donata nilsen: my name is donata nilsen. i'm a graduate student in the school of publichealth in the drph program, and i'm also a graduatestudent researcher at the center for infectious diseasesand emergency readiness. i work with dr. tomasarag—n. and the project i'm working on is the public healthcert module. so that's been going on for abouttwo and a half, three years, and i'm going to give youa little bit more information a little bit later inthe
presentation. basically i'm pretty active in my local certgroup where i live in walnut creek, and so i'm here todayjust to kind of give you an overview of the cert program,the basic cert program and then talk to you alittle bit about the public health cert program thatwe're developing. which button do i push? oh. how many of you know what cert is? haveany of you been involved in cert programs before or takenany of
the cert training? >>>: i took one just this past weekend. donata nilsen: oh, you did. what course did you take? >>>: shelter and operations. donata nilsen: great. it was through the city of berkeley? >>>: yes. donata nilsen: oh, wonderful. so maybe
you can later on maybe share some of yourexperience. >>>: sure. donata nilsen: so -- so this is basically the first time i've i given this presentation,so if you have any suggestions of what you might liketo see included, feel free to, you know, let me knowat the end so this can evolve over the years and maybebecome better and more useful to the students.
so, basically i'm going to give a basic overviewof the cert program and talk you about citizen corpsand california volunteers. then a little bit overviewof the public health curriculum that we're developingat cider. and then give you some opportunitiesto get involved. and please feel free to stop meif you have any questions or any comments or you'd liketo add anything. so, basically the cert concept, cert, community
emergency response team concept, was developedin 1985 when los angeles city officials wanted a planto study extensive earthquake preparedness plans. sowhat they found was they were specific teams that functionsin single aspects of disaster response. so, eitherfire suppression, um, search and rescue operations,first aid, or evacuation. and then in september,if you remember, there was a large earthquake inmexico city
that was about 8.1 on the richter scale. therewere 10000 people that were killed and 30000 peoplethat were injured. and in that earthquake there werea lot of people that spontaneously wanted to help thosethat had been injured or trapped under the debris,but unfortunately there was no formal trainingprogram in mexico city at that time to train civiliansin a disaster response situation. so, even though they were credited with over800
rescues, a hundred of the volunteers diedin the rescue effort. in 1986, the los angeles city firedepartment developed the neighborhood watch program.are you familiar with the neighborhood watch program?that's been around for quite a while. so, just fromthat concept, the expansion of the program to traincivilian volunteers in specific response, especiallywith respect to earthquakes became a very feasible optionso they started training civilians and the first groupof about
30 volunteers was trained at that point. however,due to limited resources, they weren't able toexpand the program at that time. then in 1987, there was the whittier narrowsearthquake which was in the area of los angeles and therewas quite a bit of damage, but that kind of propagatedthe los angeles officials to expand the program atthat time. >>>: so in the neighborhood watch that i'm familiar with people watch out for crime?
donata nilsen: exactly. that kind of started the concept of getting more peoplein the community together to work together as a team.since they had this experience going to mexico city,they said why can't these people that are already volunteeringin the neighborhood be trained in basic firesuppression, disaster response issues. so that's how itkind of started. so, um, after that earthquake in 1983, femaactually
stepped in and made the concept availablenationwide and they made the materials applicable to allhazards. so if you look on the cert website and at themanuals, everything is available online. so if yougo to cert la, just google that, all the manuals areavailable, even instructors guides. but they also havea lot of hazards plans. and i'm sure you're alreadyfamiliar with that, but it's, um, it's all there. and in 2002, this was after 9/11, cert becamepart of
citizen corps and by 2004, 50 states, threeterritories and six foreign countries used cert training.and in california alone there's over 262 cert groups.we're one of the more active states. so, i'm going to show you a really brief videothat kind of goes over the concept. can you minimize? [video:] emergency. the freeway has calmed down. when disaster strikes in california,first responders [inaudible]. often disasters victimsare
helped by police, fire and emergency medicalservice crews. but these first responders cannot beeverywhere meeting every need. today more often thannot the first responders arriving provide first aid or torescue trapped victims are actually our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even complete strangers. hang in there. training these volunteer community emergency response team members, the 30000plus assemble in our communities to make a difference. itall started
in 1985 when the los angeles city fire department developed a citizens emergency response teamconcept as a way to train civilians to meet their immediateneeds following a disaster. typically after a disaster, we have more convergent volunteers. there wasn't a trained componentfor volunteers to assist in emergency servicepersonnel. the pilot program was developed by the firedepartment to train city officials in these aspects likesearch and
rescue, fire suppression, evacuation, basicfirst aid. january of 1994 we had the northridge earthquake. during that earthquake, hundreds of utilitieswere shut off by street volunteers. light fires wereput out. basic first aid was rendered was the volunteersall over the city. it was a huge impact with what thecerts did during that earthquake. in oakland californiatrained community volunteers made a difference whenthe earth shook in october of 1989. the oakland firedepartment
was beginning to look at the los angeles certprogram as a citizen preparedness program, but it wasreally launched after the loma prieta earthquakewhen we recognized that people would naturally wantto help. that they should be trained to help so theydidn't become victims as well and the recognitionthat fire department, police department resources wouldbe overwhelmed and maybe not where they're neededinitially and so citizens need to be able to take careof
themselves. our thinking is that neighborhoodsneed to be organized and they need to know one anotherand be prepared to respond and cope on their ownfor several days after a major event. there are never going to be enough first respondersto be able to comfort and provide the assistancethe communities need in times of disasters, youneed those on ground folks who have been professionallytrained to be able to respond in an appropriate manner.we need
those all hands on deck. we need those certvolunteers. they take ownership of their community thisway by volunteering for the fire department to improvepublic safety. they have a great sense of accomplishment. it's a big help to us. and they can see whatwe do. and we could sure use their help. my community is important to me and there'sa lot of people in my neighborhood that i'm sure wouldneed help and i would want to have the ability to respond.
