176791 Integrating public health into incident command training

Monday, October 27, 2008: 3:15 PM

Amy N. Sarigiannis, MPH , School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Angela J. Beck, MPH, CHES , Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
JoLynn P. Montgomery, MPH, PhD , Office of Public Health Practice, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Matthew L. Boulton, MD, MPH , Office of Public Health Practice, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Martha Stanbury, MSPH , Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology, Michigan Department of Community Health, Lansing, MI
Susan Manente, MAOM, PEM , Division of Environmental Health, Chemical Terrorism and Emergencies Section, Michigan Department of Community Health, Lansing, MI
A public health workforce well-trained in the principles of incident command is essential for response to public health emergencies and coordination with other agencies. The Michigan Center for Public Health Preparedness (MI-CPHP) partnered with the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) and Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Training Center (MSP) to develop and offer a series of trainings focused on applying incident command principles to public health crisis situations.

Needs assessments conducted by MI-CPHP indicated that public health workers need additional training in the application of the incident command system (ICS), even after completing mandatory Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ICS 100 and 200 courses. A one-day, didactic and interactive course, Applied Incident Command for Public Health, was developed utilizing the expertise of public health, law enforcement and fire professionals to provide a public health audience with the opportunity to learn about and discuss an ICS-based response to a public health emergency. This course has been offered nine times across Michigan and evaluation results were used to inform training refinements. Evaluation of the training participants using pretest and posttest methodology revealed statistically significant improvements in self-rated competencies and content knowledge.

Due to the success of this collaborative, integrated training, MI-CPHP has partnered again with MSP and MDCH to offer more advanced ICS training (ICS 300 & 400) opportunities to the public health workforce. These trainings incorporated scenario-based applications and specific training examples tailored to public health to maximize understanding and retention.

Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss how to develop a training to enhance public health's understanding of the incident command system 2. Describe how the evaluation results and post-training debrief sessions were used to improve the application of public health concepts in subsequent trainings 3. Describe the benefits of an academic and practice collaboration for training development and execution

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I was the key planner for the described trainings.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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