HNN348: Assessing Disaster's Impact on Rural Australian Communities

This report assesses the impact of disasters on health outcomes in rural and remote areas of Australia, focusing on two peer-reviewed research articles. The first article examines the aftermath of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, detailing the immediate health impacts, injuries, and psychological effects on individuals and communities, including short-term trauma and long-term issues like depression and loss. The second article analyzes the 2011 Brisbane floods, highlighting the physical and mental health problems experienced by affected residents, such as respiratory issues, poor sleep quality, and post-traumatic stress disorders, as well as the long-term consequences of isolation, poverty, and disrupted access to healthcare and essential resources. Both disasters reveal significant short, medium and long term impacts on the affected populations.

Running head: HNN 348
Rural and Remote Area Nursing
Assessment Task 1
Name of Student
Institution affiliation
0

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Rural and Remote Area Nursing
Article 1 Black Saturday: the immediate impact of the February 2009 bushfires in Victoria,
Australia
The reports from 2009 February bushfires in Victoria suggest that around 1000 people
got affected at which 173 people lost their lives and more than 2100 homes damaged. The article
above was conducted to examine the response of the Victorian State Trauma System to February
2009 bushfires(Cameron et al., 2009). The research used a retrospective research design to
determine strategic responses required for treatment of people with bushfire related injuries in
the first three days. The results showed that there were about 414 patients presented to the
emergency departments of which they were triaged for treatment in hospital and treatment
centers(Cameron et al., 2009). About 18 adult patients with severe burns spend the first 49 hours
in theater at which about the rest 390 patients spend 72 hours in the emergency departments
across the state(Cameron et al., 2009). Most of the people were treated in the treatment centers of
which throughout the disaster the referral continued to have maximum surgical patients(Cameron
et al., 2009). From the disaster, many people died and the rest survived with minor injuries.
From that bushfire disaster, there were many impacts on the health of individuals,
families, and communities at large. First, many people were injured of which 173 of them ended
up dead(Bryant et al., 2014). A good number lost their body image due to burns and most of
them have to endure physical pain from burns which affected both their physical and
psychological health(Gibbs et al., 2013). From that disaster, there were short, medium, and long-
term effects that affected the society then and still continue to affects the life of some individual
involved(World Health Organization, 2017). He short term effects included loss of life purpose,
lack of planning and decision making in setting priorities about the continuation of life and
future needs, disorientation, shocked, confused, and uncertainty about the future(World Health

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Organization, 2017). Some lost short-term memories and most including the community had a
vast need regarding both physical and material basic human needs. Due to that event, most
families especially those who lost one or more members of their families had a wide range of
emotions including fear, intense grief, anger, sadness and insecurity about the future(Gibbs et al.,
2013). Other than that, there was a lot of blaming from the community and individuals to those
in power and to government facilities which aggravated more anger and depression(Bryant et al.,
2014). Until to date, there are still victims from the bush fire who are still experiencing vast
health impacts like depression, lost of leisure and recreation, behavioral problems, loss of
network and friendship, disturbing memories, developmental problems in children, and loss of
sensation in direction of life(Bryant et al., 2014).
Article 2 Assessment of the health impacts of the 2011 summer floods in Brisbane
Brisbane experienced summer floods in 2011 which lasted for three consecutive days of
high tide. It is estimated that more than 15,000 properties were completely destroyed and 3,600
homes evacuated during that disaster(van den Honert & McAneney, 2011). Across Queensland,
about 12,000 people were accommodated in Red Cross centers and at which about 3, 570
businesses were destroyed(van den Honert & McAneney, 2011). Altogether over 200,000 people
were affected with a loss of approximately four billion dollars. This flood affected more than
78% of the people living in Queensland at which 33 people died and three went missing till to
date(van den Honert & McAneney, 2011). The above article was conducted to assess the effects
of the flood in Brisbane on individuals and the community. The method of the study consisted of
a community-based survey which focused on impacts majorly per households(Alderman, Turner,
& Tong, 2013). The results showed that there were vast of both mental and physical problems
that the people experienced(Alderman et al., 2013).

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The residence in which their homes were directly affected by flooding reported poor
overall emotional and psychological issues and respiratory health. Most people had poor sleep
quality due to fear, psychological distress and some with post-traumatic stress
disorders(Alderman et al., 2013). The outcomes of the flood may have subjected a certain group
of people to have more physical and psychological issues than others. For instance, the flood
increased poor health to women and people who had certain health issues(Alderman et al., 2013).
Other than that, most people ability to take medications afterword were affected due to various
emotional issues such as stress, grief, anger, loss of family members and loss of hope(Alderman
et al., 2013). Other than that, the floods increase rates of infections, poisoning due to intake of
unclean water and injuries(World Health Organization, 2017). In addition, people had poor
access to infrastructure, and hence they could not get clean water or health care services. Until
today there are still victims from the disaster who still have delayed recovery due to loss of
family members and some went missing(Martinez Garcia & Sheehan, 2016). Long terms impacts
of flood in the people of Queensland include isolation from friends as consequences of some
disasters are not well known and isolation. In addition to that, many life changes issues happened
to those who were directly affected such as increased poverty and poor health, school dropouts as
new challenges emerged fall in economic positions(Martinez Garcia & Sheehan, 2016).

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References
Alderman, K., Turner, L. R., & Tong, S. (2013). Assessment of the health impacts of the 2011
summer floods in Brisbane. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2013.42
Bryant, R. A., Waters, E., Gibbs, L., Gallagher, H. C., Pattison, P., Lusher, D., … Forbes, D.
(2014). Psychological outcomes following the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0004867414534476
Cameron, P. A., Mitra, B., Fitzgerald, M., Scheinkestel, C. D., Stripp, A., Batey, C., … Cleland,
H. (2009). Black Saturday: The immediate impact of the February 2009 bushfires in
Victoria, Australia. Medical Journal of Australia.
Gibbs, L., Waters, E., Bryant, R. A., Pattison, P., Lusher, D., Harms, L., … Forbes, D. (2013).
Beyond Bushfires: Community, Resilience and Recovery - A longitudinal mixed method
study of the medium to long term impacts of bushfires on mental health and social
connectedness. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-1036
Martinez Garcia, D., & Sheehan, M. C. (2016). Extreme weather-driven disasters and children’s
health. International Journal of Health Services.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0020731415625254
van den Honert, R. C., & McAneney, J. (2011). The 2011 Brisbane Floods: Causes, Impacts and
Implications. Water. https://doi.org/10.3390/w3041149
World Health Organization. (2017). Emergency Response Framework. World Health
Organization. https://doi.org/ISBN 978 92 4 150497 3

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