Protecting the Public from H1N1 through Points of Dispensing (PODs).

In fall 2009, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) operated 58 points of dispensing (PODs) over 5 weekends to provide influenza A (H1N1) 2009 monovalent vaccination to New Yorkers. Up to 7 sites were opened each day across the 5 boroughs, with almost 50,000 New Yorkers being vaccinated. The policies and protocols used were based on those developed for New York City's POD Plan, the cornerstone of the city's mass prophylaxis planning.

Successful strategies for recruitment of emergency medical volunteers.

Objectives: A robust medical volunteer program is critical to ensuring a successful response to public health and medical emergencies. The New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene created the NYC Medical Reserve Corps in 2003 to build a multidisciplinary team of health professionals who wish to assist NYC with response during large-scale health emergencies. This article reports on the search to determine which recruitment activities have been most successful to date, with the goal of modeling future activities upon those that worked best.

Public compliance with mass prophylaxis guidance.

In 2008, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) conducted a series of 8 focus groups to determine what improvements could be made to existing plans to ensure that the public would adhere to instructions issued during an emergency that required mass antibiotic distribution following an aerosolized anthrax attack. Discussion focused on perceptions surrounding public health emergencies, overall point-of dispensing (POD) strategy, willingness to pick up medications for others, and additional information that participants would need before and during an emergency. Participation in each group ranged from 7 to 10 members.