Program Notes

Challenges for Public Health

• Communication with public health, medical response community and general public
• Coordination with emergency response agencies
• Build staying power

CDC Support for State and Local Preparedness

• Develop broad-based response planning
• Maintain and distribute National Pharmaceutical Stockpile
• Enhance disease detection and investigation
• Create information systems
• Organize data
• Improve response workforce
• Support communication planning

Lessons Learned - The 5 C's

• Communication-Proactive communication with multiple audiences is essential. CDC is making this a priority in preparedness planning, and has established an emergency communications system with teams focused on specific audiences and channels:
  • Media
  • Web
  • Hotline/Public Inquiry
  • Community Health Education
  • Public Health Workforce
  • Clinicians
  • Policymakers
• Coordination-knowing who's in charge, how a response will be managed, and practicing that is a key part of preparedness.
• Consultation-getting feedback from partners before, during, and after an event.
• Capacity-ensuring we have staff and lab capacity to perform essential functions like sample testing.
• Competency-ensuring that we have a well-trained workforce and ways to get technical assistance.