What are the best strategies for emergency preparedness and emergency information dissemination among resettled refugees?
Evidence Database | Advanced Evidence Search | Evidence Summaries
Evidence Summary
May 2020
The evidence in this area is suggestive. Within these suggestive studies, there is broad consensus on four key points related to emergency preparedness and emergency information dissemination among resettled refugees:
- Pre-existing partnerships among refugee communities, community-based organizations (CBOs), and local emergency planners are vital.
- People who serve as social bridges between refugee communities and governmental and community-based organizations are important conduits for emergency information dissemination.
- Emergency messaging must be simple and consistent,delivered in refugees’ native languages and made available through multiple communication channels.
- Refugees may meet disasters with resiliency.
Given the ethical and logistical challenges of conducting impact evaluation studies in disasters, the recommendations of these suggestive studies should be viewed as best practices at this time.
Studies included in the database focused on high-income or upper middle-income countries, including but not limited to the United States. Studies included must have been published since 2000. To identify evidence related to emergency preparedness among refugees, we searched the following websites and databases using the following population, methodology, and target problem terms:
Websites and Databases | Population Terms | Methodology Terms | Target Problem Terms |
Campbell Collaboration Cochrane Collaboration Mathematica Policy Research Evidence Aid Urban Institute Migration Policy Institute HHS OPRE Medline ASSIA Social Services Abstracts Social Work Abstracts ReliefWeb ALNAP |
refugee OR immigrant OR “unaccompanied minor” OR asylee OR “temporary protected status” OR “victims of traffick*” OR “traffick*victims” OR T-Visa OR U-Visa OR Cuban OR Haitian OR Amerasian |
evaluation OR impact OR program OR intervention OR policy OR Project OR train* OR therapy OR treatment OR counseling OR workshop OR review OR meta-analysis OR synthesis |
“disaster prepared*” OR “emergency prepared*” OR pandemic |
For databases or websites that permitted only basic searches, free-text terms and limited term combinations were selected out of the lists above, and all resultant studies were reviewed for relevance. Conversely, for databases or websites with advanced search capability, we made use of relevant filters available. All search terms were searched in the title and abstract fields only in order to exclude studies that made only passing mention of the topic under consideration.
After initial screening, Switchboard evidence mapping is prioritized as follows:First priority is given to meta-analyses and systematic reviews, followed by individual impact evaluations when no meta-analyses or systematic reviews are available. Evaluations that are rated as impact evidence are considered before those rated as suggestive, with the latter only being included for outcomes where no evidence is available from the former. As noted earlier, for the present topic of refugee emergency preparedness, no meta-analyses, systematic reviews, or impact evaluations were available; thus,suggestive studies were included