Preparing for a Public Health Event—Swine Flu 2009

This just shared by Chris Lindley, director of Emergency Preparedness and Response for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment:


Preparing for a Public Health Event—Swine Flu 2009

Pandemics by definition are scary and something award winning movies are created about. A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. However, pandemics are not new and the US Government and all states have spent years working to create response plans. We work with the CDC and our local governments daily to plan for a public health emergency, like a pandemic.

In any type of public health response, we rely on you, the public, to help us to mitigate the effects of and respond to the event. What does that mean? That means three things:

1) Education & Awareness
2) Personal Preparedness
3) Be a good neighbor

Education & Awareness
· Remember the saying “knowledge is power.” Well it is. One of the best ways to gain understanding on something that is unknown to you is to educate yourself on what it is. Educate yourself on what the flu is and how it spreads by doing simple research. If you have Internet access go to www.pandemicflu.gov or www.cdc.gov and read about influenza.

· Know who your local health department is and learn what they have been doing to prepare for public health events. Also, do your best to learn how their response may affect you and what actions you can do to assist in that response if necessary.

· Ask Questions. Ask as many as you need to gain understanding of the situation. Remember there is never a dumb question.

Personal Preparedness
· As in any emergency or potential threat, be it a flood, hurricane, or earthquake, make sure you have your 72-hour kit or ‘emergency kit’ stocked and ready. And don’t feel bad if you don’t have one, this is a great opportunity to get one started! For more information on what you may want in the kit please go to: www.ready.gov. Some extra items you may want to add to deal with flu is a small amount of cold or flu medicine, Kleenex, and pain reliever.

· If you are sick, or ‘not feeling well’ stay home. Take care of yourself. This is one of the best ways to ensure that you are doing your part to help your community respond to any public health event. This is something that seems small but can be invaluable to your community.

Be a Good Neighbor
· While it's always nice to visit your neighbors and make sure they are doing okay, for a public health event we want to modify that. Lets pass on the door-to-door visits and pick up the phone instead. Or, for your more technology, savvy folks make friends on Twitter or another social networking site. Text messaging and social networking tools are great informational tools. We all want to ensure that our friends, colleagues and neighbor are safe and healthy and we should continue to do that, we just need to be more aware that we are dealing with an influenza virus that is transmissible from person to person.

· If one of your friends or neighbors are sick offer to go to the store for them if they need something, or run that errand. Be a good neighbor by letting them rest and recuperate. Drop off the items at their doorstep.


By doing, these three things you are helping yourself, your community, and your state to successfully work through our current situation.