PUBLIC HEALTH PREPAREDNESS: MOBILIZING STATE BY STATE
Section 2: Snapshots of Public Health Preparedness in States and Directly Funded Localities: Kentucky
Related Website: Kentucky Department of Public Health
Kentucky Deploys Public Health Teams to Support Hurricane Recovery
Local investments in public health preparedness can support nationwide response efforts.
In September 2005, the Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH) deployed public health workers to assist the Mississippi Department for Public Health in Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Through improvements in infrastructure and training using funds from the cooperative agreement, KDPH strike teams were ready for deployment to a disaster region. Continuing partnerships with emergency management, sanitation, and hospitals allowed KDPH to send six teams over a three-month period through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact system. Teams consisted of public health environmentalists, nurses, pharmacists, and public health preparedness planners from both state and local public health departments. They assisted with food safety, food salvage and disposal, food- and water-related illness, water sampling, clean water sources, special needs shelters, and distribution of medications.
During this critical time, KDPH used newly implemented information technology, such as interactive video conferencing, to allow public health officials to communicate “face-to-face” with response partners across the state and assist in planning for the 6,000 evacuees that were coming to Kentucky. Constant collaboration between state agencies helped connect displaced people with medical and social services. The web-based Health Alert Network and satellite radios were used to share information throughout the response. The online Kentucky Health Emergency Listing of Professionals for Surge was used to register volunteers for assistance, as well as evacuees coming into Kentucky. A toll-free phone center in the newly equipped KDPH Operations Center received calls from evacuees and volunteers.
Snapshot of Public Health Preparedness
Below are activities conducted by Kentucky in the area of public health preparedness. They support CDC preparedness goals in the areas of detection and reporting, control, and improvement; crosscutting activities help prepare for all stages of an event. These data are not comprehensive and do not cover all preparedness activities.
Disease Detection and Investigation
The sooner public health professionals can detect diseases or other health threats and investigate their causes and effects in the community, the more quickly they can minimize population exposure.
Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
---|---|---|
Detect & Report | Could receive and investigate urgent disease reports 24/7/3651 | Yes |
|
Electronic Reporting | |
Linked state and local health personnel to share information about disease outbreaks across state lines (through the CDC Epi-X system)3 | Yes | |
Conducted year-round surveillance for seasonal influenza4 | Yes | |
* Telephone, fax, and electronic reporting are all viable options for urgent disease reporting, as long as the public health department has someone assigned to receive the reports 24/7/365. 1 CDC, DSLR; 2005 2 CDC, DSLR; 2006 3 CDC, Epi-X; 2007 4 HHS, OIG; 2007 |
Public Health Laboratories
Public health laboratories test and confirm agents that can threaten health. For example, advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques and subsequent reporting to the CDC database (PulseNet) are critical to recognize nationwide outbreaks from bacteria that can cause severe illness, such as E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes.
Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
---|---|---|
Detect & Report | Number of Kentucky laboratories in the Laboratory Response Network1 | 3 |
Rapidly identified E. coli O157:H7 using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
36 | |
|
92% | |
Rapidly identified Listeria monocytogenes using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
None |
|
|
N/A | |
Had a laboratory information management system that could create, send, and receive messages3 (8/05 – 8/06) | No | |
|
N/A | |
Had a rapid method to send urgent messages to frontline laboratories that perform initial screening of clinical specimens3 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
Crosscutting | Conducted bioterrorism exercise that met CDC criteria4 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes |
Conducted exercise to test chemical readiness that met CDC criteria4 (8/05 – 8/06) | N/A | |
1 CDC, DBPR; 2007 2 CDC, DSLR; 2007 3 APHL, Public Health Laboratory Issues in Brief: Bioterrorism Capacity; May 2007 4 CDC, DSLR; 2006 |
Response
Planning provides a framework for how a public health department will respond during an emergency. The plans can be tested through external reviews, exercises, and real events. After-action reports assess what worked well during an exercise or real event and how the department can improve.
Category of Activities | Specific Activity | Response |
---|---|---|
Control | Developed a public health response plan, including pandemic influenza response, crisis and emergency risk communication, and Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)1, 2 | Yes |
Kentucky SNS plan reviewed by CDC2 | Yes | |
|
85 | |
Number of Kentucky cities in the Cities Readiness Initiative3 | 1 | |
Crosscutting | Developed roles and responsibilities for a multi-jurisdictional response (ICS) with:1 (8/05 – 8/06) | |
|
Yes | |
|
Yes | |
|
Yes | |
Public health department staff participated in training to support cooperative agreement activities4 | Yes | |
Public health laboratories conducted training for first responders5 (8/05 – 8/06) | No Response | |
Activated public health emergency operations center as part of a drill, exercise, or real event*†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | Yes | |
Conducted a drill or exercise for key response partners to test communications when power and land lines were unavailable†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | Yes | |
Improve | Finalized at least one after-action report with an improvement plan following an exercise or real event†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | Yes |
* Activation means rapidly staffing all eight core ICS functional roles in the public health emergency operations center with one person per position. This capability is critical to maintain in case of large-scale or complex incidents, even though not every incident requires full staffing of the ICS. † States were expected to perform these activities from 9/1/2006 to 8/30/2007. These data represent results from the first half of this period only. 1 CDC, DSLR; 2006 2 CDC, DSNS; 2007 3 CDC, DSNS CRI; 2007 4 CDC, DSLR; 1999-2005 5 APHL, Chemical Terrorism Preparedness; May 2007 6 CDC, DSLR; 2007 |
Get email updates
To receive email updates about this page, enter your email address:
Contact Us:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd
Atlanta, GA 30333 - 800-CDC-INFO
(800-232-4636)
TTY: (888) 232-6348
24 Hours/Every Day - cdcinfo@cdc.gov