ABSTRACT APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

2011 Public Health Preparedness Summit
Session Abstract Submission Form

ALL ABSTRACTS DUE BY August 30, 2010
11:59pm Eastern Time

Welcome to the session abstract submission process for the 2011 Public Health Preparedness Summit!

This year’s Summit Planning Committee invites public health, emergency management, and other professionals across the country to showcase and share their best practice training models, tools, or other resources that advance the field of public health preparedness.  The committee is especially interested in receiving models and tools that show proven results in building and sustaining public health preparedness at the local, state, tribal, or national level.

Priority may be given to those submissions that focus on addressing the improvement or strengthening of one or more of the following public health preparedness priority areas:

  • Public Health Workforce Preparedness: This priority may include workforce training and development activities; the development and delivery of an integrated, competency-based preparedness and response training program tailored to the public health workforce; and using such tools as in-person-training and advanced information and interactive distance learning technologies. 
  • All-Hazards Preparedness and Response Capacity of the LHD and Relevant Response Partners through Events and Exercises: This priority includes response to real events and the development of exercise scenarios and exercise design criteria meeting the training needs of the public health workforce and of relevant response partners. 
  • Communications and Information Sharing: This priority may include activities designed to strengthen inter- and intra-agency communication; information sharing with the public; and ways to improve interoperable communications and the timeliness and accuracy of communications regarding threats to the public’s health. 
  • Partnership Building and Collaboration Capacities and Capabilities: This priority may include strategies for establishing, maintaining, and expanding partnerships and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders. 
  • Biosurveillance and Disease Detection and Investigation: This priority area includes strategies for strengthening biosurveillance and disease detection and investigation capacities and capabilities. 
  • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) Preparedness Capacities and Capabilities: This priority area includes strategies for strengthening chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive detection, response, and decontamination capacities and capabilities and strategies for increasing the use and development of interventions known to prevent human illness from chemical, biological, and radiological agents. 
  • Stockpiling, Distributing, and Dispensing of Mass Medical Countermeasures: This priority area includes plans and strategies for improving mass medical countermeasure stockpiling, distribution, and dispensing. 
  • Medical Surge Capacity and Capability: This priority area includes strategies for enhancing and optimizing medical surge capacity during a public health emergency; identifying and establishing mass casualty care strategies, procedures, and practices; and strategies to help enhance ability to respond to an increase in demand or a decrease in supply. 
  • Outreach to Vulnerable Populations: This priority encompasses strategies for providing specific support and care to vulnerable populations during a variety of events. It can include establishing specific resources, methods, and tactics to assist populations that may not be able to access or use traditional disaster preparedness planning resources; establishing measures and criteria to evaluate public health system capacity and readiness to address vulnerable populations’ needs; risk communication strategies tailored to vulnerable populations; and strategies for sheltering, evacuation and/or distributing medical countermeasures to vulnerable populations during a public health emergency. 
  • Mass Fatality Management: This priority area may include strategies addressing the development of local, multi-jurisdictional, and/or regional guidelines for mass fatality management related to a natural or man-made disaster and guidance on recovery, handling, and disposition of human remains as well as on infection and other health and safety threats during a mass fatality event. 
  • Public Health Legal Authorities and Liability: This priority area includes strategies to improve the understanding of the range of hazards for which public health departments should be legally prepared for during a public health emergency. This may include adoption of altered standards of care—such as field triage protocols, modular emergency medical systems, etc.—following a mass casualty event and worker liability and risk management.
  • Public Health Critical Infrastructure Protection: This priority may include strategies for identifying both physical and cyber-based systems, for assessing and addressing public health critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. 
  • Disaster Behavioral Health:  This priority may include strategies for how to address the psychological challenges that communities may face during public health emergencies and training responders and others to address these challenges.

 

This year’s Summit sessions will be divided into 4 categories:

  • Posters: This format will be used to display innovative practices, award winning programs, share documents, exchange ideas, and ask questions. Posters will be displayed during the opening hours of the Exhibit Hall and during an evening reception at which poster presenters will be asked to be available to answer questions about the material displayed.
  • Sharing / Roundtable Sessions: These sessions are 45-minutes in length and are designed to be informal, interactive, or question and answer sessions on a specific topic or issue. They may include feedback on programmatic ideas or devoted to developing action agendas or policy statements.  These sessions will not include the option of using PowerPoint presentations or other more formal presentation modalities.
  • Interactive Sessions: These sessions are 90-minutes in length and are designed to be interactive, produce identifiable outcomes and focus on engaging participants.  These sessions are limited to a maximum of no more than 3 speakers.
  • Pre-Summit Workshops: These 2, 4 and 8-hour sessions are designed to be interactive, produce identifiable outcomes (i.e., enhance knowledge, build skills, shape attitudes/beliefs) and focus on encouraging development or change in public health practice or policy.


Submission Review Process
Session Submission Forms are due no later than August 30, 2010 by 11:59pm eastern time.

Summit Planning Committee members will review all applications and notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to the Session Contact Person by close of business on November 1, 2010.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Planning Committee Chair, Jack Herrmann at (202) 507-4228 or by email at [email protected]

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the Summit!