title: School Health: an essential strategy in promoting community resilience and preparedness for natural disasters.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction recommended the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which aims to achieve substantial risk reduction and to avoid various disaster-associated losses, including human lives and livelihoods, based on the lessons from the implementation of the Hyogo framework. However, the recommendations did not lay enough stress on the school and the Safe School Concept, which are the core components of a disaster response.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To raise the issue of the importance of schools in disaster response.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For human capacity building to avoid the damage caused by natural disasters, we should focus on the function of schools in the community and on school health framework. Schools perform a range of functions, which include being a landmark place for evacuation, acting as a participatory education hub among communities (students are usually from the surrounding communities), and being a sustainable source of current disaster-related information. In 2007, the Bangkok Action Agenda (BAA) on school education and disaster risk reduction (DRR) recommended the integration of DRR into education policy development, the enhancement of participatory mechanisms to improve DRR education, and the extension of DRR education from schools to communities. Based on our discussion and the recommendations of the BAA, we suggest that our existing challenges are to construct a repository of disaster-related lessons, develop training materials based on current information drawn from previous disasters, and disseminate the training to schools and communities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Schools linked with school health can provide good opportunities for DRR with a focus on development of school health policy and a community-oriented participatory approach.
authors.affiliation: Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research, Okinawa, Japan.|Teikyo University Graduate School of Public Health, Tokyo, Japan; kt_intl_@ja2.so-net.ne.jp; kenzo.takahashi.chgh@med.teikyo-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Kenzo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.affiliation: Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research, Okinawa, Japan.|Global Cooperation Institute for Sustainable Cities, Yokohama City University, Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Mitsuya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kodama
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion and Education, College of Public Health, University of the Philippines Manila, Manila, the Philippines.
authors.forename: Ernesto R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Gregorio
authors.affiliation: Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research, Okinawa, Japan.|Faculty of Education, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan.
authors.forename: Sachi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tomokawa
authors.affiliation: Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research, Okinawa, Japan.|Department of Education, Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Asakura
authors.affiliation: School Health Promotion Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Jitra
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Waikagul
authors.affiliation: Japanese Consortium for Global School Health Research, Okinawa, Japan.|Department of Global Health, School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
mesh_terms: D057191:Capacity Building / Q000379:methods; D018672:Community Health Planning; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D060447:Emergency Shelter / Q000458:organization & administration; D014943:Global Health; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012572:School Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013785:Thailand
keywords: disaster risk reduction; preparedness; school health