we've been through an earthquake already andwe've learned a lot of things [inaudible with music].so, that helps -- it also makes me much more securethat i know what i should be doing. i think once you do something like this it'sgoing to translate into your personal life anyways.we were just talking, um, my daughter is getting emergencysupplies for christmas. as california government moves forward toadvance its
emergency preparedness and response systemsin the twenty-first century residents across thestate are stepping up to make a difference. join withthem today and be responsibilities for your community'sdisaster preparedness. maria shriver our first lady is honoring charity california service corps is really passionateabout making sure that california is prepared andour overall goal is hoping one out of every 25 californianshas
completed our 20 hours of basic training sothey can help our communities. i'm counting on you, and you're counting onme. we're in this together, neighbor helping neighbor. donata nilsen: the lady that you were listening to harriet wright, she's with oaklandcorps, which is a cert program, and she's wonderful.she came to one of our pilot sessions when we weredoing the public health cert curriculum. so, um, ifyou have an
opportunity to work with oakland corps, thatwould be really great. and i have some fliers for youlater that i'll pass out. all right. so, basically the cert trainingconsists of about 20 hours of training. so, it involvesearthquake awareness, disaster preparedness, personaldisaster preparedness, and then depending on whicharea of the country you live in. obviously in californiawe're really aware of the potential of an earthquake,but in
other parts of the country, in georgia rightnow they're facing huge flooding. so, cert teams usuallyare trained in other aspects. for instance, learninghow to rescue people from water. you learn basicfire suppression techniques. there's two partsto disaster medical operations. so, there's two classesdedicated to that. and in some areas, for instance inlos angeles county and probably other areas they alsoinclude multi-casualty incidents training. and youlearn how to
do light search and rescue operations, team organization, and disaster psychological.and then they touch a little bit on terrorism and homelanddefense. and the training basically culminates in adrill where you actually do hands on training with, um,different equipment. there's some pictures here. so, this is a picture from la cert where youlearn how to do basic fire suppression. and in the certtraining they like to use acronyms. so, for using afire
extinguisher they use the word pass for pull,aim, squeeze and sweep. so you remember in whatorder to use it. because when you're in a disaster situation sometimes you forget which goes first. theylove to use acronyms. here's another picture. this isfrom, actually from the stockton college of newjersey. they're actually one of the very, very activecert programs on a college campus. and they justreceived a cert trailer with fully equipped. so they'rereally
excited about that. and i was just in communication with them and they have hundreds of volunteersthat are involved. so, there's basically cert programs that arewithin a city. there's teen cert programs in high schools. there's cert programs within colleges as well. then here's a picture of disaster medicaloperations. so you learn how to stabilize victims. learnhow to do splinting, and learn how to be able to transport
victims. here's another picture of disaster medicaloperations. so one of the key items that is used is atriangular bandage which can be used for stabilizingarms and limbs and bandaging. so, if you notice in this picture there's a yellow tarp and a green tarp. andin the previous picture there's a red tarp. so, one of the things you learn in the certprogram is how to triage victims based on their injuries.so red
stands for an immediate victim. so it's anindividual that has been severely injured and needs immediate attention. green is for minor injuries andyellow is for delayed injuries. so that's somethingthey really emphasize. so, when disaster responders come they knowimmediately where to go just based on the color. in medical operations you learn the start system. startstands for simple triage and rapid treatment. which isbasically
designed to be able to assess a victim inless than 30-seconds. so, you just determine whether, you know,they have bleeding and they use the rpm system. respiration, profusion and mental status. so they checkhow quickly you're respirating. if you're respiratingfor 30 per minute then you need to have immediate attention.and they do the profusion test using a nail blanchtest. so, if you squeeze your finger and you cansee that the
red color comes back within two seconds, thatmeans you don't have a lot of bleeding and that youprobably can receive assistance a little later than immediate.so, these are some of the things that you learnhow to assess victims. and then you also learn some basic light searchand rescue. so they teach you how to go into buildingsand how to assess if a building is safe to enterjust based on the way it's sitting on the foundationbased on some
other elements that they teach you. and they -- you learn how to stabilize victims again and howto properly lift victims so you don't injure yourself. you also learn how to do lifts using chairs,using blankets. whatever's available at that time. and usually you work in a minimum of two peopleper team, and then if you need more assistanceyou call in for more help to carry a victim out. and then part of the search and rescue effortis
