The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction marked a step change in the way health is recognized as core to managing disasters effectively. The recent COVID 19 global emergency further sensitized governments, societies and the research community of the need to build prevention into the recovery process. The World Health Organization (WHO) published the Health and Disaster Risk Management Framework in 2019. This is part of an approach that includes multiple aspects of the now established health and disasters agenda. From this the WHO Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Research Network, launched in 2018, has developed opportunities to drive progress in its increasingly people-centered and impact orientated research agenda.