Program Analyst - Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health National Association of County and City Health Officials Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Local health departments (LHDs) play critical roles in responding to public health threats across the country. In addition to forming the backbone of the COVID-19 response, LHDs also respond to natural disasters and other infectious disease outbreaks such as Zika, hepatitis, and congenital syphilis. Despite the number of public health threats that impact pregnant people and infants, maternal and child health (MCH) and emergency preparedness and response (EPR) departments within LHDs are often siloed, and MCH considerations are often not integrated into emergency planning processes. The COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies have demonstrated a need to support and prioritize MCH populations in the development of emergency preparedness and response trainings, exercises, and plans.
To support this effort, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), through funding from CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health, launched a Virtual Learning Collaborative (VLC) in 2021 to increase collaboration among MCH and EPR colleagues within LHDs to meet the needs of MCH populations during public health emergencies. Currently in year 2, the VLC is guided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Maternal-Child Health (MCH) Emergency Planning Toolkit, and consists of training exercises and case study discussions with the goal of helping LHDs identify strategies to strengthen their capacity to prioritize MCH populations in emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation activities.
This session will highlight the practice of creating and providing standardized EPR training for MCH populations in emergencies. This interactive session will outline the implementation of the VLC model, highlight best practices for training MCH and EPR staff to prioritize and incorporate MCH needs within the emergency planning processes, and showcase how to replicate this training model to incorporate a collaborative effort between MCH and EPR departments.
