Disaster behavioral health capacity: Findings from a multistate preparedness assessment

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Megan Peck, MPH ◽  
Tai Mendenhall, PhD ◽  
Louise Stenberg, MPH ◽  
Nancy Carlson, BS ◽  
Debra K. Olson, DNP
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Behavioral Health ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Health Training ◽  
Interagency Coordination ◽  
Trained Interviewer ◽  
State And Local

Purpose: To identify gaps in disaster behavioral health, the Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center (PERL) at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health supported the development and implementation of a multistate disaster behavioral health preparedness assessment. Information was gathered regarding worker knowledge of current disaster behavioral health capacity at the state and local level, and perceived disaster behavioral health training needs and preferences.Methods: Between May and July 2015, 143 participants completed a 31-item uniform questionnaire over the telephone by a trained interviewer. Trained interviewers were given uniform instructions on administering the questionnaire. Participants included county- and city-level public health leaders and directors from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota.Findings: Findings demonstrate that across the three states there is a need for improved disaster behavioral health training and response plans for before, during, and after public health emergencies. This study identified perceived gaps in plans and procedures for meeting the disaster behavioral health needs of different at-risk populations, including children, youth, and those with mental illness. There was consistent agreement among participants about the lack of behavioral health coordination between agencies during emergency events.Value: Findings can be used to inform policy and the development of trainings for those involved in disaster behavioral health. Effectively attending to interagency coordination and mutual aid agreements, planning for effective response and care for vulnerable populations, and targeted training will contribute to a more successful public health response to emergency events.

Responsibility and Blame

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Sharfstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Agency ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Health Training ◽  
Health Response ◽  
Public Health Training ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
Sincere Apology

Issues of responsibility and blame are very rarely discussed in public health training, but are seldom forgotten in practice. Blame often follows a crisis, and leaders of health agencies should be able to think strategically about how to handle such accusations before being faced with the pain of dealing with them. When the health agency is not at all at fault, officials can make the case for a strong public health response without reservation. When the agency is entirely to blame, a quick and sincere apology can allow the agency to retain credibility. The most difficult situation is when the agency is partly to blame. The goal in this situation is to accept the appropriate amount of blame while working quickly to resolve the crisis.

Brazil policy shortfalls will see new COVID outbreaks

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Variant ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The City ◽  
Second Wave

Significance The discovery of a new variant of the virus (P1) in Manaus has prompted renewed concerns as the city is suffering a severe second wave, months after a first wave that reportedly affected most of its population. The spread is set to continue, not least because of the difficulty of maintaining restrictions on movement. Impacts Problems with vaccine roll-outs are likely to lead to renewed outbreaks across Brazil. Fragmentation of policies at the state and local level will hamper an effective response. Obstacles to research programmes will hinder efforts to map the evolution of the virus.

scholarly journals Characterization of Carbon Monoxide Exposure During Hurricane Sandy and Subsequent Nor’easter

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 562-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Schnall ◽  
Royal Law ◽  
Amy Heinzerling ◽  
Kanta Sircar ◽  
Scott Damon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Atlantic City ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Power Sources ◽  
Poison Centers ◽  
State And Local

ABSTRACTObjectiveCarbon monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas produced by fossil fuel combustion. On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy moved ashore near Atlantic City, New Jersey, causing widespread morbidity and mortality, $30 to $50 billion in economic damage, and 8.5 million households to be without power. The combination of power outages and unusually low temperatures led people to use alternate power sources, placing many at risk for CO exposure.MethodsWe examined Hurricane Sandy–related CO exposures from multiple perspectives to help identify risk factors and develop strategies to prevent future exposures. This report combined data from 3 separate sources (health departments, poison centers via the National Poison Data System, and state and local public information officers).ResultsResults indicated that the number of CO exposures in the wake of Hurricane Sandy was significantly greater than in previous years. The persons affected were mostly females and those in younger age categories and, despite messaging, most CO exposures occurred from improper generator use.ConclusionsOur findings emphasize the continued importance of CO-related communication and ongoing surveillance of CO exposures to support public health response and prevention during and after disasters. Additionally, regional poison centers can be a critical resource for potential on-site management, public health promotion, and disaster-related CO exposure surveillance. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:562–567)

Governing public health emergencies during the coronavirus disease outbreak: Lessons from four Chinese cities in the first wave

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110493
Author(s):  
Lingyue Li ◽  
Surong Zhang ◽  
Jinfeng Wang ◽  
Xiaoming Yang ◽  
Lan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Chinese Cities ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Policy Measures

The ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a far-reaching impact on urban living, prompting emergency preparedness and response from public health governance at multiple levels. The Chinese government has adopted a series of policy measures to control infectious disease, for which cities are the key spatial units. This research traces and reports analyses of those policy measures and their evolution in four Chinese cities: Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu. The theoretical framework stems from conceptualisations of urban governance and its role in public health emergencies, wherein crisis management and emergency response are highlighted. In all four cities, the trend curves of cumulative diagnosed cases, critical policies launched in key time nodes and local governance approaches in the first wave were identified and compared. The findings suggest that capable local leadership is indispensable for controlling the coronavirus epidemic, yet local governments’ approaches are varied, contributing to dissimilar local epidemic control policy pathways and positive outcomes in the fight against COVID-19. The effectiveness of disease control is determined by how local governments’ measures have adapted to geospatial and socioeconomic heterogeneity. The coordinated actions from central to local governments also reveal an efficient, top-down command transmission and execution system for coping with the pandemic. This article argues that effective control of pandemics requires both a holistic package of governance strategies and locally adaptive governance measures/processes, and concludes with proposals for both a more effective response at the local level and identification of barriers to achieving these responses within diverse subnational institutional contexts.