learning how to do cribbing. so they use somebasic lock mechanism and a lever to lift heavy objectsfrom a person and then you can pull out the victim.and that's something else that you learn. another thing you learn is when you go intoa building is the search and rescue marker. so when youenter a building you put one x. so that if someonecomes by they know that someone's inside of a building. and then basically you indicate what timeyou've been,
the action that was taken, whether you'veremoved victims, how many victims were removed, andthen you identify yourself. for instance if you'rewith berkeley cert you would put berkeley cert and yourinitials. and if it's dangerous to go inside, if you'veencounter anything dangerous, then you just put thatoutside. so here's an example after new orleans wherethey, um, well, i'll let you guys go ahead and, um,interpret this marking. any takers?
>>>: wasn't one of them in the x the -- so like on the left it's new orleans atf, whateverthat is. donata nilsen: uh-huh. >>>: but i thought the one on the right was hazards. donata nilsen: well, this is from the cert, so this was what i was taught. maybethey have changed it since then. this is the way thati was taught. so they might have some other markingsthat
they put in for hazards. if there's propanetanks or gas or something. so basically this was at,um, 16:20. so at 4:20 there was no actions taken, novictims. and this was ng of the alcohol, tobacco and firearms.and they had two dogs inside so, just to warnanyone else that was coming through. so this is somethingreally useful that you can use, whether it's in your neighborhood, your place of work or in yourcommunity. and then they also teach a little bit aboutcert
organization. so, usually certs are in direct communication with fire departments. so there'sa fire department liaison, and then there's an incident commander. and i know you've already had someexposure to ics i believe with michael petrie who cameat the beginning. and then you of course have youroperations, your logistics, planning and administration. um, where i have my cert group in walnut creek,we have a direct link to the eoc within the city.so we don't
have as much relationship with the fire department.we have more of a relationship with the city.and in berkeley actually, the public health and firework very closely together with the certs. so it kindof varies depending on which city you're in. so, then you have under operations, the medicalsearch and rescue teams, fire suppression and then documentation, and usually logistics alsotalks about incident status.
and here's another example under operations.so, you might have if it's a large disaster you mightneed several fire suppression teams and you mightneed several search and rescue teams and you mightneed several medical group members. and the nice thing about the ics system isthat you can expand and contract it as needed. so, if thedisaster is large, then you can call upon more volunteersand expand the system. and the idea is you don'thave more
than 3 or 4 people that are responding toyou, that you are responsible for. so that there's alwaysa group leader. so, you can expand as needed. forinstance, for search and rescue team you might haveone searching the north part of the city versus the southside team. and this is an example of the organizationchart that i use in my cert group. i'm the medical operations supervisor. so, i don't put the minor casualties, because usually we ask minor casualties tocome and help
with the immediate and delayed victims. soi have a medical intake team. then i have a delayedteam. immediate and then a morgue team. so, i havevarious functions under morgue. for instance, location security, visitation monitor, and victim identification. so, again, depending on the number of victims,you need to be flexible and move people around. anyquestions about that? that kind of gives you an idea of how to useics and how
to make it work to your advantage. another thing you learn in the cert trainingis just to be kind of aware of hazards at home and atthe workplace. for instance, older homes, especiallyhomes that were built in 1940 or earlier, sometimesthey have lead or asbestos or their structures are notas sound. so, it's something to be aware of when you'redoing a search and rescue. things like propane tank,whether utilities are raised or not. mobile homesoften shift
quite a bit during an earthquake, chimneys.just things to be aware of when you're doing a searchor if in your neighborhood to look out for. and then there's some non-structural things.entering free standing furniture such as bookshelves,closets, hutches, cabinet doors, heaters, appliancesand desktop equipment, computers and things like that.so that if you do need to respond, for instance to yourneighbors or you are a part of a response team in your
neighborhood, you don't have to worry aboutyour own home. you can just go check on your friendsand family and go to respond. so, there's a lot of other training that certsactually seek after they do their initial training.so, one of you mentioned that you did shelter operations.so, shelter operations is usually taught throughthe american red cross. some of the certs havetheir own team that can teach that.
