Public Health and Disaster Risk Reduction: Experiences from Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam is located in Southeastern Asia, along with the Indochinese Peninsula. With a long coastline, diversified topography, and high percent of the population living in low-lying coastal regions, Vietnam is one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world. The country is frequently exposed to a wide range of recurring natural hazards such as tropical storms, floods, droughts, landslides, and forest fires. Typhoons and floods are the two most frequent and dangerous occurrences, causing numerous fatalities, economic loss and infrastructure damages as well as other short and long-term public health problems. With the rising in both frequency and intensity of natural disasters in the last decades under the impacts of climate change, the vulnerability of local communities has been more remarkable. Therefore, Vietnam has actively taken a number of measures to prevent, respond, and mitigate disasters’ consequences. There are both valuable experiences and challenges in national disaster reduction efforts. This chapter describes climate characteristics and common natural disasters of Vietnam; analyzes the vulnerability of communities in disasters; synthesizes and assesses policies related to natural disaster reduction; as well as discusses valuable experiences and existing problems in disaster adaptation strategies of Vietnam.