PUBLIC HEALTH PREPAREDNESS: MOBILIZING STATE BY STATE
Section 2: Snapshots of Public Health Preparedness in States and Directly Funded Localities:Texas
Related Website: Texas Department of Public Health
Texas Responds to an Influx of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees
Community partnerships are critical during public health emergencies.
Over 425,000 evacuees came to
Texas within days of Hurricane
Katrina’s landfall, in need of help and
services from federal, state, and local
agencies. Many areas throughout the state provided shelter
to approximately 140,000 people who had no place to
live. The city of San Antonio alone provided shelter for
37,500 at an old factory, shopping mall, and KellyUSA, a
civilian business park and former military base.
Public health staff were on hand to help with evacuees’ immediate medical needs. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District coordinated counseling services and suppliers for the most common medications for diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Pharmacists filled 3,000 prescriptions for evacuees at KellyUSA alone, and those with more urgent needs were transported to area hospitals. A network of agencies and professionals set up a 24-hour mental health clinic at KellyUSA to identify and treat people who needed psychiatric medications. The Texas Health and Human Service Commission also extended office hours to help people access benefits for Medicaid, food stamps, and prescriptions.
San Antonio community partners, including nonprofits, businesses, the faith community, and the public, all contributed greatly to the community’s response. For example, businesses provided food and discounted hotel rates for evacuees and also provided communications services and equipment for shelters. Public health professionals in cooperation with these and other partners worked to ensure a coordinated response that protected the health of thousands of evacuees.
Snapshot of Public Health Preparedness
Below are activities conducted byTexas 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 |
|
Telephone | |
| 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 |
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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 ofTexas laboratories in the Laboratory Response Network1 | 16 |
| Rapidly identified E. coli O157:H7 using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
32 | |
|
94% | |
| Rapidly identified Listeria monocytogenes using advanced DNA “fingerprinting” techniques (PFGE):2 | ||
|
16 |
|
|
69% | |
| Had a laboratory information management system that could create, send, and receive messages3 (8/05 – 8/06) | Yes | |
|
Yes | |
| 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) | Yes | |
1 CDC, DBPR; 2007 2 CDC, DSLR; 2007 3 APHL, Public Health Laboratory Issues in Brief: Bioterrorism Capacity; May 2007 4 CDC, DSLR; 2006 |
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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 |
| Nebraska SNS plan reviewed by CDC2 | Yes | |
|
97 | |
| Number ofTexas cities in the Cities Readiness Initiative3 | 3 | |
| 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 | |
| Activated public health emergency operations center as part of a drill, exercise, or real event*†6 (partial year, 9/06 – 2/07) | No | |
| 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) | No | |
| 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 |
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