Public Health Practices

The Florida Department of Health built offline Web page templates ("dark sites") to be customized and placed online when a disaster occurs. In an online format accessible to a large number of people, the dark sites enable communications staff to provide the public and agency employees with current and accurate information they need to stay safe and do their jobs. The project was honored in 2012 for its significant effects on saving agency staff time and financial resources.

The Michigan Department of Community Health and its partners developed a skills-based disaster preparedness curriculum for children in grades 1-12. Lesson plans focus on skills children can integrate easily into their lifestyles and transmit to their families.

The Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Emergency Preparedness Planning Guide helps planners integrate the needs of migrant and seasonal farm workers into existing emergency preparedness planning efforts. Ready-to-use checklists outline essential steps to take when working with migrant and seasonal farm workers during all phases of an emergency.

Recent tragedies such as the Haiti earthquake, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and September 11th have demonstrated that minorities suffer disproportionately during all stages of a disaster. Acknowledging that culturally and linguistically competent care can help mitigate health disparities, the U.S.

Los Angeles County's mass fatality guidance provides detailed tools and recommendations that may assist hospitals and the offices of Medical Examiners and Coroners during an emergency. The guidance provides checklists for planning, staffing a fatalities management unit, and morgue surge.

Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters (CARD) created an emergency planning guide for community-based organizations that describes staff preparedness and outreach to clientele, while also covering the types of activities that should and should not be assigned to spontaneous volunteers (ie, volunteers that just "show up" and wish to help).

New Hanover County, North Carolina, built and maintained a voluntary special needs emergency registry through their Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). The registry was initiated in 1997 and housed under the Department of Emergency Management until 2003, when grant funds became available to support maintenance of a registry by RSVP.