they go into community relations, donationsmanagement, special needs individuals, advanced firstaid, ham radio operator licensing, which is really useful.in my cert team we have several people who are licensedin ham radio and that's how they communicate directlywith the eoc. they learn how to use aeds, cpr. hazardous material training and then animal protectionand control. and in our cert group we actuallyhave an animal protection control unit. so they setup all the
cages. so if people don't want to be separatedfrom their animals, they can say, okay, we canbring them on site to the incident command post. and thenthe animals will be taken care of. and then they might also want to be trainedin public health related issues. so, here's some examples of certs in action.so, right now in la, they're doing a lot of h1n1 flupods. so a lot of certs are helping with the flu pods,the points
of distribution for the flu vaccine. theyhelp with parades. often there's a lot of certs thatare retired, you know, from various, um, from various typesof businesses and they like to be really activein cert and help wherever they can. they manage phonelines in disasters. um, one of the cert groups backeast has actually been working with meals on wheelsbecause of the budget cuts they haven't been able todo as many deliveries, so the certs have stepped in andassisted
with that. they actually do active shooterexercises, lost child exercises where they do searchand rescues. they take upon themselves to do classes forthe deaf or in different languages based on their communityneeds. flooding in sacramento. they recently hadsome drills based on flooding where search actually learnedhow to do rope rescues and during this two-day exercisethey learned how to rescue up to a hundred victims.so it depend on where you live. some certs are reallyactive
and some certs do different types of trainings. >>>: what's active shooter exercise? donata nilsen: so, they've had some active shooters on various college campusesin the past years. so they learn how to mobilize aroundthat kind of an issue. yeah, yeah. and then obviouslyhurricane, the certs are very active in the hurricanes,just helping with evacuation, shelter operationsand assisting victims.
so, citizen corps basically was formed after9/11. so the certs are under the citizen corps umbrellaunder the department of homeland security and underthe federal emergency management agency. and in california, california actually manages a lot of the volunteer activities in california. so citizen corpsis actually under california volunteers. and under citizen corps there's actually several different groups. so, there's the volunteersin police
service. there's fire corps, there's americorps.so citizen corps is really a large umbrella fora lot of these different service groups within thecountry. so, california volunteers actually has quitea few opportunities. as i mentioned they have citizencorps under them, americorps, but they also havea lot of things to do with opportunities to work withyouth. so california volunteers is a great way to, um,get involved and they have a great website whereyou can
just enter your information and they haveopportunities all over the state. and karen baker who'sbeen really supportive of our public health module andyou actually saw her on the video as well. she is the firststate cabinet secretary of service and volunteeringfor california. so, it's great to be able to havethat support within the state of california. and again, as i mentioned earlier, there'smany, many opportunities to get involved. and they'veactually
sent quite a few of things for us today. soi'm going to pass out a few things for you. so, here'sa brochure. go ahead and pass that around. and pass one of these around. a little flashlightfor your key chain. are there any questions aboutthe basic cert program? [student: inaudible] about 20hours [student: inaudible] recommendation [student: inaudible] donata nilsen: that's a good question,
and i'm actually going to go into that a littlebit later, but this is, no, perfect timing. basically the idea is that if you want tobe really involved in your community, you can continueto do drills and refreshers. and in my cert areawe do a big drill twice a year. so, in november 7th wehave about a hundred people that show up and we do thewhole, you know, ics system. we have search and rescue.we have medical transport teams. we have a morgue.we do
everything. some certs are not that involved.but i think the basic idea is that you as an individualcan help your family and friends whether you havea roommate or family or whether in your workplace. youcan make a difference there. so, it's up to you whatlevel of, um, continuous training you want to receive. so, the basic 20 hours of training will giveyou the ability to make a difference in a disasterwhether it's just with one person or in the community.
so, there's no commitment after your basictraining. and, um, actually this is when i took my training,i think most cert programs you get a cert backpack.and they give you a hard hat. so i wanted to kindof show you items that we received. you get a vest.so depending on which area you're in. if youremember from the video there was a panda. they had pandaon their things. that's palo alto neighborhood disasterteams. you get a hard hat. and you don't get a wrench,but
this is one of the things they teach you ishow to turn off the gas. so you need a wrench to turnoff the gas. it's something good to have as part of yourdisaster kit. and then you could add things. they alsogive you gloves. and, um, i have a bunch of tape rolls.so this is for identifying the victims. so, again,immediate, minor injuries, delayed injuries and thenfor people who have deceased. and then i carry a first aidkit and different types of rolls. like these are justsome tape
that you can use to mark off areas. so youdo get some equipment that helps you in a response. and then i have markers and things like that.so, you're welcome to take a look at this stuffa little bit later. so, i just wanted to give you an idea of whatour local cert teams are called. so these are all registered under the citizen corps cert. so in san francisco they're called neighborhood emergency responseteams.
