Knowledge about disasters plays an essential role in managing and responding to disasters and emergencies, especially among a group of health care professionals who are actively or will potentially be involved in disaster and emergency settings. A set of training materials that aims to enhance understanding of disasters and their impact of health has been developed. This project aims to examine the effectiveness of the disaster knowledge training to improve technical knowledge and perceptions of health impact of disasters in health care professionals and responders.

“Understanding Disasters” training was provided to 300 health care professionals during May to October. Each of the participated attendees filled a pre- and immediate post-training survey that contains socio-demographic information and 20 items measuring various knowledge of disasters.

287 individuals completed the questionnaires (95% response rate). Findings demonstrated that training may effectively enhance one's knowledge about disasters, especially by clarifying the myths and misunderstandings towards disasters. Respondents demonstrated an enhancement of knowledge in 70% of the questions (14/20). Of note, while the whole sample exhibited an enhancement in knowledge, non-clinical staff appeared to have more statistical significant gained in knowledge than clinical based trainee.

Although disasters cannot be controlled, human impacts of disaster can be mitigated if appropriate training might be offer. This study demonstrates that training program might be useful to enhance better understanding of health impact of disasters.