Operation unified assistance population-based programs of the U.S. Public Health Service and international team

Abstract

The United States Public Health Service and several international relief agencies collaborated to create a series of programs for educational, governmental, and other behavioral health personnel in Aceh Province, Indonesia, following the tsunami of December 2004. This article provides a detailed account of the methodologies and approaches used to create the collaborations, as well as how they continue to be used by the people of Aceh through to this writing. Now known as the "Mercy Model," the approach represents a valuable set of programmatic approaches for rapidly developing and delivering large-scale behavioral health interventions in highly chaotic relief environments. It also details the potential benefits of using small teams on the ground, backed by much larger virtual teams to develop programming in real time across nations and continents, and do so in very short time frames. © by Association of Military Surgeons of U.S., 2006.