and in oakland it's called citizens of oakland responding to emergencies. santa clara hasheat, which stands for home emergency assistant teams.and i didn't actually realize there were this many differentnames for the certs, but they all receive the basicstandard training that's offered through fema. andpalo alto is, palo alto neighborhood disaster activities.in albany, albany local emergency response team. beneciaemergency response team. and in richmond, it's richmondemergency
action community teams. and uc berkeley actually started a cert team in 1999, but it kind offizzled out and it didn't take off. but i just recentlycontacted the office of emergency services and they'restarting, they're trying to start it up again and it'scalled home, helping our campus manage emergencies.so, if you're interested in that i can give you mycard later and we can see, you know, if it's going totake off and what they're planning to do on campus.
loyola marymount university in southern californiahas a community disaster education team. uc irvineactually has a campus search and rescue team. so there'svarious activities around the colleges. okay. so, now that you know how to turn offthe gas. you know how to help someone that has, youknow, some minor injuries or maybe some more severe injuries.you know how to do search and rescue, is thereanything else you think you should know after a disaster?
>>>: how to communicate with people. donata nilsen: communications is really important. well this is where i wanted tointroduce to you the public health cert curriculum thatwe're developing. so, for instance, what you woulddo is you saw this out of the window of your home. so,this is a broken water main. would you know what todo? or would you do anything? >>>: call the police. 911.
donata nilsen: okay. would you know how to assist people that have disabilities? what would you do if you encountered this mold and all kindof debris in someone's home or your own home. or doyou know how to care for someone who is ill with flu athome? so these are some of the modules that we've developed. tomas actually took the cert course in sanfrancisco and being a public health practitioner, he thought,well
these are great skills to have, but all disastersreally have public health implications. so he cameup with some great ideas to start this cert curriculum.and so we call it the public health community emergency response training curriculum. and basically the vision of this curriculumwas to -- to get public health involved with fire districtsand the community emergency response teams. and basicallyhave communities have a bigger, better awarenessof what
public health is and does and how they havea role in a disaster response. so, there's eight modules. module one is apublic health and their role during and after disasters.and we have disaster preparedness for vulnerableand special needs populations. habits of uninfected people. infectious disease threats after disasters.food and water safety after disasters. conducting acommunity assessment. environmental health issues after
disasters. and basic home care for infectiouspatients. so, in the picture i showed you with a brokenwater main you would definitely want to call authoritiesto let them know there's a problem, but you mightalso want to boil your water so that you don't, you know,there might be some -- excuse me, contamination of waterline. so boiling the water and letting your neighborsknow, why don't you boil your water until we hear frompublic health would be a good idea so you don't getan
infectious disease. the second picture was of some people withdisabilities. a seeing eye dog. so in our module that dealswith disaster preparedness for vulnerable populationsyou learn how to work with people with specialneeds and identify them in your community. and then the third picture that i showed youwith the mold and all the debris, that, um, comes intoplay with environmental health issues after disasterswhere you
learn how to protect yourself and you learnhow to, what kind of equipment to wear when you're doingclean up. so, i'm going to give you just a basic overview.so what i did is i took some slides out of allthese modules that were developed just to give youan idea, i'm not going to go into depth into all ofthese slides. so don't feel like you have to read them.but i just want to give you an idea of some of the thingswe cover. so, the public health cert curriculum incorporates
activities for visual learners, audio learnersand people who really need a lot of hands on activities. because -- a lot of the people that learnthat cert training are older people. so, they need alittle bit more hands on activities and visual. so, we have case studies, for example. handson activities we provide scenarios of thingsthat have occurred in the field that have public health implications. oops. too fast. we do some group
participation activities, again, visual aids,handouts and some tip sheets you can take and put inyour disaster response kit. so for module one,people were really interested what public health is anddoes. so it provide a basic overview of general publichealth responsibilities and i know you've alreadyhad some experience with that in this class. so a lotof people out in the community, they don't really havea good idea of what public health is and does.
and basically some of the roles of communityemergency response groups such as certs and how theycan work with public health in a disaster. so, then we show an example of a slide ofhow public health would respond in a disaster and thenhow for instance certs or american red cross or someother cbos, community based organizations would respond. so, here's an example of what public healthdid after hurricane katrina. they set up a triple widetrailer in
a wal-mart parking lot to assist people thatneeded, for instance, immunizations or medical attention. so, something that a community emergency responsegroup would do, obviously you would account foryour neighbors first. so, if you have a roommate or if youhave family or friend, you want to make sure that they'reokay first. and then know where vulnerable populations groups are in your area or in your building.and be able to direct emergency responders to these
individuals. for instance, you might have a map of yourneighborhood or of your building so that you can exactlypinpoint where someone might need help. so this issomething you could do as an individual. so, here's some examples that we show justto be familiar with potential infectious diseases.so this has to do with the infectious disease module.so as a public health responder versus someone inthe community.
