Background:  Environmental emergencies and disasters are becoming more frequent among developing nations.  Between 1992 and 1996, disasters affected an annual average of 4.5 million Oceania residents.  Unfortunately, public health planners and responders throughout the world have little evidence upon which to base measures of emergency preparedness.  This study performed an objective evaluation of emergency preparedness among five jurisdictions in Oceania.

Methods:  We performed a retrospective review of national-level public health and institutional-level hospital emergency operations plans from a convenience sample of five Pacific nations or territories.  We also performed in-country interviews, observation of operations and review of documentation.   Positive response rates for 957 yes/no queries were calculated according to presence of emergency operational planning concepts and categories of emergency support functions.

Results:   The data reveal a low prevalence of emergency planning and a low level of emergency preparedness endemic to health and medical sectors of all five Pacific islands.   Three out of five of jurisdictions (60%) had no public health emergency plan.  Two out of five (40%) main referral hospitals had no emergency plan, (not even for fire).  Results are summarized in the table below for jurisdictions #1-5:

	1	2	3	4	5	Mean	Median
PubHlth	0.00	0.00	0.06	0.00	0.10	0.03	0.00
Medical	0.20	0.00	0.14	0.00	0.27	0.12	0.16

Conclusion:  The results of this study suggest a low level of emergency preparedness among all public health and medical sectors studied.  This low level of preparedness exists despite the relatively high risk for emergencies and disasters in Oceania.