Citation

Phua KL. New Solut. 2008; 18(2): 221-231.

Affiliation

School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Kolej Bandar Sunway 46150 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Baywood Publishing)

DOI

10.2190/NS.18.2.k

PMID

18511398

Abstract

When public health researchers study the health effects of disasters (whether "naturally-occurring," disasters due to failure of technology, or disasters due to terrorism), some aspects of the post-disaster situation of victims are often overlooked. Social science research has shown that the vast majority of people tend to behave altruistically during and after a disaster. Nevertheless, cases of victimization of survivors do occur. They can include post-disaster victimization of survivors by other individuals (including fellow survivors, opportunistic outsiders, and even unethical aid workers and rogue members of the police, armed forces or international organizations such as the United Nations), groups (such as organized criminal gangs) and institutions (through neglect, incompetence, bureaucratic inefficiency or through institutionalized discriminatory practices). In this article, various kinds of post-disaster victimization that can occur are discussed.

Language: en