Gillings School to lead regional CDC center for public health preparedness and response
Gillings School faculty member Bill Gentry (left) evaluates a community-preparedness operation.
A new CDC center led by the School focuses on public health preparedness and response, enhancing national health infrastructure.
The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, in collaboration with the North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH), has received a five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish a Regional Center for Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR), with the goal of enhancing public health preparedness and response across the southeastern United States. This center is one of ten centers serving the entire country to support the uptake of evidence-based strategies that strengthen public health emergency preparedness and response nationwide.
The center will serve as a focused resource for training, strategy and technical assistance to public health agencies and their partners in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee in order to bolster the capabilities of state, tribal and local health departments, as well as community-led public health partners.
The coronavirus pandemic put immense stress on public health systems in the U.S., which are mostly decentralized and vary in access to the resources, data analysis, staffing and expertise that are critical to swift emergency responses. The new PHPR centers are part of the CDC’s effort to collaborate with agencies and improve the safeguards, resources, response plans and communications necessary to mitigate harm and health inequities in the event of another disease outbreak or natural disaster.
The regional center will build the foundation for a robust and resilient public health infrastructure that protects health in times of emergency, particularly for underserved populations and those most vulnerable to the poorest health effects.
John Wiesman, DrPH, associate dean for practice at the Gillings School, will serve as director for the center, along with co-director John Wallace, PhD, MSPH, senior data advisor for NCIPH. Last year, the team led the development of a five-year work plan for the center and is eager to begin putting it into action.
The center’s work will:
- Prioritize planning for emerging and evolving threats such as extreme weather, large chemical spills and radiologic events,
- Improve communications with the public, and
- Support public health workforce resiliency and responder mental health.
“Our mission is two-fold,” Wiesman said. “We must support a workforce that is challenged with retirements, burnout and less experienced new workers, and we need to help take the lessons learned from the pandemic response and implement best-evidence interventions to ensure strong public health emergency responses to help protect everyone.”
The regional center will build the foundation for a robust and resilient public health infrastructure that protects health in times of emergency, particularly for underserved populations and those most vulnerable to the poorest health effects.
By designing strategies where public health systems can collaborate with historically overlooked or marginalized communities, the team can create stronger regional and national partnerships and plans, as well as a more coordinated and equitable public health response.
“The center’s work aligns with much of NCIPH’s practice-based work to support and enhance public health infrastructure at state and local levels, and we are excited to continue public health preparedness and response work at NCIPH and Gillings,” said Wallace.
The new regional PHPR center is the newest part of the Gillings School’s efforts to enhance public health preparedness. The School is host to the Atlantic Coast Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and Analytics, part of a national CDC network that provides data and modeling support to public health responders as they prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks. The School also offers a Community Preparedness and Disaster Management (CPDM) Certificate Program as part of their curriculum, which provides an “all hazards” approach to disaster management through online courses, as well as the Gillings on the Ground (GoG) program, a two-semester training initiative designed to educate participants on disaster response and emergency management.
All are part of a long-standing commitment to research, teaching and practice that supports preparedness, clean air and clean water, and healthy communities and families.
