Online Program

330145
East Harlem COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disaster): The development of a neighborhood-based response strategy for a public health emergency


Monday, November 2, 2015

Ann-Gel S. Palermo, MPH, DrPH, Harlem Community & Academic Partnership, Inc., New York, NY
Hannah Wade, CUNY School of Public Health
Evy Yeager, Georgetown University
Caroline Beyer, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
David Ali, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Ray Cornbill, MBA, East Harlem Community Health Committee, Inc, New York, NY
Mali Trilla, East Harlem Community Health Committee, Inc, New York, NY
Dorothy Calvani, RN, MSN, C-GNP, Department of Home Nursing /Certified Home Health Agency (CHHA), Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service, New York, NY
Carol Johnson, East Harlem Community Emergency Response Team
Emily Accamando, New York City Emergency Management
Lynn Roberts, PhD, Community Health and Social Sciences, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York, NY
The four phases of emergency management include preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. Implementing these phases at the neighborhood level is not well understood or documented. The East Harlem Emergency Preparedness Collaborative (EHEPC), formed in 2013, addresses the lack of organizational preparedness for a public health emergency among community service provider organizations serving vulnerable and low resource populations in the neighborhood.  Recent natural disasters and a gas explosion of an apartment building in the neighborhood revealed the absence of local and coordinated response strategies, thereby illustrating a weak phase in the emergency management cycle. The EHEPC turned its focus to developing a neighborhood-based response strategy by adapting the Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) partnership-based model.  To conceptualize the EH COAD, the EHEPC first analyzed prior local research efforts, conducted key informant interviews with neighborhood-based emergency response organizations, and integrated major themes generated from community conversations following recent disasters.  Next, the EHEPC will form an EH COAD Design Team comprised of a small number of community-based organizations representing a cross-section of sectors including multi/human service providers, locally owned businesses, faith-based groups, and community health organizations with strong leadership and proven interest in emergency response. The goals of the Design Team are to agree on the concept, design, purpose and function of the COAD and to determine next steps and recommendations for additional member organizations and sustainability.  The Design Team will be coached by the EHEPC regarding strategic thinking and planning to strengthen the response phase in the emergency management cycle.

Learning Areas:

Administration, management, leadership
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related research
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify approaches used to translate strategic thinking and planning to action at the community level Define critical factors and strategies used to develop a neighborhood-based emergency response organization Recognize the role of emergency management within community-based public health, and implications for practice

Keyword(s): Emergency Preparedness, Community-Based Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been both the principal and co-principal investigators of the community based research studies that this abstract is based on. I maintain over 15 years of community health advocacy work in East Harlem.
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.