awareness of issues related to disaster impact and preparedness among remote communities in developing countries; and
- Document empirical findings to support future development of related intervention for other rural, community-based health projects.
ii. Knowledge Transfer
CCOUC provides medical relief-related technical transfer, training and consultancy services to governments and NGOs.
The Sendai Framework Voluntary Commitments (SFVC) online platform allows stakeholders to inform the public about their work on DRR. The SFVC online platform is a useful toolto know who is doing what and where for the implementation of the Sendai Framework, which could foster potential collaboration among stakeholders. All stakeholders (private sector, civil society organizations, academia, media, local governments, etc.) working on DRR can submit their commitments and report on their progress and deliverables.