The Long and Winding Road: Finding Disaster Preparedness Coordinators in a National Sample of Local Health Departments

Abstract

and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities2 emphasize engagement between responding public agencies and community-based organizations (CBOs) as crucial in building community resilience to disasters. In considering an increased focus on cross-agency collaboration, community-and faith-based organizations, as well as other local or regional organizations that work with local health departments (LHDs) to improve community resilience, often view the public health department disaster coordinator as a partner in preparedness and response efforts. Local preparedness coordinators can be a valuable source for disaster readiness, response, recovery plans, and access to local resources.3 Therefore, it is crucial that these coordinators are easily reachable by the public and CBOs. To measure their accessibility, we examined how easy it was to find coordinator contact information for purposes of a national survey. FINDING DISASTER PREPAREDNESS COORDINATORSWe conducted a national survey of disaster preparedness coordinators at local public health departments to study their engagement with community-and faith-based organizations in building community resilience. To survey the coordinators, we used the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) database of 2,864 LHDs. We applied a probability-proportionalto-size sampling design to generate a stratified random sample of 750 LHDs.The sample list of LHDs we used did not contain the contact information (e.g., name, telephone number, or e-mail address) of their disaster preparedness coordinators. Therefore, the project coordinator and six graduate student researchers conducted Internet searches of the target sample of LHDs to find their preparedness coordinators' contact information. Next, we confirmed the coordinators' contact information by calling the telephone numbers obtained online. Finally, we telephoned each LHD for which we were unable to obtain

Reliability and Validity of the Assessment for Disaster Engagement with Partners Tool (ADEPT) for Local Health Departments

“…Despite a low response rate (42%), due in part to lack of information about disaster coordinators in LHDs-particularly of medium-sized populations-our final study sample did reflect the distribution jurisdiction size, with most of the sample from medium or large jurisdictions, as described elsewhere. 47 Approximately 54% of those surveyed worked more than half-time in emergency and disaster preparedness, and 58% of respondents had worked in emergency and disaster preparedness for .6 years. Women comprised 67% of the sample, and 55% of respondents were 45-65 years of age (data not shown).…”

“…Using the NACCHO database of 2,864 LHDs, we applied a probabilityproportional-to-size sampling design to generate a stratified random sample of 750 LHDs that reflects the national distribution of large (.250,000), medium (25,000-250,000), and small (,25,000) populations. 47 Survey data were collected from disaster preparedness coordinators at LHDs using an online data collection system. All respondents filled out UCLA Institutional Review Board informed consent forms.…”

Facilitating Partnerships With Community- and Faith-Based Organizations for Disaster Preparedness and Response: Results of a National Survey of Public Health Departments

“…There are several limitations that must be addressed. First, there was a less-than-optimal survey response rate, which was due in part to the challenges of identifying disaster-preparedness coordinators in health departments 35 . However, our final study sample did reflect the national jurisdiction size distribution, with most of the sample from small or medium jurisdictions 1 .…”

“…First, there was a less-than-optimal survey response rate, which was due in part to the challenges of identifying disasterpreparedness coordinators in health departments. 35 However, our final study sample did reflect the national jurisdiction size distribution, with most of the sample from small or medium jurisdictions. 1 Second, when asking participants to rate the success of the different collaborative activities, we did not specify whether this rating was related to the process or outcome associated with the activity.…”