Recommendations of the Workshop on Injury Control and Public Health

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
pp. 1091-1091
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
State Government ◽  
School Health ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Injury Surveillance System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Injury Control

1. In each state department of public health, a focus for injury control should be responsible for developing objectives for injury control at the state and local level. 2. Injury control activities, including the state reporting of injuries and the development of a national injury surveillance system, should be funded adequately by the US government. 3. The US government and each state government should develop an explicit health policy for children. 4. The revenue that would be generated by a "user fee," a much heavier tax on tobacco and alcohol (alcohol plays a role in 40% to 50% of injuries) should be used to support public health programs for children. 5. A comprehensive school health education program should be established.

Investment, managerial capacity, and bias in public health preparedness

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 207-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Langabeer II, MBA, EdD ◽  
Jami L. DelliFraine, MHA, PhD ◽  
Sandra Tyson, MA ◽  
Jamie M. Emert, BS ◽  
John Herbold, MPH, DVM, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Public Health Preparedness ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Readiness Level ◽  
State And Local ◽  
National Cooperative

Objective: Nearly $7 billion has been invested through national cooperative funding since 2002 to strengthen state and local response capacity. Yet, very little outcome evidence exists to analyze funding effectiveness. The objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between investment (funding) and capacity (readiness) for public health preparedness (PHP). The aim of the authors is to use a management framework to evaluate capacity, and to explore the “immediacy bias” impact on investment stability.Design: This study employs a longitudinal study design, incorporating survey research of the entire population of 68 health departments in the state ofTexas.Methods: The authors assessed the investment– capacity relationship through several statistical methods. The authors created a structural measure of managerial capacity through principal components analysis, factorizing 10 independent variables and augment this with a perceived readiness level reported from PHP managers. The authors then employ analysis of variance, correlation analyses, and other descriptive statistics.Results: There has been a 539 percent coefficient of variation in funding at the local level between the years 2004 and 2008, and a 63 percent reduction in total resources since the peak of funding, using paired sample data. Results suggest that investment is positively associated with readiness and managerial capacity in local health departments. The authors also find that investment was related to greater community collaboration, higher adoption of Incident Command System (ICS) structure, and more frequent operational drills and exercises.Conclusions: Greater investment is associated with higher levels of capacity and readiness. The authors conclude from this that investment should be stabilized and continued, and not be influenced by historical cognitive biases.

scholarly journals Infodemic Signals Detection in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Methodology for Identifying Potential Information Voids in Online Conversations (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina D Purnat ◽  
Paolo Vacca ◽  
Christine Czerniak ◽  
Sarah Ball ◽  
Stefano Burzo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Aggregated Data ◽  
Health Response ◽  
Online Conversations ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Social Listening

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an information epidemic or “infodemic”: too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during an acute public health event, which leads to confusion, risk-taking and behaviors that can harm health, and lead to mistrust in health authorities and public health response. The analytical method described is part of the WHO work to develop tools for an evidence-based response to the infodemic, enabling prioritization of health response activities. OBJECTIVE The aim of this work was to develop a practical, structured approach to identifying narratives in public online conversations on social media platforms where concerns or confusion exist or where narratives are gaining traction, and to provide actionable data to help WHO prioritize its risk communications efforts where it is most critical in addressing the COVID-19 infodemic. METHODS We developed a taxonomy to filter global COVID-19 public online conversations in social media content in English and French into five themes, with 35 sub themes. The taxonomy and its implementation were validated for retrieval precision and retrieval recall, and reviewed and adapted as the linguistic expression about the pandemic in online conversations changed over time. The aggregated data were analyzed for each sub themes by volume, velocity and the presence of questions, on a weekly basis, to detect signals of information voids where there was potential for confusion or for mis- or dis-information to thrive. A human analyst reviewed the themes for potential information voids and used quantitative data to provide context and insight on narratives, influencers and public reactions. RESULTS A COVID-19 public health social listening taxonomy was developed and applied. A weekly analysis of public online conversations since 23 March 2020 has enabled the quantification of shifts of public interest in public health-related topics concerning the pandemic and has demonstrated the frequent resumption of information voids with verified health information. This approach therefore focuses on infodemic signal detection for actionable intelligence to rapidly inform decision-making for a more effective response, including adapting risk communication. CONCLUSIONS This approach been successfully applied during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify and take action on information voids based on analysis of infodemic signals. More broadly, the results have demonstrated the importance of ongoing monitoring and analysis of public online conversations, as information voids frequently resume and narratives shift over time. The approach is already being piloted in individual countries and WHO regions to generate localized insights and actions, while a pilot of an AI social listening platform is using this taxonomy to aggregate and compare online conversations across 20 countries. Looking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, the taxonomy and methodology have the potential to be adapted for fast deployment in future public health events.

