The Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) is the oldest, continuously operating health department in the country – founded in 1793 to respond to a local yellow fever outbreak. BCHD is committed to the idea that health is critical to a community’s ability to thrive and thus deserves to be incorporated in decision making in almost every sector.
Many communities – large and small – have recovered from disasters. Some have been successful, while others struggle to return. Disasters affect hundreds of communities nationwide every year and – at some point in time – each is confronted with the hard reality of recovering from a disaster. When the national attention and bright lights of the media fade, communities need to be prepared to recover.
Public health practice parallels the whole community approach advocated by 21st century emergency management practitioners. Therefore, public health’s emergency preparedness actions integrate nicely with contemporary emergency management practice. Several methodologies of public health practice lend themselves to collaboration with other planning and response disciplines. By examining these methods, public health can extend and maximize its role in community-based emergency planning, response, and recovery.
For more than a century, the U.S. electrical power grid has dramatically improved the health, safety, and economic productivity of hundreds of millions of people. Although this grid stands as an ingenious accomplishment, experts fear that, as the 21st century progresses, the grid’s ability to meet evolving U.S. energy needs may falter without dramatic modernization.
“Forms, we don’t need no stinking forms to handle an all hazard emergency response in our ______ (fill in the blank: town, city, county, parish, tribal territory, region, state),” was no doubt echoed by many of the leaders of the numerous alphabet agencies attending mandatory National Incident Management System (NIMS) training some 15 years ago.
The probability of certain public health threats, the costs and funding related to such threats,
and the “silo” effect of the public health sector all contribute to the preparedness gap between public
health and other sectors. It is time to bridge this gap and update preparedness efforts to better
prepare for 21st century threats.
With the current amount of discussion and media coverage regarding the spreading Zika virus and the mounting concerns over antibiotic drug resistance, public health remains a critical homeland security and emergency preparedness priority. Unfortunately, it is often a fluctuating priority that does not receive consistent attention, action, and funding to prepare for future known and unknown public health threats.
Space weather, nuclear, and catastrophic natural disasters are just lying in wait for the right
combination of conditions. Although it is not possible to plan specifically for every type of threat –
imaginable and unimaginable – it is necessary to weigh the risks associated with various threats and
take sufficient actions to mitigate the devastating effects.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the Washington and British Columbia coast along the 700-mile Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) – followed by a tsunami with 90-foot or more wave surges in some […]
Among the many important, yet weak, satellite signals that can be disrupted by space weather, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is undoubtedly the most important and the weakest. Two recent public discussions have highlighted the challenges this poses for the national electrical grid, both today and going forward.
The Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) is the oldest, continuously operating health department in the country – founded in 1793 to respond to a local yellow fever outbreak. BCHD is committed to the idea that health is critical to a community’s ability to thrive and thus deserves to be incorporated in decision making in almost every sector. 