SPOTLIGHT ON NEHA RESOURCES: E E!E & ""#E! !E E""
Concurrent Disaster and Recovery Resource Hubs
and understand their emergency response capabilities and human resource capacities. This web application will enhance prepared- ness for multifaceted disaster scenarios by ensuring personnel are optimally allocated according to specialized expertise. You will be able to use this simulator to enhance collaboration across the emergency response, environmental public health, and public health systems to better prepare, respond, and recover from concurrent disasters. Specifically, the simulator will help public health and environmental health agencies: • Reveal and measure readiness gaps • Bridge gaps and map capabilities, program functions, and human capacities • Enable improvement of response plans to better prepare for actual disaster response • Provide clarity amid complexity The simulator also has a component that will allow users to see how a pandemic can strain jurisdiction capabilities and capacity and then further complicate response with acute, concurrent disas- ters. The simulator models four disasters: pandemic, pandemic/ earthquake, pandemic/hurricane, and pandemic/ice storm. The simulation scenarios are based on the modeled impacts of the haz- ard in your jurisdiction. These scenarios highlight the environ- mental public health impacts of concurrent disasters.
Credit: Image @ Adobe Stock: sakhorn38. We have created two resource hubs filled with forms, templates, exercises, reports, and guides for environmental public health pro- fessionals that are ready to download. You can find both resources at www.neha.org/readiness. Concurrent Disasters Resources: This collection of resources is for environmental health professionals to use to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, and infectious diseases that occur at the same time or consecutively. The repository includes resources to facilitate knowledge sharing across jurisdictions on concurrent disasters that were developed by state, local, tribal, and territorial health departments; academic institutions; nongovernmental organiza- tions; and governmental agencies. Here are just a few highlighted resources: • Federal Emergency Management Agency Hurricane Pandemic Plan • Natural Hazards Center: Lessons on Concurrent Disasters • Dual Disaster Handbook—Flooding Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Resources : This collection of resources is for environmental health profes- sionals to use to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from nat- ural and human-made emergencies and disasters. The repository includes resources to facilitate knowledge sharing across juris- dictions that were developed by state, local, tribal, and territorial health departments; academic institutions; nongovernmental orga- nizations; and governmental agencies. Here are just a few highlighted resources: • Wells—What to Do After a Flood • Disaster Guide for Retail Food Facilities • Wildfire Response Guide
Another component of the simulator is an AI assistant Sim Designer to help users design disaster simulations. The data that users enter during the initial parts of the simulator (e.g., mapping capabilities, program functions, capacities) are incorporated into the Sim Designer to help users create contextualized and person- alized disaster scenarios, descriptions, modules, and injects. Check out the informational video for the simulator and sign up for notifications at www.neha.org/disaster-readiness-simulator.
Did You Know?
The Center for Domestic Preparedness within the Federal Emergency Management Agency is oering an Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response Operations (EHTER Ops) course on September 23–27. The course will be held in Anniston, Alabama. Learn more at www.neha.org/ehter-sept24.
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September 2024 • Journal of Environmental Health
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