J-RAPID Collaborative Research
TUBITAK & JST “J-RAPID Kadilli Workshop” was held in Istanbul. (Updated on July 4, 2024)
A workshop attended by the entire JST-RAPID grant group was held at Boğaziçi University (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi) on June 10 and 11, 2024.
（Group photo of the participants）
The research groups presented the results of joint research from a variety of fields and exchanged information and opinions with each other. Our group presented in the afternoon on the first day.。
Disaster research is composed with various area depending on the field, such as engineering related to the measurement of earthquakes in the field of earthquake studies, architecture examining the effects of earthquakes on buildings, research on public health and healthcare systems, such as our group, and research on business continuity for small and medium-sized enterprises.
In this study, we evaluated two cities after the earthquake using a scorecard. The comparative data for these two cities was presented in December 2023, and the results were contrary to our expectations that the score for the affected area experiencing earthquake damage would be greater than the other. This was due to the pre-disaster characteristics of the area, the past experience of disasters in the area, and the fact that the area included a region where refugees from a neighboring country’s conflict were living together as immigrants.
Highlight of the results
The scorecard also includes an assessment of the infrastructure of medical facilities such as hospitals. In the case of the Kahramanmaraş earthquake, the region’s core hospital was damaged in an instant, and the building, which had been newly constructed seven years earlier, was already unusable. As such, it is important to first assess where to build the building. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider how to proceed with seismic isolation and earthquake resistance of the building itself. The chairperson also asked questions about this point.
Reference：Safe hospitals in emergencies and disasters : structural, non-structural and functional indicators
Other issues highlighted included the difficulty of mobilizing personnel to deal with the sudden increase in the number of injured and sudden illnesses after a disaster, and the need to improve preparedness for mental health needs before a disaster occurs.
In the future, we would like to summarize the results and publish them as a paper.
Boğaziçi University (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi), also known as Bosphoras University, has a great view of the strait from the university. We visited the observatory on campus.
Observatory from the Outside
Inside the observatory
Observing sunspots
Workshops in Turkey
Workshops were held in Turkey on October 24 in Kahramanmaraş City and on October 26 in Hatay City. Those cities were in two of 11 disasters affected by the earthquake in February. We had participants in each workshop who were doctors, nurses, social workers and many others involved in public health working in the local municipality.
Source: Datawrapper/The Independent
Workshop at Kahramanmaras City
Publicized on the website of the Municipality of Kahramanmaras.
Hatay City Workshop: Mustafa Kemal University
The city of Kahramanmaras
Eight months have passed since the February 6 earthquake, and while the rubble has been removed from the city, there are still many large buildings, condominiums, and hospitals that are still left behind, waiting to be demolished. Reconstruction housing has already been constructed in the downtown area, and people have been moving in since the end of November 2023. The residents can live there free of charge for the first two years, after which they would be able to purchase the houses without interest.
Reconstruction Housing in the suburb of Kahmaranmars city
Hatay Province
Immediate after the earthquake (February 2023)
Container and tent hospital set up in front of Hatay Prefectural Hospital (March 2023)
Reconstruction housing built on the outskirts of the city (October 2023)
A debriefing session within the research team was held on November 29, 2023.
Based on the data collected at the workshop, we will present our findings at the conference and discuss with Turkish researchers what kind of concrete plans are needed to rebuild a better resilient public health care system in the region.
On December 4, 2023, we gave a poster presentation at the 10th Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (SDMPH) conference in Washington, DC, USA.
We presented a poster at the conference.
(Link to the poster)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qYlWT2HHvdcpB8DEHSHQNbmltLORYEIs/view
In August 2023, we received a grant from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) for J-RAPID Collaborative Research/Survey Program for Urgent Research.
We will UPDATE the progress of the project as it develops.
