Mission
The CDC-funded Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) Program is a national network of academic institutions working in collaboration with state and local public health departments and other community partners to develop, deliver, and evaluate preparedness education.
The strategic partnership of public health practitioners and the South Central Center for Public Health Preparedness (SCCPHP or Center) academics provides a comprehensive, regional approach to professional emergency and disaster workforce development. The SCCPHP provides training opportunities tailored to the unique needs of the region through onsite courses, web-based courses, satellite broadcasts, regional conferences, and newsletters. The Center also fosters and coordinates information sharing and relationships among state and local practice partners through regular conference calls, meetings, and joint training activities.
The SCCPHP works with state and local health agencies in the region to identify individual and organizational-level training needs in bioterrorism, infectious disease including pandemic influenza, food safety, school safety, radiological terrorism, and other areas including vulnerable populations. These collaborative relationships with state and local public health agencies effectively utilize resources in producing training programs that meet the demands of a rapidly changing world. SCCPHP needs assessments provide information regarding both individual-level, competency-based needs of the public health workforce in their area, as well as organizational-level factors influencing SCCPHP training in meeting critical competency-based training needs.
Impact
The SCCPHP reaches over 60,000 participants each year through a wide array of public health preparedness activities. The Center also places nearly 20 master and doctoral level interns each year in public health agencies. Work in pandemic influenza began in late 2005 with the development of a functional exercise series for the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) known as the “Unfortunates Series.” The Center was then asked to facilitate the school closing exercises in Alabama (12 were delivered), the school closing exercises for the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) (48 were delivered), functional exercises for MSDH based on the video captured for the Unfortunates Series (18 were delivered), to assist both ADPH and MSDH in exercising the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and to develop strategies for operating Points of Dispensing (PODS). More recently, the Center has developed a template for Continuity of Operations Plans (COOPs) and has been working with ADPH to provide assistance to all state agencies in Alabama to develop COOPs. In conjunction with state and local partners, the SCCPHP has also conducted/created the following pandemic influenza-related activities:
Webcasts
- State of Alabama Pandemic Influenza and All-Hazards Integrated COOP
- Current and Upcoming H1N1 Challenges for Communities, Schools and Agencies: Experiences in Alabama
- H1N1: Nurses Ready to Respond
- Alternative Standards of Care in Disasters
- Psychological First Aid: Building Resiliency for "Us" and "Them"
- Developing Cross Border Collaboration for Effective Disaster and Emergency Planning and Response
- Special Needs Populations in Disaster Response
- The Reasons For and Key Elements of Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP)
Online Courses
- Principles of Emerging Infectious Diseases
- Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Public Health Surveillance
- Infectious Disease Transmission Dynamics
- Factors for the Emergence/Reemergence of Infectious Diseases
- Infectious Disease Prevention and Control
- Continuity of Operations Planning
- Cross-Border Collaboration
- Epi-Ready: Foodborne Illness Response Strategies
- Implementing the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
- Special Needs Populations in Disaster Response
- Psychological First Aid for Volunteers
Videos/Publications
- H1N1 and Social Distancing – What It All Means
Publications
- How to Manage the Flu (pdf)
Additionally, the SCCPHP participates in many presentations, exercises, and consulting opportunities related to pandemic influenza preparedness. All courses, webcasts and resources are available on the Center website as well as on the SCCPHP Learning Management System (LMS).
Accomplishments
"Our training capacity would be less robust, our employees less well prepared, and consequently the public of Alabama less safe. This ten-year partnership between the ADPH and the SCPHP has been an outstanding example of linking the expertise of academia with public health practice. The SCPHP has served a critical function of bringing together state and local health departments from across the Gulf Coast to improve the knowledge and skills of our staff and those of multiple other state and local agencies in the region. I know we are more capable to meet the needs of public health in Alabama because of the SCPHP." - Donald E. Williamson, M.D., Alabama State Health Officer
The South Central Public Health Partnership is supported under cooperative agreements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grant U90/CCU624254, and the Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources Administration (HRSA) grant D20HP00012. The contents of this program are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC and HRSA.
