Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Disaster Management

Wellheiser, Johanna G., and Jude Scott. An Ounce of Prevention: Integrated Disaster Planning for Archives, Libraries, and Record Centres, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

As stated by the publisher: Fire, flood, earthquake, vandalism, a terrorist attack—the issues of safety measures, emergency response, and disaster recovery have now become an important part of the planning strategies for most organizations. For the information organization, such as a library, archives, or record center, this responsibility has taken on new dimensions with the proliferation of various forms of electronic media. The authors take the approach that disaster recovery planning must touch every department of an organization and that emergency response must be a carefully mapped strategy. This is a broad-based approach to "integrated disaster planning" covering each phase of disaster planning, with chapters covering prevention planning, protection planning, preparedness planning, response planning, and recovery planning. The authors consider collections, records, facilities, and systems and include a chapter on post-disaster planning as well. The authors also cover federal and local assistance programs and list other sources for financial assistance. Although the main thrust of the book is the protection of documents, human safety in case of disaster is stressed explicitly and implicitly throughout. Indispensible for every information organization.

Public Health

Gray, R. H., E. M. Ferraz, M. S. Amorim, and L. F. de Melo. 1991. “Levels and determinants of early neonatal mortality in Natal, north-eastern Brazil: results of a surveillance and case-control study,” Int. J. Epidemiol., vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 467-473

Summary: An institution-based surveillance and nested case-control study was conducted in Natal, North-eastern Brazil to estimate the level and determinants of early neonatal mortality. The early neonatal mortality rate was 25.5 per 1,000 live births, 75% of early neonatal deaths were premature low birth weight infants, and the mortality rates were 591 and 318 per 1,000 respectively, for preterm small for gestational age (PT-SGA) and preterm appropriate for gestational age (PT-AGA) infants. Mortality was 50 per 1,000 for term low birth weight, and 8.6 for term normal birth weight AGA infants. In addition to prematurity and low birth weight, the main risk factors associated with early neonatal death were maternal smoking, complications during pregnancy or intrapartum, and inadequate antenatal care. The associations were weaker for prepregnancy factors such as single marital status or low maternal body weight, and no significant associations were observed with socioeconomic status. These findings suggest that in this population, efforts to reduce early neonatal death should focus on improved maternal care and the prevention of prematurity.

Ho, N. K. 1996. “Priorities in neonatal care in developing countries,” Singapore Med. J., vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 424-427.

Summary: Lower prenatal and neonatal mortality have been achieved in the developed countries following advancement of neonatal care, introduction of high technologies, and better knowledge of pathophysiology of the newborn infants. Other contributing factors are organized delivery room care with skilful resuscitative techniques as well as risk identification and efficient transport of the sick infants including in utero transfer of the fetus, ...