141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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288239
Evaluation of satisfaction with community engagement activities for disaster resilience at a national sample of local public health departments


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Jitka Sammartinova, MPH, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, CA
Ian Donatello, MPHc, Department of Biostatistics, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
Deborah Glik, ScD, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA
David Eisenman, MD, MSHS, Center for Public Health and Disasters, UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
Michael Prelip, MPH, DPA, Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Andrea Martel, MEd, Department Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
Michael C. Stajura, MPH, MPP, Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Introduction: The purpose of this study was to evaluate local public health department disaster preparedness coordinators' satisfaction with community engagement activities for disaster resilience.

Methods: We conducted a national survey of disaster preparedness coordinators at local public health departments to study their community engagement with community- and faith-based organizations for community resilience. To survey the coordinators, we used the National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) database of 2,864 local health departments (LHDs). We applied a probability-proportional-to-size sampling design to generate a stratified random sample of 750 local health departments. We designed and pretested a survey instrument that was administered to the preparedness coordinators at the national sample of local public health departments. The disaster coordinators completed the survey questions on-line.

Results: Of all community engagement activities, local disaster preparedness coordinators rated resource sharing as the most successful activity for community disaster resilience. Resource sharing was rated ahead of communication outreach activities, organizational capacity building, and partnership development. Differences in the coordinators' satisfaction with communication outreach, organizational capacity building, and partnership development were not found statistically significant.

Conclusion: Resource sharing engagement activities have the potential to facilitate a pathway toward successful collaboration between local public health departments and community- and faith-based organizations for community disaster resilience.

Learning Areas:

Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate the satisfaction with community engagement activities for disaster resilience. Compare types of engagement activities by level of success. Describe the community engagement activities that were evaluated as most successful.

Keyword(s): Disasters, Community-Based Partnership

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I participate in a national study of disaster preparedness coordinators at local public health departments to investigate their community engagement with community- and faith-based organizations for community resilience.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4172.0: Health department engagement in violence prevention and disaster mitigation