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Public
Health Preparedness
Public Health Departments play critical roles in
preparing for and responding to health disasters.
Examples of the roles they play include the following:
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Facilitating Health Disaster Response Planning in communities (in
partnership with emergency management agencies)
Enhancing emergency preparedness and response skills of health care
providers, public health professionals, and others
Detecting and tracking diseases
Investigating outbreaks
Testing laboratory specimens to identify or confirm the cause of
disease
Accessing and administering medications or vaccines to prevent
disease
Offering guidance,
support and
coordination to health care providers and facilities
Managing limited health resources for the public good
Providing health information to the public
Providing clinical
guidance to
providers and
responders
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State Activities
The WV Bureau for Public
Health has many efforts underway to enhance
preparedness and response to health threats and
disasters. These include maintenance of
the state Public Health Threat Response Plan,
enhancement of epidemiologic capacity (disease
surveillance, outbreak investigation and
control), maintenance of a
Bio-safety
Level 3 Public Health Laboratory capable of more
accurately and rapidly identifying select
disease agents, maintenance of a chemical
laboratory to assess potential exposures,
planning for receipt and rapid distribution of
medications and supplies, development of
Rapid Notification and other Information
Technology systems, development of systems
to better deliver training to learners in the
field, provision of training and tools for
emergency response and strengthening ways to get
information and guidance to the public quickly
and effectively.
Local Health Department Activities
Each
Local Health Department is working within their community to enhance health
emergency preparedness and response capacity as well.
Each
local health department has appointed a LHD Threat Preparedness Coordinator. .
Local
Health Departments are also working together within Public Health Preparedness
Regions (also used as Regional Epidemiology Regions)
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