i'm not going to read all of these. i justwanted to give you an example of some of the thingswe cover. and then again, we go over what some of the rolesare of basic community groups. just knowing basicsanitation practice, knowing basic food and water safety.what food is safe to eat and how to disinfect water. and then module two is about disaster preparednessfor vulnerable and special needs populations.so we go into different things about how to reach specialneed
populations in your community. ways of engagingspecial needs populations through community basedorganizations that you are already involved in. so you mightbe involved in different groups that have peoplewith disabilities. try to engage them and get themto be and ana-marie jones is going to be comingto give you a lecture in several weeks. she is a wonderfuldynamic speaker and she's going to talk to you aboutidentifying groups in your area. so i don't want to takeanything
away from her lecture, but she's been assistingus with developing this module and it's really, it's,um, she's a great speaker. so, these are some of the people that youmight encounter in your neighborhood. and this moduleis made to kind of assist in working with these different groups. and this is a guide that it's called tipsfor first responders. it's a guide from the universityof new
mexico center for development and disability.and you can actually access this online. you can photocopyit and put it in your disaster kit. but you canalso purchase a laminated copy which i was hopingto have with me today. but unfortunately it didn'tcome on time. great little item to have your in yourdisaster kit just how to work with different people.seniors, people with service animals, people with autism,and you never know who you might encounter.
then module three deals with seven habitsof uninfected people. so it talks about basic hand and bodyhygiene, respiratory etiquette. getting vaccinated.practicing food and water safety. just basic things peopleshould do on a daily basis to get themselves healthy. module four is about infectious disease threatsafter disasters. so, as you remember, the 20 hoursof training, they're really the basic 20 hoursof cert training tells you about basic skills youneed to have
immediately following a disaster. but, youknow, several hours into the disaster there's goingto be certain health threats that have to deal withinfectious diseases. so just knowing about water anddispelling myths that people might have regarding potential infections. that's really important and ithink a lot of these skills people don't -- a lot of these,um, topics people don't know about. so, here's an example of a case study thatwe use for
the infectious disease module. this was anacute outbreak of gastroenteritis after hurricanekatrina. and there were actually a thousand cases over11 days. so they tried to institute hand washes. theytried to put hand washing stations in various locationsin the mega shelter. they put more toilets, morecleaning. a lot of things we talk about as a group ofsome of the things that they provided. and, um, some ofthese things can also be done in a local community.and then
we do a hand washing activity which, um, peoplereally enjoy. because they realize even though theythink they can wash their hands fully well, there's alwaysspots they miss and we use this hand lotion thatglows in the dark and then they can see exactly where they'vemissed some of is spots. and we talk about different sources of potential infectious disease. so water, air, food, soil,other people, for example, shelters, vectors andanimals.
so, this is an example of a slide from water.talking about water. so contaminated drinking waterwe talk about ways you can get infections from contaminated drinking water, flood water, standing wateror seawater. so, this is just one example. and then we give slides that talk about mythsact facts. so, here's an example. water borne outbreaksof diseases such as cholera can easily spreadthrough the community after a disaster. is that true orfalse? in
the u.s. >>>: false. donata nilsen: what do you guys think? yeah. it's false because cholera is not endemicto the united states. so it's very unlikely thatthere's going to be a cholera epidemic. so and this alsois the same with dead bodies. people often think thatdead bodies need to be disposed of very quickly aftera disaster because they can, you know, harbor all kindsof
diseases. but people that, you know, are sickcan transmit diseases just as dead bodies thathave hiv infection or other infections. so you needto take basic precautions when you are handling adead body if you are involved in that aspect of a disasterresponse. but these are some of the myths that are floatingaround after a disaster, and this is kind of ouropportunity to, you know, make the facts known. so, here's the one about the dead bodies.
