Earthquakes are one of the global environmental health issues that hugely impact people’s lives in certain geographical areas and communities. This is one of the physical hazards that basically represent the impact of natural disasters on people’s health and mental wellbeing. Due to the earthquakes’ difference in strength, their effects on human health are different as well. For example, Gallardo et al. (2018) explain that this natural disaster may cause mass traumatic effects including motor disability and chronic earthquake-related problems. Huge environmental damages occur during an earthquake that can cause strong traumas, concussions of the brain, invalidity, and amputation. Additionally, earthquakes hugely rise communities’ predisposition to such health issues as myocardial infarctions or gastritis that often emerge on the basis of high stress and psychological pressure (Gallardo et al., 2018). Therefore, this type of natural catastrophe plays a vital role in certain communities’ lives and affects people generally based on geographical factors.
This hazard cannot be affected easily as it is produced by nature. People can only provide themselves with more secure living areas or hoses, develop diverse protective mechanisms stabilizing the accommodation during an earthquake. Additionally, new methods of weather analysis should be implemented to be able to predict ongoing disasters of this type and their strength. I this case, nurses cannot do much to eliminate the hazard; however, they can ensure the patients’ safety after the natural disaster and heighten the quality of patient care for survivors of an earthquake. Many of the patients face such mental and psychological problems as Beaglehole et al. (2019) state that those who have an experience of surviving an earthquake show rates of mental disabilities 1.4 times higher than the average. Hence, nurses should provide their patients with appropriate psychological support along with the physical cure.
The countries’ healthcare systems usually are strongly affected by natural disasters of that kind. Earthquakes may lead to the reduction of the number of hospitals if happening in their area. Additionally, physicians can suffer or even die of earthquakes themselves which considerably lowers governmental levels of healthcare provision. Physical hazards mainly lower the healthcare system’s potential for development, because the governments generally spend money on the reduction of the results of earthquakes instead of investing in medicine.
References
Beaglehole, B., Mudler, R. T., Boden, J. M., & Bell, C. (2019). A systematic review of the psychological impacts of the Canterbury earthquakes on mental health. Australian and New Zeland Journal of Public Health, 43(3), 274-280. Web.
Gallardo, A. R., Pacelli, B., Alesina, M., Serrone D., Iacutone, G., Faggino, F., Corte, F. D., & Allara, E. (2018). Medium- and long-term health effects of earthquakes in high-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology, 47(4), 1317-1332. Web.