Faculty, staff and students from the Drexel University School of Public Health gave a presentation about emergency preparedness earlier in March at the National Emergency Management Summit in New Orleans. The presentation stressed the unique efforts underway at the School of Public Health to connect a wide-range of resources to help meet the needs of racial and ethnic communities in times of natural and man-made disasters.
Held just after tornados ripped through several southern states – killing at least 20 people and destroying more than 700 homes – and where recovery efforts are still ongoing after Hurricane Katrina, the national summit was designed to assess risks and discuss practical approaches to medical preparation and response to disasters, epidemics and terrorism in the United States.
The presentation, entitled “Emergency Preparedness for Racially and Ethnically Diverse Communities” was given by Dr. Dennis P. Andrulis, the associate dean for research, along with Nadia J. Siddiqui, a health policy analyst, and Jenna L. Gantner, a graduate medical sciences intern at the school. The presentation highlighted work being done at Drexel School of Public Health’s Center for Health Equality (CHE), which was established to serve as a major resource for addressing inequities in health and health care. Click here to view the presentation. (PDF)
“We will continue to build upon the lessons learned after Hurricane Katrina and other disasters to enhance and improve the readiness of the public health community,” said Dr. Andrulis, who also serves as director of the CHE. “We look forward to working together with many organizations so that communities nationwide are better prepared to meet the public health needs of all their residents, especially their minority and immigrant populations, should a major event occur.”
The presentation in New Orleans was given only a few days after the School of Public Health announced that it received a $275,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health (OMH) to support initiatives at the CHE.
According to Dr. Andrulis, the work at Drexel is unique in that no effort to date has brought together the expertise and resources across a spectrum of organizations, agencies and communities concerned with advancing planning, maintenance and, as necessary, execution of preparedness strategies for racially and ethnically diverse populations.
Sponsors of the National Emergency Management Summit included: Health Affairs, Harvard Health Policy Review, Homeland Defense Journal, the American Association of Trauma Surgeons, Arabian Society for Human Resource Management (ASHRM), Emergency Nurses Association, International Association of Emergency Managers, International Association of Healthcare Security and Safety, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) and the Louisiana Hospital Association.