Protecting new health facilities from natural disasters: guidelines for the promotion of disaster mitigation

The Pan American Health Organization, in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Center on Disaster Mitigation at the University of Chile, and with the support of the World Bank and the ProVention Consortium, has published comprehensive Guidelines for Vulnerability Reduction in the Design of New Health Facilities to help administrators, professionals and technical advisors of the health sector whose responsibilities include the management, design, construction and inspection of new health facilities projects.
This publication summarizes the more comprehensive guidelines, emphasizing who should use them,
when and why. It includes recommendations on how to promote their use among national authorities, planners and financing agencies involved in the development of these projects. As an overview of the topic, it emphasizes the substantial social and economic benefits of applying disaster mitigation measures to the design, planning and construction of health facilities. Equally important, it describes how to apply these measures to achieve protection levels that not only ensure human safety but also the security of infrastructure and the operation of services.