Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #111670

Paul Kuehnert, MS, RN, Executive Director, Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, Maine Bureau of Health, State House Station 11, 286 Water St., 8th Floor, Augusta, ME 04333-0011, 207-287-5179, Paul.Kuehnert@maine.gov, Anne B. Keith, RN, DrPH, C-PNP, College of Nursing, University of Southern Maine, 96 Falmouth St, PO box 9300, Portland, ME 04104, Judith M. Graber, MS, Epidemiologist, Environmental Health Unit, Maine Bureau of Health, Key Plaza, 8th Floor, 11 State HouseStation, Augusta, ME 04333, and Judith Lloyd Storfjell, PhD, RN, College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 S. Damen (MC 802), Room 914, Chicago, IL 60612-7350.

As part of the Maine Bureau of Health's evaluation project for the public health preparedness program (PHEP), 6 state-added questions were included in Maine's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) during the 2004 data collection year. The BRFSS is a random telephone survey of adults age >18. The questions, summarized, were: Radio that works if no power? 3-day supply of food? 3-day supply of water? If exposed to a dangerous disease, where would you first get information? If advised by your health care provider, would you get a free vaccine? If health officials asked, would you stay at home for a week without outside visitors?

To evaluate past, and guide future, preparedness strategies, responses to these questions are compared for population groups that vary by demographic characteristics including age, race gender, income, education level and location (rural/suburban/urban), as well as by a number of health outcomes and risk behaviors. Implications for a rural state's prevention, response and recovery strategies based on this novel use of the BRFSS are discussed

Learning Objectives:

1.Identify characteristics of population groups which vary in their household preparedness for a public health emergency
• Describe how the BRFSS methodology can be used to gather this data
• Discuss the implications for health planning at the local and state level of lack of preparedness at the household level.

Keywords: Bioterrorism, Data/Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation