Capability Cliff Notes Series

PHEP Capability 1—Community Preparedness

What Is It And How Will We Measure It?

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Learning Objectives

• Become familiar with Capability Functions• Become familiar with Tasks that complete the

Functions• Understand how these Functions and Tasks

are measured or may be measured in the future (Performance Measures)

Community Preparedness

• Community preparedness is the ability of communities to prepare for, withstand, and recover — in both the short and long terms — from public health incidents. (defined by CDC)

• How can health departments help their communities to achieve preparedness? What goes into making communities ready for disasters?

Community Preparedness FunctionsHow Can Health Departments Help Prepare

Communities for Disasters?

1. Determine risks to the health of the jurisdiction

2. Build community partnerships to support health preparedness

3. Engage with community organizations to foster social networks for public health, medical, and mental/behavioral health

4. Coordinate training or guidance to help communities be engaged in preparedness efforts

Capabilities and Measures ResourcesThe presentation will be an overview of what the functions and tasks mean, linked to

the performance measures.

Please note that since the capabilities PDF document has come out, more performance measures have been developed or discarded. If performance measures have come out since the creation of the capabilities document below, they have been included in these tutorials following their function slide. For functions that have no measures, questions for health departments to begin thinking about how to share their progress have been included instead.

For exact lists of the capabilities and performance measures, and data collected for the measures, documents can be found at these links:

For Capabilities, Functions, and Tasks:• http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/capabilities/DSLR_capabilities_July.pdf

For Performance Measures: http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDPHE-EPR/CBON/1251643573938

Function 1: Determine Risks to Health of the Jurisdiction

Tasks: What things can health departments do to determine the risks to the health of their jurisdictions?

1. Use a jurisdictional risk assessment (JRA) to identify what services are needed for the community to be able to address disaster health risks.

– This assessment can come from emergency management or other partners. It does not have to be solely created by public health.

– A past assessment is valid if it has been done within the past three (3) years.

2. Use a JRA to identify what services currently exist in the community to address disaster health risks.

Function 1 MeasurementHow does the CDC measure that health departments have

met the criteria for having a risk assessment including community input?

An evaluation tool has been created to encompass all measures for community preparedness.

It includes questions that cover topics including but not limited to:• Identification of key community partners from different areas, such as

mental health, transportation, faith-based, etc.• Engagement of key community partners• Considerations for and input from at-risk people in planning

The evaluation tool can be found on pgs 14-15 of the PHEP Performance Measures Guidance:

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDPHE-EPR/CBON/1251643573938

Function 2: Build community partnerships for health preparedness

Tasks: What things can health departments do to identify community partnerships?

1. Identify community groups for partnership based on the risk assessment.2. Use strategies for ongoing engagement of partners to help lessen the

effects of incidents. An example of a collaborative strategy: Strategic advisory councils.

3. Use partnerships with agencies responsible for direct health-related services to make sure the community has access to public health, medical, and mental/behavioral health services during and after an incident.

4. Use a quality improvement process to include feedback from partners into emergency operations plans.

5. Identify community leaders that can act as trusted spokespersons to deliver public health messages.

Function 2 MeasurementHow does the CDC measure that health departments have

met the criteria for having a risk assessment including community input?

An evaluation tool has been created to encompass all measures for community preparedness.

It includes questions that cover topics including but not limited to:• Identification of key community partners from different areas, such as

mental health, transportation, faith-based, etc.• Engagement of key community partners• Considerations for and input from at-risk people in planning

The evaluation tool can be found in PHEP Performance Measures on pgs 14-15:

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDPHE-EPR/CBON/1251643573938

Function 3: Engage With Community Organizations Identified

Tasks: What things can health departments do to engage community partners after identifying them?

1. Ensure that community groups understand how to connect to public health to participate in preparedness efforts with other partners.

2. Ensure that service agencies that provide essential health services to the community are connected to public health preparedness plans and efforts.

3. Create networks such as local businesses, community and faith-based organizations, ethnic radio/media to share critical health-related information before, during, and after the incident.

Function 3 MeasurementHow does the CDC measure that health departments have

met the criteria for having a risk assessment including community input?

An evaluation tool has been created to encompass all measures for community preparedness.

It includes questions that cover topics including but not limited to:• Identification of key community partners from different areas, such as

mental health, transportation, faith-based, etc.• Engagement of key community partners• Considerations for and input from at-risk people in planning

The evaluation tool can be found on pgs 14-15 of PHEP Performance Measures:

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDPHE-EPR/CBON/1251643573938

Function 4: Coordinate training or guidance to ensure community

engagement in preparedness efforts

Tasks: What things can health departments do to train or provide guidance to community partners in preparedness?

1. Include information on community-based and cooperative resilience into existing training programs for preparedness and response.

2. Promote training to community partners that may have a supporting role to public health, medical, and mental/ behavioral health sectors.

3. Provide guidance to community partners, particularly groups representing the needs of at-risk populations, in educating their own groups about planning for preparedness and recovery from incidents, based on possible issues revealed in the risk assessment.

Function 4 MeasurementHow does the CDC measure that health departments have

met the criteria for having a risk assessment including community input?

An evaluation tool has been created to encompass all measures for community preparedness.

It includes questions that cover topics including but not limited to:• Identification of key community partners from different areas, such as

mental health, transportation, faith-based, etc.• Engagement of key community partners• Considerations for and input from at-risk people in planning

The evaluation tool can be found on pgs 14-15 of PHEP Performance Measures:

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CDPHE-EPR/CBON/1251643573938

Questions?

Please contact:Rachel ColesProgram Evaluator--CDPHE303-692-2764rachel.coles@state.co.us