Rethinking Collection Development in Disaster Mental Health: An ‘All Hazards’ Model

The connection between weather and mental health is bound up in acute and long-term care and treatment of suddenly vulnerable populations, whether they are in-place survivors, displaced persons, or refugees. The Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) Research Library/ University of South Florida Library System has undertaken a collection focus on disaster mental health. We re-examined the traditional models of collection development and chosen instead to frame our collection development initiative around an ‘all hazards' model, that allows us to proceed within both a national and international framework. The scope of the collection includes titles pertaining to the nature, causes, prevention, mitigation of and response to different types of disaster threats, with a particular focus on their psychosocial aspects. It also includes the nature, causes, prevention, mitigation of and response to mental, emotional, health-related and behavioral conditions that are associated with or arise from disaster events and their affected populations as well as research, measurement and analytic methods for studying them.