goals: Presentation showcases multi-level response by Community Health Workers (CHWs) in partnership with other Los Angeles County (LAC) Department of Public Health (DPH) staff to educate county residents on West Nile Virus (WNV) infection.

methodology: Project was conducted through health education outreach involving CHWs throughout LAC DPH. CHWs were provided with education materials which they distributed at outreach sites. Video footage of project including parts played by community health workers in outreaching LAC residents on WNV outbreak is to be incorporated with current presentation.

evaluation tools: CHWs, other DPH staff attended a Just-In-Time-Training on WNV outbreak covering pertinent information on spread and prevention. Covering Service Planning Areas in LAC, workers outreached sites and uploaded data to an online data entry tool (SurveyMonkey). Information was entered in quasi-real time and geocoded using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) weekly to view coverage of catchment areas where outreaches were conducted. Gaps were identified from the resulting GIS maps for follow-up.

findings: In partnership with CHWs and other DPH colleagues for the WNV outbreak in LAC, 469 field staff employees were engaged in this ten-week response on the WNV outbreak. In all, 14,422 outreached sites were outreached, with 18,613 WNV related informational packets and 19,399 additional posters/flyers [dual-translated into 7 threshold languages (Armenian; English; Chinese; Korean; Spanish; Tagalog; Vietnamese)] were distributed across LA County. DPH staff engagement and deployment provided a new paradigm for modification/adaptation to other emergency/outbreak events in LAC; benefits include cost savings through more efficient and effective emergency response in disaster preparedness.