>>>: i have a question about that. donata nilsen: sure. >>>: um, because i'm not familiar with a lot of, you know, anything medical, um pathologyof diseases and whatnot, if someone dies andthey have a disease, how long is does virus or diseaseremain viable in a body until it's in longer infectious? tomas aragon: well, it's -- i guess probably going to depend on what type of bacteriaor
virus you're dealing with. but in general,the people who transmit disease are healthy people. because healthy people are preparing food, touchingyou, kissing you, defecating. they're out there spreadinggerms. dead people basically stay in one place. >>>: but if you're moving people though, you have to be concerned. tomas aragon: right. if you're directly handling a dead body, then you need to takeprecautions.
but there's this myth that dead bodies aregoing to cause these big outbreaks. and the reasonwhy that's a concern is that sometimes people will comeand they will immediately bury bodies, burn them and nottake into account the cultural factors in the community.and so, what they're saying is slow down, don't worry,you're not going to have an outbreak because youhave dead bodies. you should make sure that you tryto do things that are consistent with the cultural practicesof
whatever community those people died in, ratherthan rushing to, you know, to dig holes and throwthem in holes or to burn them. donata nilsen: yeah. so when i first started developing some of these ideas aboutwhat to put in the infectious disease module, harrietwright from core came over and she said, she's reallyinterested in how to deal with dead bodies. so we put awhole appendix how to deal with dead bodies andhow to protect
yourself and how to cover them and how toidentify them and all that. so, that's something that'skind of, you know an addendum to the standard module. the module five deals with food and watersafety after disasters. so basically identifying basicrisks from water and food. and knowing how to deal withspecific hazards and how to avoid potentially hazardousfoods. and then this is a handout that i'm goingto give you, we've laminated basically how to disinfectwater using
bleach. and we provide some basic food safety tips.um, what to use first if there's a power outage like youuse the things in your refrigerator first and thenthe things in your freezer last. and then all the non-perishable items last. so these are the kind of thingswe provide in this module. and module six is about conducting a community assessment. so, um wayne enanoria will becoming to
give you a lecture on community assessments.which is really interesting. so after a disaster, um,community assessment team might be assembled by a publichealth department for example. and you have a questionnaire. i'll go forward one. basically you have aquestionnaire that asks about utilities, where they haveaccess to food, whether they have access to transportation.and then whatever the resources are lacking themost, that's where public health and other agencies willstep in to
provide some relief. so, this is an example of a community assessmentteam. and basically in the class we provide a scenariosuch as this. there's an earthquake. you know, there's electrical system failures. and differentissues. and um, see if i have a picture of that now. ihad a picture of a rapid need assessment form, buti'm sure when wayne comes he'll give you kind of anidea of what it involves.
so, here's a community assessment team ina flooded trailer home park. so they went out to seewhat the needs were in that community. and this is module seven. it deals with environmental health issues after disasters. so, knowinghow to deal with basic environmental hazards. knowingwhen it's safe to return home from work. some of thefires in san diego i was involved in, i was -- we wereevacuated actually. so just knowing when to return home,you
know, whether to wear a mask or not is important.how to deal with extreme heat. getting peoplefamiliar with heat exhaustion versus heatstroke and howto deal with hypothermia. so these are some of the issueswe cover we also talk about mold. how to work withmold and what to avoid. we talk a little bit about carbonmonoxide poisoning. after hurricane katrina a lot ofpeople used power generators and sometimes people didn'trealize that they actually need to have the powergenerators
outside and several people actually died ofcarbon monoxide poisoning. so it's really dangerousand they shouldn't be operated inside a house or ina garage because it's really dangerous. we talk a little bit about septic systemsand sewage. about how to use a respirator, n 95 respirator.how to connect one, how to put one on and some ofthe issues revolving around respirators. so, these are some of the basic things toknow when
you're putting on a mask. but these are someof the common things people don't do and that's whenpeople, the respirator actually fails them and doesn'thelp them much. i wanted to show you an example of a maskreal fast since we covered that. so these are some masks that i bought at acehardware. they basically both look the same. don't they?if you look kind of far away and you want to justgrab one.
but one is actually an n 95 respirator whichfilters out 95 percent of .3 microns or less. and thisis just a basic desk mask if you're sweeping or something.so you really need to look at the difference andthis is something we cover in that module. and a lotof people don't really know the difference and we goover that. so you can pass those around. so, in module seven, our emphasis is reallytaking basic personal precautions around disaster cleanup and
environmental hazards. wearing gloves, howto clean, wearing protective covering on your feet,hard hats, gloves, how to clean using basic bleach solution.not vacuuming when you see rodent droppings. because,you know why? >>>: you can aerosolize the droppings. donata nilsen: yeah. because sometimes rodent droppings, mice droppings, they contain hantavirus and that can be picked up whenyou're
vacuuming and can be inhaled. so, just basic precautions. how to disposeof waste properly. and making sure you wash your hands.so these are some of the things that we cover.we talk about some hazards during clean up. environmental hazards. and finally module eight is about basic homecare for infectious patients. so, basic steps to take when you're caringfor people at
home. knowing how to care for them. keepinga log, you know, what kind of medication they've had.what their temperature is and knowing when to seek medical assistance. we talk a little about droplet transmissionand airborne transmission, just basically so people understandwhat the difference is. we talk about the common cold versus flu and,you know, what kind of a temperature elevation to lookfor. we
talk a little bit about gastrointestinal infectionsand how to make basic rehydration solutions andto make sure people stay hydrated and basic soup. there'ssome basic recipes that we have in there that peoplecan use at home if they don't want to leave. and we talkabout skin and wound infections. so, there's some things that we also provide.like i mentioned basic liquids for diarrhea. howto monitor a patient. watching for complications.
