Addressing infection prevention and control in Alabama through the long-term care strike team.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the lack of infection prevention and control (IPC) infrastructure among long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in the United States; the situation in Alabama is particularly dire with LTCFs receiving some of the lowest quality ratings in the country. Alabama's LTCFs continue to be challenged by frequent staff turnover, vaccine hesitancy, and reluctance to embrace new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations such as enhanced barrier precautions. However, the made funds available to states through a CDC Epidemiology and Laboratory (ELC) Cooperative Agreement to promote IPC system improvement, including the creation of the Alabama Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Strike Team (LTC Strike Team).

Equipping the Public Health Workforce of the Future: Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Public Health Training Delivered Through Academic-Health Department Partnerships.

Objective: Maintaining a skilled public health workforce is essential but challenging given high turnover and that few staff hold a public health degree. Situating workforce development within existing structures leverages the strengths of different organizations and can build relationships to address public health challenges and health equity. We implemented and evaluated an innovative, sustainable model to deliver an established evidence-based public health (EBPH) training collaboratively among Prevention Research Centers (PRC), local and state health departments, and Public Health Training Centers (PHTC).

An analysis of ICAR recommendations for long-term care facilities in Alabama.

The Alabama Long-Term Care Strike Team was established in 2022 to help long-term care facilities build and maintain infection prevention and control (IPC) systems. Infection preventionists use CDC's Infection Control Assessment and Response (ICAR) tools to provide IPC-specific recommendations. Analysis of ICAR recommendations identified the 3 greatest training needs in Alabama: source control, hand hygiene, and environmental cleaning.

Expanding the Public Health Pipeline Through the Public Health Influencers Summer Institute.

The need for a robust public health system in the United States is critical for safeguarding population health. However, current data suggest an insufficient number of individuals entering or staying in the governmental public health workforce. Expanding the public health pipeline requires creative thinking about recruitment and training activities.

The Need for Responsive Workforce Development During the Pandemic and Beyond: A Case Study of the Regional Public Health Training Centers.

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of a strong public health infrastructure for protecting and supporting the health of communities. This includes ensuring an adaptive workforce capable of leading through rapidly changing circumstances, communicating effectively, and applying systems thinking to leverage cross-sector partnerships that help promote health equity. The 10 Regional Public Health Training Centers (PHTCs) advance the capacity of the current and future public health workforce through skill development and technical assistance in these and other strategic areas.

Public Health Training Centers: More Relevant Than Ever.

Interest in and awareness of public health in the United States has grown due to COVID-19; however, state and local health departments have seen a mass exodus of leadership since the beginning of the pandemic. Based on the results of the de Beaumont Foundation's most recent Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS), nearly one in three public health employees say they are considering leaving the profession due to stress, burnout, and low pay. One viable strategy for ensuring a diverse and competent public health workforce is the national network of Public Health Training Centers (PHTCs).

Preliminary Findings of the Birmingham Policy Surveillance Initiative.

Policy surveillance is becoming an increasingly powerful tool in public health to identify policies and programs that influence individual and community health. However, not many systems exist to track or facilitate greater understanding of policies at a city or county level. Furthermore, relatively little is known about which policies are being implemented and how they relate to population health goals.

Examining the Built Environment for Healthy Living via Virtual Street Audits.

During the fall 2019 and spring 2020 semesters, 156 MPH students enrolled in the Integrative Learning Experience at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health explored concepts of the built environment and health by auditing 2500 street segments in 4 urban neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama. In teams of 4 to 5, in-class and online students worked collaboratively to assess 63 built environment variables related to transportation, land use, advertisement, and neighborhood physical disorder. This type of "community assessment" is the first stage of the Evidence-based Public Health Framework and consistent with the applied nature of an MPH degree.

Exploring the Preliminary Steps of One County Health Department to Manage the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This case study describes how one county health department in Alabama used the best available evidence to address the needs of its citizens during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors explore issues of scope of authority by government officials, individual freedom versus population health, and challenges of health communication during a disease outbreak. Despite the availability of vaccines, boosters, and access to vaccines by children as young as 5 years, COVID-19 cases are on the rise across the United States more than 2 years after the official news broke out of Wuhan, China.

Reconsidering the "Place" in Field Placement.

Site-based, in-person field placement experiences prepare students for real-world community practice through reflection; direct, hands-on experience; and the completion of a project or set of deliverables that add value to the organization. These practice experiences encourage students to integrate classroom learning with the knowledge and skills of a workplace environment. In the Southeast United States, the Region IV Public Health Training Center (R-IV PHTC) provides students with practice experiences through the Pathways to Practice Scholars Field Placement Program.

Infectious Disease Hospital Preparedness: Lessons Learned From the 2019 Measles Outbreak.

Objective: This paper: (1) explores the real and perceived threats to Emergency Departments (EDs) in addressing infectious disease cases in the US, like measles, and (2) identifies priorities for protecting employees, patients, and others stakeholders through hospital preparedness while streamlining processes and managing costs.

