Learn about public health preparedness issues such as isolation and quarantine, workforce activation/surge, vulnerable populations planning, risk communications, and pandemic influenza preparedness with tools directed towards Local Health Departments (LHDs), businesses, and community agencies.

This tool includes a series of pictograms designed to facilitate communication and promote universal access to emergency dispensing site services and other mass care services. Please note that this tool is currently being revised and a new version will be released in 2012.

This comprehensive toolkit evolved from recognition of the need for communities to increase their preparedness for managing mass fatalities. Its focus—the care and management of the dead—is one of the most difficult aspects of disaster response and recovery operations. Toolkit materials are based on lessons learned from actual events, including the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. The toolkit provides scalable, operational direction and tools to guide jurisdictions in creating a local plan. Highlights include: Identification of stakeholders involved in mass fatality management and recommendations for a planning process that is co-led by public health and the medical examiner/coroners office; Specific guidelines for all medical examiner/coroner responsibilities at the incident site, morgue, and family assistance center Guidance on infection and other health and safety threats; and Requirements and recommendations for managing mass fatalities during a worst-case scenario pandemic influenza.

The Mass Care Communication Tools CD contains images, pocket communicators and training materials to be used at Alternate Care Sites and Dispensing Sites. The materials on this CD facilitate communication and promote universal access. All the design files are appropriate for use with any commercial print shop. The CD includes:· 11 Alternate Care Site Images with 13 translations· 10 Emergency Dispensing Site Images with 13 translations· 13 Screening & Treatment images· 1 Dispensing Site Pocket Communicator File · Dispensing Site Training Curriculum

This exercise guide is a rich resource tool utilizing tools previously developed by the Tarrant County APC to provide guidance on performing a public health-focused radiological exercise. The document distills key information from a variety of authoritative sources, to be used as a process guide for local health departments to perform one of the most critical but often neglected aspects of public health readiness: the operations-based or test exercise for an incident involving radioactive agents such as a radioactive dispersion device or so-called “dirty bomb.” The guide contains numerous links to planning and training resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Energy websites. The CD also contains a 17 minute video overview of a major field functional exercise performed in November 2004 involving a simulated dirty bomb at a major NASCAR facility, the Texas Motor Speedway. This CD should be used as a didactic piece along with the DVD, “Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating a Public Health Exercise – A Dirty Bomb Disaster.” The CD covers additional operational considerations in performing a radiological exercise.

The Pre-School and School Health Surveillance Guidance Kit offers insight and more than 100 resources that can help local public health departments develop efficient systems to facilitate health information exchange between a local health department and schools or childcare facilities in an agency’s jurisdiction. Completed in September 2010 and available at no cost to NACCHO members, the Guidance Kit reflects the three-year effort of Tarrant County Public Health (TCPH) and its APC to strengthen health surveillance capabilities in the school and pre-school communities. It describes how TCPH set up a Web-based portal using open source software. That approach makes Tarrant County’s system a highly replicable, affordable and enduring solution — one the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) has called a promising practice for pandemic influenza preparedness. The Guidance Kit offers nine highly detailed guidance chapters (and a compilation) to help local health agencies develop pre-school and school health surveillance capabilities similar to those used in Tarrant County. The guidance addresses all aspects of the actual process of engaging data providers and building and deploying pre-school and school health surveillance systems. Specific topics covered include building rapport with data providers, portal resources to facilitate health information exchange, technical considerations, personalization capabilities and opportunities, data use, system evaluation, research (providing the findings of a review of the relevant academic literature), and case studies . Four complete case studies examine similar systems developed by health departments in Hamilton County (Cincinnati, OH), Harris County (Houston, TX), Sedgwick County (Wichita, KS) and at the Texas Association of Local Health Officials (Austin, TX). In this way, the Kit identifies multiple paths agencies can consider and take. Local health departments can use the 100+ resources on the CD “as is” or customize them for their unique needs. “Read first” files accompany each chapter and resource folder and detail the contents of each chapter and folder. Local health department staff members with any level of experience, including novice, can use the Guidance Kit with no assistance. The CD requires no special training or computer equipment other than the availability of a CD drive.