God's own country in trouble a comparitive content analysis of health and disaster management policies on the 2018 floods in Kerala, India

Abstract: In 2018, the Indian state of Kerala experienced devastating floods that killed 433 people and displaced 1.4 million. The floods are becoming more frequent since then due to climate change. In this research, we compared international frameworks on health and disaster with national and state documents. We used content analysis and applied Walt and Gilson's framework of health policy analysis to comprehend and analyse the level of preparedness, the presence of a climate-resilient health system and the integration of the health and disaster departments at the national and state level. Through our analysis, focussing on the nexus between health, disasters and resilience, we see that there are major pitfalls in translation of the international recommendations. Although some important recommendations have been mentioned in the policy documents at the national and state level, they have failed to be adopted by the state after the floods in 2018.