Health Departments' Engagement in Emergency Preparedness Activities: The Influence of Health Informatics Capacity.

Gulzar H Shah,Bobbie Newell,Ruth E Whitworth

doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2016.48

Gulzar H Shah, Bobbie Newell + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2016.48

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Abstract

Local health departments (LHDs) operate in a complex and dynamic public health landscape, with changing demands on their emergency response capacities. Informatics capacities might play an instrumental role in aiding LHDs emergency preparedness. This study aimed to explore the extent to which LHDs' informatics capacities are associated with their activity level in emergency preparedness and to identify which health informatics capacities are associated with improved emergency preparedness. We used the 2013 National Profile of LHDs study to perform Poisson regression of emergency preparedness activities. Only 38.3% of LHDs participated in full-scale exercises or drills for an emergency in the 12 months period prior to the survey, but a much larger proportion provided emergency preparedness training to staff (84.3%), and/or participated in tabletop exercises (76.4%). Our multivariable analysis showed that after adjusting for several resource-related LHD characteristics, LHDs with more of the 6 information systems still tend to have slightly more preparedness activities. In addition, having a designated emergency preparedness coordinator, and having one or more emergency preparedness staff were among the most significant factors associated with LHDs performing more emergency preparedness activities. LHDs might want to utilize better health information systems and information technology tools to improve their activity level in emergency preparedness, through improved information dissemination, and evidence collection.

Highlights

Local health departments (LHDs) in the United States provide many essential public health services to the communities they serve, including the services crucial for minimizing harm from hazardous events.[1]
Only 38.3% of LHDs participated in full-scale exercises or drills for an emergency in the 12 months period prior to the survey
66% of LHDs participated in functional exercises or drills (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Local health departments (LHDs) in the United States provide many essential public health services to the communities they serve, including the services crucial for minimizing harm from hazardous events.[1]. While attacks of 2001 destroyed our sense of security, an aftermath led to the integration of health information exchanges (HIEs) into emergency preparedness and response.[20] It is argued that informatics capacities such as electronic bio-surveillance and electronic health records (EHRs) may help LHDs to detect potential public health disasters and improve services, thereby promoting and protecting population health.[21,22,23] Given the importance of emergency preparedness, it is important to understand LHDs’ level of emergency preparedness capacities and whether utilization of health informatics is associated with their degree of emergency preparedness.[24] To our knowledge, there is a dearth of recent studies that assess this potential association. We hypothesize that LHDs level of engagement in emergency preparedness activities is influenced by the health informatics capacity

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