Methods: A case study approach was used to describe the events that triggered an infectious disease emergency response in 1 ED in the southeast. Development of the case study was informed by emergency preparedness literature on Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program processes.

Practice Transformation in HIV Primary Care: Perspectives of Coaches and Champions in the Southeast United States.

Introduction/objectives: Across the United States, and particularly in the South, there is an urgent need to improve health outcomes for people with HIV. In response, the Southeast AIDS Education & Training Center (AETC) conducted a 4-year Practice Transformation (PT) initiative (2015-2018) in 12 mostly primary care clinics across 4 states in the region. Drawing on the leadership of PT facilitators ("coaches") from AETC partner sites throughout the region and specific clinic staff members ("champions"), clinics worked toward self-selected organizational goals to increase their HIV care capacity and improve HIV health outcomes.

Connecting Public Health Students to Rural and Underserved Areas: Promoting Health Equity Through Field Placement Experiences.

There is an increasing demand for public health workers due to the unmet needs of the poor and underserved populations. However, through field placement experiences, students can actively engage in their own learning while also addressing critical needs of rural and medically underserved populations. In this mixed-methods evaluation, we explored experiences of emerging public health practitioners who participated in the Region IV Public Health Training Center's Pathways to Practice Scholars program between 2014 and 2018.

Life After Trauma: A Survey of Level 1 Trauma Centers Regarding Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder.

Patients admitted to Level 1 trauma centers in the United States are rarely assessed for or educated about the potentially devastating effects of acute stress disorder (ASD) or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This descriptive research was conducted to describe current levels of assessment and education of ASD and PTSD in Level 1 trauma centers in the United States. The aims of this article are to (1) determine the extent to which Level 1 trauma centers in the United States assess and educate patients and providers about ASD and PTSD and (2) identify clinical staff who administer assessments and provide educational resources.

The Search for Environmental Justice: The Story of North Birmingham.

Environmental justice is a rising social movement throughout the world. Research is beginning to define the movement and address the disparities that exist among communities exposed to pollution. North Birmingham, a community made up of six neighborhoods in Jefferson County, Alabama, in the United States, is a story of environmental injustice.

Mississippi Medical Reserve Corps: Moving Mississippi From Emergency Planning to Response Ready.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify factors that might impact a Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) volunteer's decision to respond to an emergency event. The 2 primary goals of this survey were to (1) establish realistic planning assumptions regarding the use of volunteers in health care emergency responses, and (2) determine whether barriers to volunteer participation could be addressed by MRC units to improve volunteer response rates.

Design: An anonymous online survey instrument was made available via Qualtrics through a customized URL.

Mental health consequences of chemical and radiologic emergencies: a systematic review.

This article reviews the literature pertaining to psychological impacts in the aftermath of technological disasters, focusing on the immediate psychological and mental health consequences emergency department physicians and first responders may encounter in the aftermath of such disasters. First receivers see a wide spectrum of psychological distress, including acute onset of psychiatric disorders, the exacerbation of existing psychological and psychiatric conditions, and widespread symptomatology even in the absence of a diagnosable disorder. The informal community support systems that exist after a natural disaster may not be available to communities affected by a technological disaster leading to a need for more formal mental health supportive services.

Planning and executing complex large-scale exercises.

Introduction: Increasingly, public health departments are designing and engaging in complex operations-based full-scale exercises to test multiple public health preparedness response functions. The Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) supplies benchmark guidelines that provide a framework for both the design and the evaluation of drills and exercises; however, the HSEEP framework does not seem to have been designed to manage the development and evaluation of multiple, operations-based, parallel exercises combined into 1 complex large-scale event.

Methods: Lessons learned from the planning of the Mississippi State Department of Health Emergency Support Function--8 involvement in National Level Exercise 2011 were used to develop an expanded exercise planning model that is HSEEP compliant but accounts for increased exercise complexity and is more functional for public health.

A Regional Public Health Field Placement Program: making an IMPACT.

Beginning in 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, made provisions in its Public Health Training Center cooperative agreements for field placements.

The effects of the April 2011 tornado outbreak on personal preparedness in Jefferson County, Alabama.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a tornado disaster on the personal preparedness of local residents to determine (1) to what extent the tornado outbreak experience had altered preparedness awareness, willingness to act, and levels of personal preparedness of residents as measured by possession of a preparedness kit; and (2) what effect this experience had on the variables associated with having a complete disaster preparedness kit.

Design: Two random digit-dialed surveys were completed following the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System protocols. The pre-tornado survey was conducted between October and December 2010 and the post-tornado survey was conducted between January and March 2012.

Radiological emergency preparedness: a survey of nuclear medicine technologists in the United States.

Unlabelled: Because of the increasing risk of radiological emergencies, public health agencies and first-response organizations are working to increase their capability of responding. Nuclear medicine technologists (NMTs) have expertise in certain areas, such as radiation safety, radiobiology, decontamination, and the use of radiation detection and monitoring equipment, that could be useful during the response to events that involve radiological materials.

Methods: To better understand the potential role that NMTs may have in response efforts, a cross-sectional survey was conducted.