General Preparedness

The Family Preparedness Toolkit is a compilation of electronic resources to assist user in developing a family emergency plan, collecting and assembling a disaster supply kit, learning where to seek shelter from all types of hazards, and practicing and maintaining a family emergency plan.

This course will address the reasons and logic, which would focus a terrorist attack on the food supply. The characteristics of the food supply chain will be examined and the links which expose themselves to interruption, explored. Countermeasures on the global/ strategic level as well as on the local tactical level will be in the context of their utility and effectiveness. The nature and characteristics of specific bacterial and chemical agents will be examined and the specific clinical presentations of disease expounded.

In this presentation, Dr. Gerard Rushton will show how geospatial linkages of health data to other information when used with methods of spatial analysis can be used to guide public health interventions.

David Stephens, MD, Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine and Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University, and James Curran, MD, MPH, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, moderate a distinguished panel of speakers, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Vanderbilt University, discussing the epidemiology, clinical features, lab findings, and measures to contain the global spread of SARS.

This symposium discusses global public health preparedness in its broadest context; from preparing for catastrophic health events to addressing global health issues including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis to developing the public health workforce in the international community.

Presented live September 11, 2007 at the University of Michigan. With the archived webcast, you can view selected presentations from the all-day symposium.

Presentations (Total viewing time: 6.5 hours)
Welcome and Program Introduction
Mary Sue Coleman, PhD
President, University of Michigan

The Hazard Risk Assessment Instrument (HRAI) workbook is intended to be used as a guide to enable state and local public health agencies to conduct a risk assessment of their community. The tool is designed for use as a standard approach to hazard risk assessment that is adapted to the public health impacts of hazards. HRAI will allow public health agencies to assess the probability of hazards for a particular geographic area and the magnitude of impact given the local resources, allowing for prioritization of response and mitigation options.

The Health Education Reaching Others and Ensuring Surge Capacity during Public Health Emergencies (HEROES) is an online module which provides an introductory emergency preparedness training to health educators and other individuals who might be called upon to perform health education tasks during a public health emergency. The training will describe the importance of health education during a public health emergency, explain the role of health educators and explain health education surge capacity and why it is important.

In this unique training, three speakers (Maureen Hennessy Benson, Dave Blodgett, and Sheldon Greenberg) speak about the "institutional culture" of five responder groups: law enforcement, EMS, fire, public health, and private security in an attempt at fostering understanding among these groups.

This 45 minute module will orient learners to the basics of business continuity planning, including an introduction to the eight pieces necessary for formulating a plan.

Participants are eligible to receive up to 0.7 contact hours (0.07 CEUs) for successful completion of training including pre-test, post-test and evaluation.

Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this training, participants will be able to:

* Describe how business continuity planning can reduce vulnerability to disasters and emergencies
* Summarize the eight pieces necessary for formulating a plan

The goal of this module is to prepare public health professionals to implement strategies based on ethical frameworks that balance multiple interests, principles, and goals as part of a coordinated response.

Educational Objectives
• Define the term “vulnerable population”
• Identify the role of Public Health related to emergency planning and vulnerable populations
• Identify the importance of collaborating with community/faith-based/NGO’s
• Identify the benefits of integrating vulnerable population support groups into plan development and exercise activities

The goal of this program is to provide an overview of the National Public Health Ready Pilot Project, which lead to the development of the Iowa Public Health Ready Program. Components of the Iowa program will be reviewed. Plans to evaluate the program and assess its impact on local public health agencies that have completed the process will be discussed.

JIC in a Box presents a realistic simulation of a public health crisis and guides participants through the process of executing an effective communications campaign.

This exercise is an opportunity for communications experts from public health, hospitals and other emergency response agencies to gain knowledge and hone their skills to prepare for and respond to a public health emergency. In particular, participants will review and test their procedures for working as a group to collect, prepare and release critical information about an emergency through a JIC.

This presentation by David C. Martinez, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator, is a three part tutorial that gives you a brief overview of what defines terrorism and law enforcement's role in domestic and international terrorism.

Educational Objectives:
• List the predominant local, state, and federal law enforcement assets involved in disaster management, and describe their structures
• Describe the role and function of local, state, and federal law enforcement officials in responding to natural disasters