Public Health Practices

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is an approach to assessing the health impacts of policies, plans, and projects using a variety of quantitative, qualitative and participatory techniques, in order to help decision-makers make more informed choices and promote healthy initiatives. One major benefit to using this approach is that investigators can record local observations where community-level data is difficult to find.

The H1N1 influenza vaccination clinic held at Minnesota State University (MSU), in Mankato on December 19, 2009 was one of the largest public mass dispensing clinics in the state of Minnesota during the H1N1 pandemic response. A total of 5,025 people were vaccinated during the six-hour clinic.

Illinois Department of Health developed an online survey tool to collect medical countermeasure data, as required by CDC for the countermeasures report. Based on CDC's Medical Countermeasure Situational Report form, the survey tracks both those supplies the local health departments and hospitals have in stock and those supplies they have already distributed.

A campaign to integrate community-based organizations (CBOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs) into pandemic preparedness considers the ways in which these organizations have the ability to assist a large number and diversity of people. The campaign has two purposes: 1) to identify clients or members who are served by community organizations and may need special assistance during a pandemic; and 2) to assist organizations as they create emergency call-down procedures.

The Cambridge Advanced Practice Center for Emergency Preparedness (MA) developed materials for local health departments to promote personal preparedness planning and working with service agencies to reach at-risk populations. They are designed to be simple, clear, and effective at reaching a variety of audiences, and represent an accessible way to initiate or further personal preparedness discussion and activities.

The Hamilton County Preparation Project uses a variety of community health education tools to encourage pandemic influenza education and preparedness within the county. This was an extensive and fairly comprehensive community outreach activity. Precursors to conducting outreach included developing and issuing surveys to identify the knowledge baseline in the community and creating population-based advisory committees to assist in the development of educational materials.

New York State convened forums for news media personnel in various regions throughout the state.