One of the lessons learnt from emergencies or disasters in the South-East Asia Region is that information and knowledge management is a weak area. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 was no exception . In any emergency, no matter how difficult, information needs to be collected, stored, and retrieved systematically for analysis. This should be done before, during and after any event. By having a disciplined structure and practice around these activities, we can be more effective in turning information into knowledge and knowledge into action.
This was one of the goals of this book; the other was to take up the challenge of documenting a mega-event. This way one can review what happened on 26 December 2004 by correlating diverse information from various sources and how this impacted health. This book, in two volumes, serves as a reference textbook for the event itself as it happened in each country of study and provides a method for documenting emergencies in the larger discipline of emergency risk management in health. Populations will always live with risks and managing them better can only come with well-informed, evidence-based action, especially those that have a bearing on health. The book contributes to this practice-the information is relevant for future events and contributes to better public health practice in emergencies.