Public Health Preparedness

ORAU is Preparing Our Nation Against Public Health Threats

Because threats from infectious diseases, natural disasters, environmental issues, and biological and radiological terrorism continue to place great demands on our nation’s health system, the need to prepare and inform the public has never been greater.

As recognized leaders in public health preparedness, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) helps agencies better prepare for these situations. We understand that results stem from a continuous cycle of improvement, which includes developing ways to better implement outreach and planning efforts, capability development, training, exercises and evaluation.

We foster innovative solutions tailored to meet your complex preparedness challenges and are ready to help your agency prepare for a public health emergency.

Our public health preparedness capabilities include:

Training Exercises and Drills

Training exercises and drills provide objective assessments of communities’ or agencies’ preparedness capabilities, so that both strengths and areas for improvement are identified and corrected prior to a real incident.

Through the design, development, execution and evaluation of training exercises and drills, we assist clients with their preparedness efforts.

We can help your agency:

• Develop communication materials, training and tools for clinicians, public health professionals, and the public.
• Provide a forum for local, state and federal responders to work together prior to an actual emergency
• Test the operation of existing plans and procedures
• Allow for problem solving, brainstorming, issue clarification and perspective sharing
• Identify areas of strength and improvement in preparedness response, logistics and communication

Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication

The availability of emergency risk communication materials and instruction can prepare agency personnel to deliver messages quickly and effectively in the event of a crisis.

Whether you need to reach local, state, and federal emergency agencies, or their stakeholders and the general public, we offer public health preparedness expertise on internal communication, as well as external messaging that is invaluable during an emergency.

No matter the audience, we can create a well-developed and well-executed crisis and emergency risk communication plan that easily integrates into every stage of the crisis response; thus helping to ensure that resources are most efficiently directed where needed.

Community-Based Planning

Preparing for a public health crisis resulting from an infectious disease or large-scale radiological incident requires not only government involvement, but also participation from the communities in which they serve.

In many cases, the current capacity to identify, screen and monitor members of the public who may be infectious or exposed to radiation is limited.

By engaging communities, we help to empower community organizations and government agencies through involving them in the planning and strategy development of public health preparedness.