Public Health Practices

Four Armenian schools in the Los Angeles area created earthquake response training and held exercises with students in grades 1-8. Training covered Incident Command System roles, search and rescue, and general school preparedness issues.

Public health agencies can vary greatly in the degree to which they partner with schools to track influenza-related illness (ILI) and its effects on the health of children and the community. In response to this need, a Texas public health agency developed a toolkit that walks agencies through the steps of creating, using, and evaluating a system for tracking ILI-related absences in public schools as well as in childcare facilities.

The Alaska Tsunami Education Program blends Alaska Native knowledge and science instruction in a hands-on, standard-aligned curriculum for grades K through 12. Digital lectures, interactive multimedia, and mapping projects give students an opportunity to learn the science of tsunamis in a culturally relevant context.

When news of the first cases of novel H1N1 influenza surfaced in April 2009, mass immunization became part of regular emergency preparedness discussions around the country. In Yamhill County, Ore., the heart of the state's wine industry with more than 95,000 residents, public health planners began to plan how it would work in their county.

As part of Maine's efforts to evaluate H1N1 response, the University of Southern Maine (USM) Muskie School of Public Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated to conduct a evaluation of school-based vaccination clinics in Maine. USM focused on qualitative evaluation. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC), the state public health agency, chose school-based vaccination as its primary mode for distributing H1N1 vaccine.

Early in the 2009 H1N1 vaccination effort, daycares, schools, colleges and universities in the state were strongly encouraged to vaccinate people between the ages of 6 months and 24 years. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Office of Public Health (DHH OPH) partnered with Louisiana's Department of Social Services (DSS), Department of Education (DOE) and the Louisiana Board of Regents (BOR) to organize outreach efforts and host school-located vaccination campaigns.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (WVDHHR) formed a close partnership with the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDOE) to produce educational materials on H1N1 for K-12 school professionals, teachers, students, and parents. DHHR and DOE also provided outreach and held several community activities designed to promote discussion and collaboration among schools, parents, and health planners.