[Thorpe] Welcome to Beyond the Data.
I'm Dr. Phoebe Thorpe, and here
with me today is Dr. Oscar Alleyne Chief of Services
and Programs at NACCHO.
Thank you for joining us Oscar.
[Alleyne] Thank you.
Such a pleasure to be here with you.
[Thorpe] Today's session is
about helping local health departments prepare for threats.
They have lots of roles during an emergency.
Among them are figuring out what the problem is, is it a threat,
and then finding resources and ways to fix the solution,
and then also collaborating and communicating about the problem.
Local health departments contribute tremendously
through their surveillance data.
It's quite clear that a natural disaster what the threat is,
but there may be variation
in what how it's impacted the community.
And also, when there's an infectious disease surveillance
is very very important for figuring out what's going on.
Tell me, in the local health department,
how does that data get collected,
and used, and how is it used?
[Alleyne] Sure.
Thank you for that question.
You know the interesting thing, I spent 16 years as director
of epidemiology for a local health department in New York,
and data is what drives us.
Often times it's the collection of information to be able
to accelerate a move into action in a way
that really supports the response level,
so the surveillance status come from several areas.
You can have data from the clinical practices,
the healthcare system, the public themselves,
media all types of streams
of information have been very helpful as well as from CDC
and our federal and state partners to really provide us
with what we call situational awareness.
And having that information allows you not only
to see what's going on but figure out what next to do
and how you put those plans into action.
Identifying what our community resources
that are gonna' be important to really respond to the emergency
or the disaster and really ensure that we're all
on the same page and ultimately communicate what we've seen,
what we're learning and how we plan
on moving forward collectively.
[Thorpe] So one, so this data is used to kind
of identify the problem,
and then the next step is really responding...
[Alleyne] Correct.
[Thorpe] and gathering resources.
How is that part done?
[Alleyne] So the implementation,
like taking that data put it into action.
Looking at resources, often times health departments focus
on what are those key partners
and those stakeholders that exist.
Is there a local coalition
that you've obviously have been developed not at the emergency
but before this point in time?
Drill and exercise.
And now you know that there something happening.
Everyone has to play a role in a part.
So galvanizing those resources, communicating
with those partners, reaching out to communities
with public health message in both form the inside
and the outside world to ensure that there is
at least a global understanding as to what's important
for us to move forward.
In that you find that health departments really rely
as that central forces that resource generator here.
This is what we understand, here's what we see
from our federal partners like the CDC and others,
and here's what this means to us at the local level,
and what we can do to hopefully really enact change.
[Thorpe] And so, it sounds
like collaborations are very very important.
[Alleyne] Absolutely.
[Thorpe] And it's it's wide.
It's not just it's not just local, state, and federal.
[Alleyne] Correct.
[Thorpe] It's also environmental health, public health,
other first responders.
How is that all brought together
so that you can serve your population?
[Alleyne] Sure.
It's kind of why we often times talk about public health
as the community health strategists especially local
health departments.
So you have to have the ability to speak to businesses,
to other governmental agencies, private industry, as well as all
of the other factors that come into play could be EMS,
fire, the school nurses.
Getting off all those folks, message in a way
and that's being part of what we call team public health is one
of the vital characteristics that health departments serve
and how they're really successful
at getting the message out and merely ensuring
that everyone is part of this particular team response.
And recognizing that it's not always going to be easy.
How you say something to let's say a law enforcement community
will be different than what you would do for a nursing home.
And likewise, how do you address messages
for the private industry in the likelihood of looking
at a community disaster related or response?
But all of that come to bear I would say
that central convenient ability for health departments
to really be resource generation.
Gathering information both from our federal partners as well
as disseminating information out.
They have really become what we term as a local trusted entity
that allows the public and others to really rely upon
for any kind of emergencies or disasters.
[Thorpe] And there's a role for the federal part too,
and they also, what are they doing with that
with building the coalitions?
[Alleyne] So the federal department, especially CDC,
has developed several programs and provide guidance and support
for health departments.
Both the state and local level, to be able to focus
on what are those core competencies that
or capabilities probably the better word that need to be
in place to really ensure that you are vibrant,
you are resilient, and you are able to be resourceful
in in those types of scenarios.
So the federal agencies not only help by providing those guidance
but also a lot of coordination effort.
Getting out messages that can be tailored and provided
at local level, the guidances I mentioned before,
in addition to the financial other support to ensure things
such as medical countermeasures for example,
are able to reach a community's address.
And other needs that may necessarily not come from the,
let's say provided from the federal landscape
and disseminate it down through the state
and local partnerships.
That has really been of significant impact I would say
and in part of the solution
that the federal agencies have provided.
[Thorpe] Sure, sure and then the other thing
that you had mentioned, but I wanted to touch back
on it again is communication
because I think communicating is I mean it's just key
to everything.
It's not only you trying to get messages out about to the public
about being safe, but also,
sometimes you need one resource but not another.
And, so that coordinating part, how do local how is it best
for local public health to prepare for an emergency?
[Alleyne] One of the difficulties
with response emergency as much as you try
to preload what your message would look like,
how you have developed templates
for a particular disease or an outbreak.
Things are so fluid, as we saw with for example Zika and Ebola
or H1N1, that there's a constant need to be flexible
and resilient to new data.
And often times people don't like when things are changed.
You know, you tell us that this is the target audience
that you need focus on.
These are the populations at risk.
If you change it, then we know does this show
that there is confidence in the information.
So what the local, states, and federals do
in that regard is try to ensure that they have
as much updated information as possible to be able
to communicate that in a moments need with regularity
and with confidence so that the communities themselves don't
necessarily feel that you are not communicating effectively.
But you're doing the best as possible to ensure
that you're acting upon the best information in your possession.
And needless to say, it has its difficulties.
One thing you could always say from any of the outbreaks or any
of the disasters or mercies you have to respond to the
after action reviews or we call them
after action reports always talk to "Well,
how better can be communicate?
What communication chain broke down,
or how can we strengthen this?
What new technologies can we use?"
Years ago we weren't looking at social media
for getting messages out.
Now we we're able to leverage those types of resources
in a way that I think has been really helpful in the long run.
[Thorpe] So, it comes back to the data.
It does. [Alleyne] As an epidemiologist yes.
It always...
[Thorpe and Alleyne] ...comes back to the data.
[Thorpe] If somebody was interested in finding
out some more where would you tell them to look?
[Alleyne] Sure.
Well our federal partners, the CDC,
have a wonderful website emercy.cdc.gov
where you find a plethora of information both
for the private citizen, the local health professional,
the clinical practitioner,
and any local emergency preparedness responders.
There's so much information that's available.
I would definitely point them to looking at that.
We have additional resources through things
such as the Preparedness Summit
which is a meeting every year sponsored by CDC which tries
to bring all these public health preparedness professionals
together every year to try
to discuss what are new best practices, what are ideas
that work, and how we can do things better,
and what is new emerging issues that we can contend with.
So those are some
of the resources I would say you would find a lot of good
and wholesome information on.
[Thorpe] And there's also a lot at the the nature website too?
[Alleyne] Most certainly.
[Thorpe] Okay.
[Alleyne] At NACCHO we have a preparedness toolkit,
we have a bunch of best practices,
we have a preparedness blog where we share tons
of information both for local health departments as well
as anyone engaged in that space.
[Thorpe] Okay.
Well thank you so much for joining us.
[Alleyne] Thank you.
[Thorpe] And thank you for joining us for Beyond the Data.
See you next month.