Paper short abstract:

In recent years , there has been a move for Australian humanitarian disaster relief to become professionalised. We investigate best use of individual and organisational experiences of Australians in disasters to improve the effectiveness of the Australian health sector humanitarian response in the future.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years humanitarian disaster relief has moved away from historically ad hoc approaches to a more professional response. Many Australians have participated in disaster response, both within the Asia-Pacific region and further afield. In Australia there has been a great impetus by the public for humanitarian reasons, and by the Australian government for additional strategic reasons, to play a significant role in regional disaster responses, especially within the health sector. Previously, research in this area has focused on technical guidelines for the provision of emergency relief, including in the health sector. Much less work has focused on the capabilities of those who provide the relief, including individual skills mix and personal characteristics. In our research we investigate how we can best use the individual and organisational experiences of Australians in disasters and humanitarian emergencies to improve the effectiveness of the Australian health sector humanitarian response in the future. We address issues such as the particular skills needed to improve relief worker efficiency in health aspects of disasters and aim to compile a list of individual characteristics and desirable skills for prospective relief workers to inform recruitment of workers for international disaster situations in the health sector. We also aim to devise an information dissemination strategy for lessons learnt regarding effectiveness and desirable skills at individual and organizational levels concerning health aspects of disasters. In this paper we present preliminary results of interviews with Australian humanitarian workers who have responded to disasters within the last 5 years.