One Year Wiser
MICRODIS – One Year Wiser
February 1, 2007 - January 31, 2008
The first twelve months of the MICRODIS project encapsulated many fundamental objectives that were vital to address in order to ensure a successful transition into the second reporting period. There were no major deviations from the planned work, and minor disruptions which occurred were dealt with quickly without significant effects to the progress of the work. Minor consortium changes that were made in the first year (see consortium management) were requested and approved by the entire consortium.
The earliest achievement of the project was obtaining the consortium agreement and planning/holding the MICRODIS kickoff meeting. The kickoff meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium.. In the context of this meeting each thematic working group held its own workshop session and produced a report based on this. The MICRODIS flyer was distributed. Partners collaborated to translate the project flyer into five different languages.
During the kickoff meeting each thematic group agreed on available dates for their additional thematic workshop session. Some groups were quicker than others to organize these meetings, due to the availability of group members and venues. The Integration Working Group held their first of three workshop sessions of this reporting period on June 19–20, 2007 in Paris, France.
Shortly following this, the Health Working Group had their thematic workshop session on August 30 – September 1, 2007 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The Social Working Group held their workshop session in Newcastle, UK on September 3–7, 2007. This meeting coincided with the “Dealing with Disasters” conference, which the partners also attended. The Economic Working Group was the final group to hold their thematic workshop session. This group met in Kolkata, India on November 1–4, 2007. Members of the Integration Working Group were present at all thematic workshop sessions.
The Integration Working Group, the leaders of each thematic working group and the Asian Coordinator met in Potsdam, Germany on October 4–7, 2007 while attending the “SHIFT – 07: Shift in Thinking Perspectives of Vulnerability and Hazard Assessment” conference hosted by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). An integrated model for the surveys was developed called the “SHE Model” (below). A similar meeting would take place at the end of November in London between the Integration Working Group and the leaders of each thematic group on November 27–28, 2007 on the campus of the University of Greenwich. At this meeting, methodologies were suggested for consideration in the surveys as well as extensive discussions about the integrated format of surveys and conceptual models.
An overall project objective to strengthen the scientific and empirical foundation on the relationship between extreme events and their health, social and economic impacts is addressed at the end of the reporting period with an extensively detailed literature review drafted or produced by each thematic group. Each thematic group has chosen to keep the literature review as an evolving document.
Informed by these literature reviews and relevant discussions between consortium members, conceptual models were drafted for each the social, health and economic thematic working groups. These conceptual models continue to be revised and reworked in efforts to aid the Integration Working Group in developing a combined integrated conceptual model.
Many different training and workshop opportunities were seized by MICRODIS partners during the first reporting period. Representatives from each institution were involved in giving presentations at international conferences and offering lectures at various universities throughout partner countries.
A summer course for Assessing Public Health in Emergency Situations (APHES) was given in July 2007, with members of six consortium partners attending and receiving accreditation for their successful completion of the course. The course is designed to familiarize professionals with epidemiological techniques to determine impacts of disasters and conflicts and will run again in July 2008.
The Annual Meeting was co-organized by UoD and UCL in Delhi, India on February 17–19, 2008. As well, VHAI has organized an Official MICRODIS Launch in Delhi on February 21st, 2008. Various members of the media and all consortium members attended with positive outputs and visibility.