308078
Administrative Model for Leadership in Public Health Preparedness
Objective: Each person working in public health has an essential role to play, with the potential of a leadership role. This includes their day-to-day work as well as during emergencies. Thus, training public health officials, at all strata of responsibility, in leadership theory and practices facilitates drawing out the leader within that individual. It increases communication between those with different responsibilities, and allows for a framework of discussion with people who invariably use different leadership styles. Leadership training was developed and delivered to approximately 100 employees at a large urban health department for the purposes of improvement of public health preparedness and response competencies and capabilities.
Methodology: Two rounds of leadership training were completed at an urban county health department in November 2011, January 2012, and in summer 2012. Each training was conducted in 4 modules of small groups. Results from surveys were analyzed in MS Excel. The following calculations were performed on each participant’s response as well as the overall counts: average, standard deviation, and t-test on responses before and after attending the leadership training.
Results: Knowledge and skill competencies statistically significantly increased one point (from “neutral” to “agree”), for all 4 modules. Statistical increases among the attitude competencies were observed in modules 3 and 4, but not in modules 1 and 2.
Conclusions: According to the director of the urban health department, this training had a significant impact on participants’ ability and readiness to handle disasters of all types. Our model can be adapted to any health department setting.
Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadershipLearning Objectives:
Describe the importance of leadership skills in times of crisis.
Identify a leadership model to increase preparedness and emergency response leadership skills for health department employees.
Keyword(s): Leadership, Emergency Preparedness
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: N/A
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the Co-PI on this project and was involved in the development of the program and have been involved with the evaluation process.
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.