Training of public health personnel in handling CBRN emergencies: A table-top exercise card concept

Sandström, B; Eriksson, Håkan; Norlander, Lena; Thorstensson, Mirko; Cassel, Gudrun

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2014.03.009

Cited by 39 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In order to address the lack of relevant training to respond to these events in European health programmes, a group of academics from De Montfort University (DMU, Leicester, UK) and University of Alcalá (UAH, Spain), have developed a novel practical training to provide students with basic competences to initially respond to chemical incidents [23,24]. This novel training covers the different phases of a response described by Sandström et al (2014) [25]: 1) incident response preparedness and situation assessment; 2) exposure assessment; 3) acute health effects; 4) long term health effects; and 5) recovery phase. The tailored basic competences are based on the major competences identified by the European Commission in the CBRN Threat Identification and Emergency Response project [1], and have been described previously by our team in Peña-Fernández (2019) [26].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Pena-Fernandez¹,

Nisbet²,

Duarte‐Davidson³

et al. 2019

ICERI Proceedings

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Training to combat chemical and radiation accidents, incidents or attacks is critical for health professionals due to recent events involving these hazards or their use as unconventional weapons, such as the use of the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, UK. Health professionals need to have appropriate knowledge and skills to effectively respond to future events involving any of these substances, which requires a rapid and coordinated response from different professionals to protect the environment and minimise the number of people exposed and reduce morbidity and mortality. However, despite chemical and radiation incidents becoming increasingly prevalent, literature reviews have shown that there is a lack of teaching of appropriate competences to face future crises in Europe, particularly amongst clinicians and other health professionals that would be part of the initial response. Thus, De Montfort University (DMU, UK) in collaboration with different academics from the University of Alcalá (Spain) and researchers from Public Health England (PHE) with comprehensive experience in environmental decontamination and restoration, have created a short training course for providing undergraduate/postgraduate students with basic skills to respond to chemical incidents, basic skills that are based on the major competences recently identified by the European Commission [1]. This novel training has been tested with students from different backgrounds in various European universities, recording high degrees of acquisition of the various basic competences that we developed to initially respond to chemical events [2]. To develop the practical part of this chemical training, we have incorporated the novel guidance and methodology developed by PHE to successfully tailor a protection and recovery response to any incident involving chemical substances, which is available in the "UK Recovery Handbook for Chemical Incidents" [3] and its web-based tools: "Chemical Recovery Navigation Tool" (CRNT, [4]) and "Chemical Recovery Record Form" (CRRF, [5]). These innovative resources aid the user to select effective protection, decontamination and restoration techniques or strategies from a pool of up-to-date options applicable to different environments according to the physicochemical properties of the chemical(s) involved and the area affected. The CRNT is accompanied by the CRRF, which facilitates collection and analysis of the necessary data to inform decisions, and an e-learning resource named "Chemical Recovery: Background" (CRB, [6]), which could facilitate the learning of environmental decontamination and restoration. We are currently developing a short training course to cover minor radiation incidents; this radiation training will follow the same methods used to develop the chemical training, but with the specific PHE recovery tools to tackle such events, specifically the "UK Recovery Handbooks for Radiation Incidents" [7] and its associated web-based tools "Radiation Recovery Navigation Tool" (Rad RNT, [8]), one for each environme...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Pena-Fernandez¹,

Nisbet²,

Duarte‐Davidson³

et al. 2019

ICERI Proceedings

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“…Our novel training to respond to biological incidents consists of different training sessions with two components [4,6], theoretical (lectures and seminars) and practical (research-led workshop), which covers each of the different phases of a response to a biological incident [2,7,8], including the environmental recovery phase, which is critical to protect human health in the aftermath of an event involving biological hazards [2,8].…”

Section: Training To Develop a Recovery Plan In The Aftermath Of A Bimentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Years' Analysis of Environmental Recovery Training for Biological Incidents

Pena-Fernandez¹,

Peña²,

Lobo-Bedmar³

2018

EDULEARN Proceedings

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Environmental recovery in the aftermath of a biological incident is one of the key areas to consider when tailoring a response to protect human health and minimise the spread of the biological agent(s) involved. However, recent studies have highlighted general national and international emergency weaknesses including a lack of preparedness in health care professionals and emergency responders to tackle these events. We undertook a web-based, non-systematic search for biological response training in human health undergraduate programmes in the UK, by using the Google™ search engine. To the best of our knowledge, there are no undergraduate courses in the UK that directly address this topic. Only a few postgraduate programmes present some information about responding to biological incidents but they do not cover the different phases of a biological incident response, which are: preparedness and situation assessment; exposure assessment; acute health effects; long term health effects; and recovery phase. In order to develop appropriate training, academics from De Montfort University (DMU, Leicester, UK) and the University of Alcalá (Spain) in collaboration with first responders (biomedical scientists) to the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, have developed specific training for undergraduate human health degree students to respond to biological incidents. We have created basic competences to develop this training and distributed them into six domains following the recommendations of the European Commission for medical responders to CBRN emergencies [1]: identification of the risk and risk analysis; toxicological effect of biological agents; planning and organisation of an intervention programme; environmental planning; communication and information management; safety and personal protective equipment; societal and ethical reflections. Following the basic competences created, we developed different training sessions with two components, theoretical (lectures and seminars) and practical (research-led workshop), to cover each of the different phases of an appropriate response to any biological incident. The specific training that covers the recovery phase has been delivered to postgraduate students from the MSc programme in Advanced Biomedical Science at DMU since 2016/17 due to the more manageable student number, time available to deliver the training and greater background knowledge of the class. The analysis of the feedback provided by the first cohort of students indicated high levels of engagement and interest in this training session. We performed some minor modifications following the students' feedback and delivered it this academic course 2017/18 (n=9) to gain more information about its effectiveness in facilitating the specific basic competences covered in this training including the resources used to tailor a recovery response to the case scenario proposed (an outbreak due to Cyclospora spp.) such as the UK Recovery Handbook for Biological Incidents (UKRHBI; PHE, 2015 [2]). All students were satisfied w...

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“…In today's societies, threats caused by chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents both accidentally and deliberately have become a major concern[1] It is essential to acquire the knowledge on how to respond and manage such incidents and their complications to maintain societies and provide stability. [2] A quick and consistent response to such incidents can play an important role in reducing the harmful effects of such events on public health as well as its psychological consequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[2] A quick and consistent response to such incidents can play an important role in reducing the harmful effects of such events on public health as well as its psychological consequences. [1] The prevalence of various diseases caused by biological incidents in the past decades, such as acute respiratory syndrome,[3] influenza[45] Ebola,[67] emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases,[89] bioterrorism events,[1011] and public health emergencies. [12] In addition to the threat of high mortality, can cripple health and medical systems and significantly impair social and economic performance in society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%