Disaster Informatics is the study of the use of information and technology in the preparation, mitigation, response and recovery phases of disasters and other emergencies. It began to emerge as a field after the successful use of a variety of technologies in recent disasters, including the Asian Tsunami, September 11th

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

 and Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

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The term was first used in a request for proposal

Request for Proposal

A request for proposal is issued at an early stage in a procurement process, where an invitation is presented for suppliers, often through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific commodity or service. The RFP process brings structure to the procurement decision and is meant to...

 response by D. E. Yarrington after the WTC communications problems were revealed. Subsequently, in 2002, a grant proposal was submitted to the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

/National Library of Medicine

United States National Library of Medicine

The United States National Library of Medicine , operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is a division of the National Institutes of Health...

 to begin the formal study of disaster informatics as it related to public health. This initiative emerged from her library and information science work at Jackson State University

Jackson State University

Jackson State University is a historically black university founded in 1877 in Natchez, MS by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York. The Society moved the school to Jackson in 1882, renaming it Jackson College, and developed its present campus in 1902. It became a state supported...

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