The Seattle-King County Advanced Practice Center (APC) is a resource for local public health agencies throughout the nation as it develops plans and builds local and regional capacity for responding to an act of bioterrorism or other public health emergency.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) currently funds eight local public health agencies to serve as APCs. Building best practices, APCs combine forces to help all local public health agencies nationwide prepare for, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies.
The Seattle-King County APC is actively working to help all local health departments nationwide prepare for, respond to and recover from Public Health Emergencies.
Toolkits have been developed that address a number of public health emergency preparedness issue including: isolation and quarantine response, techniques for engaging the business community, blueprints for building healthcare coalitions, trainings on crisis and risk communication, and strategies for connecting with organizations that serve vulnerable populations.
Some of these products include:
Building a Healthcare Coalition The web-based toolkit can be used to support healthcare coalition development, or as a topic-specific reference to complement existing health response by providing a planning framework, tools and templates.
Emergency Risk Communication Course For public health professionals and students. Developed in collaboration with the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, this course was designed to provide an introduction to emergency risk communication concepts and principles.
CD-based Emergency Risk Communications Training Guide
For anyone communicating with the public in a crisis, Speak First: Communicating Effectively in Times of Crisis and Uncertainty is a proven, practical training for building the skills to delivering first messages in the early hours of a crisis. Learn what you need to know, to sharpen your skills and to teach others how to master these best practices.
A web-based toolkit to guide local public health agencies in the development of a response-ready workforce by defining surge functions and matching staff resources to emergent response needs.
