Printer Friendly Format The success of any response to a disaster, natural or human-made, depends on the ability of response systems to work together. The nation’s system of hospitals, private practices, public health agencies, clinics, law enforcement, and emergency services will bear the burden of caring for the population. To bolster the nation’s capacity to effectively and seamlessly respond to a disaster, the NCDP, through the Division of Planning and Response, the Division of Research and the Division of Technology and Education Applications provides diverse and multi-level resources to disaster and public health emergency planners. The Center for Public Health Preparedness under the Division of Planning and Response, develops, conducts, and evaluates education and training programs. The Division of Research contributes evidence-based guidance for best practices for all emergency planners and those who interact with the planning and response of a public health emergency. Distance learning interactive applications allow extensive access to online web courses, with certification, covering topics as diverse as Basic Emergency Preparedness to fostering resiliency for first responders. More specifically, the NCDP is exploring the willingness and ability of the critical infrastructure workforce to report to work during a disaster, and the means by which to best mitigate workforce absenteeism; developing training initiatives to specifically address the needs of the nation’s public health workforce; and exploring how best to meet the disaster-based primary health care needs of those affected by disaster. Projects: Training and Education: Effective public health preparedness requires a workforce with both knowledge and skills required for full engagement in planning, response and evaluation activities for disasters. However, most public health leaders report that the public health workforce is not fully prepared in this regard. Therefore, strategies are needed which will facilitate competency based emergency preparedness training that is effective, efficient and economical. Use of distance based learning methodology has been suggested as a method to achieve this goal. A new trend in instructional design has been to consider “blended learning solutions” in which online course content is mixed with traditional face-to-face instruction, with the intention of providing a richer learning experience. At the NCDP, we have developed several online courses that incorporate elements of hands-on learning. Visit our Online Training Center here. For instance, our Basic Emergency Preparedness course, which has been completed by more than 12,000 public health workers since 2002, features a downloadable "competency checklist" document that enables learners to practice at their own worksite. After receiving feedback and approval from a supervisor, they can also receive a certificate of completion. Whether you are a public health employee or trainer, we offer several free resources that can add value to your organizational objectives. Disaster Workforce Studies: A fundamental unanswered question persists in the arena of the disaster workforce- what will be the response of the workers we depend upon if the disaster includes the risk of contagion or contamination, such as one would see during a nuclear, dirty bomb, or pandemic event? We have seen that in an incident such as the World Trade Center attacks that health, rescue, and other emergency personnel flooded to the scene; however, we have little data to predict the actions of workers if they perceive a personal risk of being infected or contaminated. Initial survey data suggests that 50% or more may opt out of reporting for duty for a variety of reasons (e.g. fear of contamination, family or personal medical concerns, a need to perform child or elder care, a desire to evacuate, etc.) under these conditions. Some anecdotal retrospective data from 1918 is more optimistic, but it is difficult to extrapolate the actions of the health care workforce then to the current environment. We are exploring this issue in the realm of ESF 8 by attempting to further elucidate the barriers that hospital workers perceive will prevent them from reporting for duty, and by determining the highest yield means by which to mitigate these barriers where possible. Surge Capacity for Outbreak Investigation for Student Volunteers: The need to increase national epidemiologic capacity in our public health system is well recognized. In order to meet the essential public health services and the anticipated demands that will be placed upon our public health agencies during disasters, attention turned to identifying additional resources. Public Health graduate students are one such resource. The Graduate Epidemiology Student Volunteer program, known as Epi Surge, is collaboration with Columbia University’s Center for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH) to increase epidemiology resources during public health emergencies or large disease out break investigations. Columbia’s Epi Surge students, who are activated by NYCDOHMH, are known as "Team Epi." Since 2004's inception, each semester CPHP recruits Columbia University graduate students – Epidemiology, Social-medical sciences, Population and Family, Health Policy and Management, Environmental health, Biostatistics and others- who are interested in a hands-on opportunity with NYC DOHMH's Communicable Disease Control Bureau. The design and content of the training focuses on epidemiology’s functional roles; in the past students conducted case investigation, case interviews, data cleaning, data entry, developed data bases, and provided health messaging at several live bird markets. Many students go on to become employees of NYC DOHMH. Once trained, students are eligible for ‘activation’.