Project Public Health Ready (PPHR) is a collaborative program between the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Center for Health Policy at the Columbia University School of Nursing, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that aims to prepare local governmental public health agencies to respond to emergencies and to protect the public's health through a competency-based training process. The program requires each site to fulfill certain criteria in order to be recognized as Public Health Ready. The criteria focus on three key areas: emergency preparedness planning, workforce competency development, and demonstration of all-hazards readiness through exercise simulations.

NWCPHP's Role in Assisting Sites Achieve Recognition

The Northwest Center for Public Health Practice (NWCPHP) assisted five sites in their efforts to achieve Public Health Ready recognition. Our work and level of involvement with each site differed according to the health department staff, resources, and specific requests. To learn more about our work with the sites, please select from the links below:

• Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department, Washington
• Local Health Districts, Idaho
• Public Health - Seattle & King County, Washington
• Gallatin City-County Health Department, Montana
• Hill County Health Department, Montana

Tools and Resources

During the work process with these sites, NWCPHP collaboratively developed several training, mapping, and evaluation resources. We offer the following resources as tools for others to use and adapt as needed. All tools and resources have been converted into generic format where possible.

• Emergency Preparedness Needs Assessment tool
• Tools for mapping the emergency preparedness and bioterrorism competencies to the categories/questions in the assessment tool.
  • Preliminary outline
  • Final mapping tool
• Training Plan Template
• Full-scale emergency preparedness drill scenarios and associated tools
  • Full-scale Drill: Bomb Threat Scenario
  • Full-scale Drill: Earthquake Scenario
  • Drill Evaluation Flowchart
  • Pre-Drill Survey for Participants
  • Post-Drill Survey for Participants
  • Post-Drill Debriefing Questions

More information

NWCPHP is proud to have 12 individual sites in our region achieve Public Health Ready recognition. We are equally pleased to have earned regional and national recognition for the needs assessment and mapping tools that were developed in the process. The collaborative work with the local health departments proved to be very fruitful. This work has helped NWCPHP to extend our reach and provide assistance beyond our primary state-level work.

For more information about NWCPHP's work with PPHR, contact Luann D'Ambrosio.