scholarly journals PO 8460 PANDORA-ID NET (PAN-AFRICAN NETWORK FOR RAPID RESEARCH, RESPONSE, RELIEF AND PREPAREDNESS FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES EPIDEMICS)

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (Suppl 3) ◽  
pp. A40.2-A40
Author(s):  
Francine Ntoumi ◽  
Francine Zumla ◽  
Giuseppe Ippolito ◽  
Francesco Vairo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Rapid Diagnostics ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Zoonotic Infections ◽  
Pan African

BackgroundNew and re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks continue to cause much human suffering and loss of life worldwide. Since Africa has experienced repeated outbreaks of zoonotic infections, an important need exists to improve local and regional capacities to identify and respond to zoonotic outbreaks. PANDORA ID-NET is an EDCTP-supported ‘ONE Human and Animal HEALTH’ multidisciplinary consortium of 24 partner institutions (15 African and 9 European) in 9 African and 4 European countries.MethodsOur overall aim is to strengthen regional and pan-African capacities and systems for enabling a rapid and effective response to infectious diseases with epidemic potential, arising from within Africa or imported from overseas. We aim to build laboratory and public health capabilites for rapid detection and surveillance of pathogens from human and animal sources. This will include obtaining accelerated evidence for optimal clinical management of patients, infection control measures, and public health response during outbreaks. Capacities will be built: a) for performing multisite clinical trials (evaluating rapid diagnostics, biomarkers, a range of treatments, vaccines and operational research studies) and, b) for timely collection, analysis and communication of information.ConclusionOur activities will be aligned to EDCTP regional Networks of Excellence, Africa CDC and other relevant global and regional initiatives, thus maximizing complementarity and achieving a multiplier effect, facilitating rapid policy implementation of outputs.

US Screening of International Travelers for Radioactive Contamination After the Japanese Nuclear Plant Disaster in March 2011

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Wilson ◽  
Arthur Chang ◽  
Andre Berro ◽  
Aaron Still ◽  
Clive Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Radioactive Material ◽  
Screening Methods ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
State And Local

ABSTRACTOn March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex in Japan, resulting in radionuclide release. In response, US officials augmented existing radiological screening at its ports of entry (POEs) to detect and decontaminate travelers contaminated with radioactive materials. During March 12 to 16, radiation screening protocols detected 3 travelers from Japan with external radioactive material contamination at 2 air POEs. Beginning March 23, federal officials collaborated with state and local public health and radiation control authorities to enhance screening and decontamination protocols at POEs. Approximately 543 000 (99%) travelers arriving directly from Japan at 25 US airports were screened for radiation contamination from March 17 to April 30, and no traveler was detected with contamination sufficient to require a large-scale public health response. The response highlighted synergistic collaboration across government levels and leveraged screening methods already in place at POEs, leading to rapid protocol implementation. Policy development, planning, training, and exercising response protocols and the establishment of federal authority to compel decontamination of travelers are needed for future radiological responses. Comparison of resource-intensive screening costs with the public health yield should guide policy decisions, given the historically low frequency of contaminated travelers arriving during radiological disasters.(Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2012;6:291–296)

scholarly journals Participatory COVID-19 Surveillance Tool in Rural Appalachia

2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492199037
Author(s):  
Jennifer D. Runkle ◽  
Maggie M. Sugg ◽  
Garrett Graham ◽  
Bryan Hodge ◽  
Terri March ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Health History ◽  
Regional Collaboration ◽  
Health Response ◽  
Participatory Surveillance ◽  
Rural Appalachia

Introduction Few US studies have examined the usefulness of participatory surveillance during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for enhancing local health response efforts, particularly in rural settings. We report on the development and implementation of an internet-based COVID-19 participatory surveillance tool in rural Appalachia. Methods A regional collaboration among public health partners culminated in the design and implementation of the COVID-19 Self-Checker, a local online symptom tracker. The tool collected data on participant demographic characteristics and health history. County residents were then invited to take part in an automated daily electronic follow-up to monitor symptom progression, assess barriers to care and testing, and collect data on COVID-19 test results and symptom resolution. Results Nearly 6500 county residents visited and 1755 residents completed the COVID-19 Self-Checker from April 30 through June 9, 2020. Of the 579 residents who reported severe or mild COVID-19 symptoms, COVID-19 symptoms were primarily reported among women (n = 408, 70.5%), adults with preexisting health conditions (n = 246, 70.5%), adults aged 18-44 (n = 301, 52.0%), and users who reported not having a health care provider (n = 131, 22.6%). Initial findings showed underrepresentation of some racial/ethnic and non–English-speaking groups. Practical Implications This low-cost internet-based platform provided a flexible means to collect participatory surveillance data on local changes in COVID-19 symptoms and adapt to guidance. Data from this tool can be used to monitor the efficacy of public health response measures at the local level in rural Appalachia.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document