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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Cynthia T. Smith, MPH, Ariane Reeves, RN, BSN, CIC, ACRN, and Darren Collins. Center for Public Health Preparedness, DeKalb County Board of Health, 445 Winn Way, Suite 557, Decatur, GA 30031, 404-294-3263, ctsmith@dhr.state.ga.us

For many public health workers, preparing for a natural disaster or other public health threat is only one part of their job. They must continue to perform many other tasks crucial to their job. Also, many of these workers have little or no formal training in either preparedness or training. To address this, we have developed a product, based on NACCHO's best seller BtCreate, which increases response capacity by reducing the time and skill required to create effective tabletop exercises. In 2003, BtCreate was created to help local public health workers develop and implement bioterrorism tabletop exercises. This new tool builds on the original BtCreate by adding additional threat scenarios and discussion questions, and a facilitator's guide that provides specific information on how to develop, implement, and evaluate tabletop exercises. It is based on the premise that effective preparedness exercises can be created and facilitated by anyone. In a year that saw natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we are aware more than ever of the need for tools to improve our ability to prepare for and respond to a growing array of threats. This tool provides valuable background information on preparedness and training issues and allows users to quickly and easily generate scenario-based tabletop exercises that are presented in MS-PowerPoint. The facilitator can customize the exercise by choosing the scenario, objectives, questions, and images most pertinent for that specific audience. The session will introduce attendees to the tool and then allow them to generate their own tabletop exercise.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• List 3 reasons to conduct tabletop exercises as part of a comprehensive preparedness plan.
• Describe the process for developing a tabletop exercise using the featured tool.
• Develop a tabletop exercise using the scenario-based exercise generator tool.

Keywords: Local Public Health Agencies, Bioterrorism

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation