Disaster Preparedness

Purpose

This week’s graded topics relate to the following Course Outcomes (COs).

• CO 3: Plan prevention and population-focused interventions for vulnerable populations using professional clinical judgment and evidence-based practice. (PO 4 and 8)
• CO 6: Utilize a systems-based and collaborative approach to address factors that influence the health of a community and population health problems. (PO 2)

Discussion

Preparing for disasters, terrorist threats, or communicable disease outbreaks is an important part of public health nursing.

• Share an overview of a natural or human-made disaster that has occurred in your area in the last 20 years.
  • Include a URL and reference to the event. This may be a news article.
• Describe how your community was impacted.
• Describe lessons learned and changes made to preparedness.

professor’s comment: Hello Class,

The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) website provides excellent information through their own Be Prepared web page for the National Preparedness Month every September and it’s a great resource to share as we are focusing on Disaster Preparedness in this discussion.

Post 9/11 the state health department had the county health departments develop Homeland Security Bioterrorism task forces to educate the community on how to prepare for a natural or other disaster. Health Departments developed teams of staff and invited key stakeholders from the community level to participate. One of the criteria to memberships was to demonstrate that each staff/stakeholder had a personal plan so when called to duty there were no worries about personal issues.

Now, ask yourself do you have a plan? Is this a sound plan and what needs to be part of the plan?

Here is a web site for you to answer some of those questions and prepare. Please share your thoughts and what you found on the site, see you in class!

Link – http://www.cdc.gov/Features/BeReady/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Please feel free to address these questions in your response. 

1. What roles do culture and ethnicity play when implementing a population based intervention?
2. What can disaster workers do to alleviate some of the stress associated with their experience?
3. How do you think nurses can be more involved with disaster preparedness in your facility? Are there any barriers that prohibit involvement?

Thanks,
Dr. Petko

references: American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2019). Community/public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (7 ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.