Oral

In the years since the terror attacks of 9/11/01 in New York City, there have been ongoing government efforts and expenditures intended to improve our national, state and local capacity for emergency and disaster preparedness. Despite the progress that has been made, there is much more to be done. This session will highlight efforts to improve disaster preparedness, beginning with a presentation from an official of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describing federal government efforts in three areas: antiviral drugs (resources), plans (instructions), and exercises (practice) to develop preparedness for a possible influenza pandemic. The next presentation will focus on pandemic flu preparedness at the community level. Our next presenter will describe factors that may influence preparedness at the household level. Training efforts to improve public health disaster preparedness in Los Angeles will be discussed next. Our last presenter will describe a framework for the assessment of the emergency preparedness knowledge and readiness of physicians.

Session Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be better able to: • List three ways in which the Federal Government assists states in protecting citizens against the effects of an influenza pandemic • Formulate the foundation needed for a general community disaster and emergency response • Identify strategies for increasing household-level emergency preparedness by considering the complexity of factors involved • Describe emergency preparedness training framework developed and currently applied within a local public health department for the purpose of staff training and workplace development • Discuss effective techniques for integrating physicians into an overall community emergency response system

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing