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In
This Issue:
- New
Online Courses
- Responder
Safety Awareness During Disaster Response: A Course for First
Responders
- MPH
Degree and DrPH Degree Programs
New
Online Courses Available:
Facilitator Training
In this
course, the instructor will introduce methods and strategies used in
facilitating meetings, workshops, tabletop exercises, and other events.

Burn Evaluation and Care for Emergency Responders
According
to United States Fire Administration data, in 2007 fire killed more Americans
than all natural disasters combined. Approximately 10,000 people in the
United States die every year because of infections that complicate burns.
While burn injuries are common in the United States, specialized burn centers
often lack the capability to care for large numbers of burn victims. For
this reason, improved initial evaluation, triage and management of burn injuries
can significantly impact victim outcomes. These tasks are most commonly
performed by emergency responders and first receivers (paramedics, nurses and
physicians). This course will raise the overall burn care expertise among
participants and prepare these individuals to respond to public health threats
and burn-related emergencies.

Alternative Standards of Care in Disaster
Emergency
events and disasters require the affected population to adapt to rapidly
changing circumstances including an often abruptly limited scope of public
health services. Optimization of outcome requires all available resources
to be preserved, coordinated and focused so as to optimize community response in
dealing with the normal ongoing needs of the stricken and spared populations,
the special disaster-related needs of the population at risk and the special
needs encountered by populations with special vulnerability.
Alternative standards of care will allow a community adapting to the hierarchy
of needs of the population at risk to streamline and simplify the support
process during arduous circumstances so as to maximally preserve life. The
development of rational "fall-back" positions preserves a rational process with
accepted outcomes. This permits effective prevention to drive resiliency
into a preparation for emergency action which defines personnel, logistics and
communications requirements enabling the most effective consequence management
and leading to early, effective and coordinated recovery. Guiding the
integration of alternative standards into the public health system as a
component of preparedness involves articulating the best amalgam of current
technology and available resources capable of a robust and reliable outcome.
Prevention based management, broad based community planning driving integration
of interests and resources across the broad range of interests and potentially
responding agencies, is a critical step in advancing beyond the existing
operational inadequacies, stovepiping and ineffective coordination of recovery
based management.

Other Training Opportunities:
Responder
Safety Awareness During Disaster Response:
A Course for
First Responders
Mobile, AL -
May 27, 2010
Course Description:
The Responder
Safety Awareness during Disaster Response course will address concerns for the
safety and health of first responders involved in the response to natural
disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods and will include the
identification of specific hazards associated with these types of events.
NIM's 215 form for identifying safety hazards on site will be reviewed. A
number of topics will be covered including heat stress; injuries from working
around debris and on unstable surfaces; dust; confined spaces; chemicals and
contaminated flood and standing waters; electrical hazards; infectious diseases;
food-borne, water-borne, insect-borne and animal-borne diseases of concern;
animal and insect hazards; and traumatic stress injuries. Hazards
associated with generator, chain saw and heavy equipment will also be addressed.
The course will culminate with an in-class exercise designed to test first
responder's ability to identify on-scene hazards.
Registration:
This course is
offered free of charge, but pre-registration is required. For more
information please contact Natasha Ptomey at the UAB School of Public Health
(E-mail: nptomey@uab.edu Phone: 205-975-8963)
For more
information on the location and to register online,
please visit
http://www.southcentralpartnership.org/firstrespondersafetycourse2010
Master of
Public Health (MPH) in Disaster Management
Tulane University School
of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Department of Environmental Health
Sciences
A
new program in Disaster Management is being offered by Tulane School
of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Department of Environmental
Health Sciences. This program is offered both on campus and by
distance learning through the Center for Applied Environmental
Public Health (CAEPH). Students may obtain either a graduate
certificate or the full MPH in disaster management. The Tulane
CAEPH distance learning programs are geared to mid career
professionals. CAEPH uses state-of-the-art synchronous
distance learning technologies to enhance learning and networking.
For more information on the MPH
program, please visit:
http://dl.caeph.tulane.edu
or send an email to
DLinfo@tulane.edu
or call
1-800-862-2122.
Master of Public Health
(MPH) in Public Health Preparedness Management and Policy
University of
Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health, Department of Health Care
Organization & Policy
This specialized degree covers all hazards
preparedness topics including, event typologies, response organization,
leadership and management, hazard and risk assessment policy development and
evaluation and risk communication.
Public Health
Preparedness Management and Policy Learning Objectives
-
Describe the economic, legal, organization,
and political underpinnings of the US health system with regard to
preparedness
-
Apply principles of management, finance,
accounting and strategic planning in health care organizations with regard
to preparedness; and
-
Apply basic planning and management skills as
well as risk assessment policy development and evaluation and risk
communication necessary with regard to preparedness
For more
information on the MPH degree, please visit:
https://www.soph.uab.edu/node/1213
Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)
in Public Health Management
University of
Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health, Department of Health Care
Organization & Policy
The Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program in
Public Health Management prepares current and future public health leaders and
research faculty to apply critical thinking and rigorous research methods to
complex problems facing public health practitioners and policy makers. The
program focuses on public health management, organization, and leadership issues
and allows students to specialize in preparedness management and policy or any
of the other public health disciplines: biostatistics, environmental health
sciences, epidemiology, or health behavior.
For more
information on the DrPH degree, please visit:
https://www.soph.uab.edu/node/1214
Preparedness Minute Videos
Preparedness Minutes are video clips describing actions to take in
emergency situations, whether they are at work or at home.
Some of the videos will be reminders, others will present new
information. Ultimately these videos will help you be prepared
for an emergency or disaster. Please visit the link below to
watch any of our preparedness minute videos.
Watch Videos
Other Online Courses Available:
Improving Disaster Communication: The Role of Poison
Control Centers in Public Health
Disaster
and mass event situations can lead to uncertainty, fear, anxiety and stress.
In these situations, community members need effective and timely information.
Poison centers currently offer advice to the general public and the healthcare
system on a wide range of poisonings and toxicological issues. They are
available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and are staffed by specialists who are
trained and experienced in handling individuals in extremely stressful
situations.
Even
though poison centers assume a primary role in poisoning prevention and
education, they additionally play a major role in disaster communication,
surveillance and public health. Faculty will present the ways poison
control has previously connected communities with vital public health
information and the future possibilities of collaborations between public health
and poison control. Recent incidents such as the SARS outbreak and spinach
contamination with E. coli highlight the potential role of poison centers in
enhancing the public health response to mass events and disasters.
This
course will also discuss the potential for public health and poison centers to
develop plans for communication and coordination during disasters and mass
events. Through such strategic alliances, public health will be able to
quickly provide poison centers with vital information, reliable refer the
community to poison center phone lines for essential information, and be able to
effectively respond to the event in the field as needed. NOTE: This
course was originally delivered as a satellite broadcast.

The Pharmacist's Role in Disasters
Hurricanes, tornadoes, bioterrorism, and pandemic flu are all examples of events
that create emergencies for the public health system. Such events have
disrupted the lives and healthcare of thousands of individuals and will do so
again in the future. Regardless of the type of event, when such
emergencies occur, communities and individuals face real difficulties related to
the need to obtain and properly use pharmaceutical products or the need to
maintain appropriate pharmaceutical therapies. Pharmacists serve the
fundamental role in our ability, as a society, to initiate a pharmaceutical
emergency response where needed, and to maintain appropriate pharmaceutical care
for a damaged community.
The
broadcast faculty in this session will discuss the changing role of the
pharmacist in the public health system as well as the specific roles of the
pharmacist during a public health emergency response. They will also
present examples from the experiences of the pharmacy community during the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. NOTE: This course was originally
delivered as a satellite broadcast.

Community Partnerships and Perspectives - Basic Level
This
course provides an introduction and overview to community partnerships and
perspectives series. It will familiarize you with concepts and skills
necessary in working with communities to improved public health. At
various points throughout the course you will be prompted to complete exercises
that can be found in the course workbook.

Orientation
to the Essentials of Public Health - Introductory Level
This
course provides a brief history of public health in the US. It also
discusses the guiding principles for those who practice public health.
From the initial three core functions of public health first defined by the
Institute of Medicine in 1988 through the current 10 essential services of
public health set by the US Department of Health and Human Services. The
expanded role of public health in the times of disasters is also explored.
Examples of current public health initiatives in the Southeast as well as
testimonials by current public health employees demonstrates the importance of
public health in today's society.

Cross-Border
Collaboration
The challenges of
disaster and emergency planning and the coordination of response increase
significantly when the event spans state lines, borders of sovereign Tribal
nations, and international borders. Challenges associated with cross
border response range from technical issues such as the compatibility of
communications systems to legal issues such as authority and power of responders
to the managerial issues of planning, organizing, and controlling the response.
In order to deal with these challenges multi-jurisdictional agreements in the
forms of Memorandums of Understanding and Mutual Aid Agreements are often
created. While such agreements are essential to developing the details of
collaboration, testing the effectiveness in terms of both substance and form
through drills and exercises is necessary and offers additional benefits of
strengthening relationships and building confidence among cross-border response
organizations. NOTE: This course was originally presented as a
satellite broadcast.

Quick
Links:
Register
Now!
South
Central Public Health Partnership
Tulane
University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
University
of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health

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