Preparing vulnerable populations for emergencies – public health emergency preparedness websites

Background: Public health emergency preparedness (EP) is lagging for vulnerable populations. State public health agency websites are crucial to public health EP, but assessments of how websites serve vulnerable populations are limited.

Methods: State public health EP websites were evaluated for content regarding EP for children, elderly, non-English speakers, first responders/ health professionals, segmentation by interest/ content, presence of diverse representation, and use by collaborating agencies. Results were also correlated with socio-demographic data that might encourage website development [state population/ density, demographics (percentages rural, poverty, highschool graduates, minorities); state overall EP ratings (American College of Emergency Physicians), state EP funding (Trust for America's Health), and quality of state government score (Pew Foundation)].

Results: 47 states had functional EP websites; of these 13 (27.7%) addressed vulnerable populations. Only 17 (36.2%) websites had EP content for non-English speakers; 13 (27.7%) had content for children; 7 (14.9%) had content for the elderly; 8 (17.0%) were segmented by vulnerable population; 17 (36.2%) posted data on agencies for diverse populations. States having a webpage for one vulnerable population more often had a webpage for another. States that had children's EP webpages had higher quality of government score (2.9 vs. 2.3, p = .03). States with segmented websites had lower percentage poverty (9.2 vs. 11.8, p < .001) and higher EP ratings (5.57 vs. 1.55, p = .01).

Conclusions: Most state public health EP websites lack content for vulnerable populations. Improvements are feasible, since some states address these needs.