and this is actually, um, the little laminatedhandout that we pass out that you can put in yourdisaster kit. and i'm going to pass that around to you.and then here's a home care record that you could use.and just getting people familiar with these thingswill make them more likely to use them. and we really emphasize how to avoid spreading infections. so, keeping things separate, especially when someone has diarrhea illness or flu.keeping
computers, pens, eating utensils separateand clean. making sure to disinfect toys and items, especiallyif you have smaller children around the home. so, i'm going to just stop for a minute. doyou have any questions? questions? okay. well, i'm going to pass out a few things foryou.so, this is, um, this is actually from modulefive. you can pass one of these around that you can keepin your disaster kit or you can put it on your refrigeratoris
basic cooking temperatures. and this you can also add to your disasterkit. so this is what i showed you earlier. this is a basicbleach disinfection solution and basic electrolytesolutions. you can take one of those. and if you're interested, this is a pamphleti received from the food service, us department of agriculturefood safety and inspection service, cooking forgroups. some basic precautions to take. so if you're interestedin
that you're welcome to take one of those. and, let's see. and i also have some coldstorage times that you can keep as a good reference. andthen here's basically a draft participant guide for allthe modules. so if you want to take a quick look throughthat, you're welcome to do that. >>>: are these [inaudible]? donata nilsen: so we started this project about two and a half years ago, three yearsago. so
we've done a lot of pilot testing and fieldtesting. and now we're at the point where we're finalizingsome of the modules. so we started with the infectious disease threats. so, um, we're going to startrolling some of these out probably in the spring.and we're hoping that there will be some students interestedin helping doing some of the pilot field sessions,working with public health. so, um, i'll pass around my card if anyone'sinterested
in that. and one of the things that i've learnedfrom doing the pilot sessions that people reallyenjoy the hands on activities and doing participantactivities. so, if anyone's interested, i could use oneindividual that's interested in doing a project for thisclass for the class project, tomas said that would beokay to come up with some activities for some of thesemodules. for instance, infectious disease threats, environmental health threats or the basic home care. tocome up with
some activities that would be useful for participantsto learn the material better. so, if anyone's interested in that, you'rewelcome to talk to me afterwards or i'll hand out mycard and we can probably do that over e-mail. so, thatit wouldn't take too much of your time. tomas aragon: one comment, when i had this idea it was really just an idea. anddonata took the idea and just has run with it and donean incredible
job. she's worked really well with the communitygoing out and getting focus groups together andhas been very -- taken a lot of initiative and veryproactive. she's done an amazing work. donata nilsen: and the thing is that's been really interesting just working withpublic health and working with the cert group at the statelevel is that, you know, the cert training, the basiccert training has been around for quite a whilenow, but
people are interested in learning some otherthings. so it kind of resparked their interest in thewhole cert idea. so that has been really encouraging. >>>: is there any kind of -- are there any kind of structures in place, um, for justhow to communicate? like that's -- i still, that'sthe big thing that just falls apart in every disaster. donata nilsen: every single time. you're totally correct. every cert drill we havein my
community there's always a communication problem. whether you're working with public healthor fire there's always communication problems. butthere are a lot of extra classes you can take that sometimesare offered just through the local cert programand sometimes they're offered like on the statewidebasis like ham radio operating license, but at alocal level, that's something that usually groups needto work out on how to communicate properly.
so, i just wanted to, i have just a couplemore slides here. i wanted to, um, i took a couple ofslides from the infectious disease threats after disasters.and i just wanted to kind of brainstorm with youwhat contributes to infectious disease threatsafter a disaster. so, this is one of the slides we use afterfor this module. and people really kind of brainstormed. so, what do you think?
>>>: if running water service is interrupted, um, people need it, don't havewater. and they're forced to reuse water. donata nilsen: definitely. any other ideas? there's a whole list. i just wantedto kind of brainstorm with you guys and see what youthink. >>>: if you have people living like in a shelter, you have a lot of people crammedinto a small space, then it can facilitate the spread ofdisease more
easily. donata nilsen: especially like flu, colds, sometimes lice can be transmitted.actually in the last drill in may in my community we hadseveral victims that, you know, that were posing asvictims. and one of the little girls had head lice.and we didn't realize it until a little bit later,you know, like an hour later. but we were using blanketsfor various people so the lice could have spreadvery
easily. it's just something you don't reallythink about, but when you're exposed to it througha short two-hour training, then you kind of thinkabout these things a little bit more. any other ideas? >>>: i think proper waste disposal. especially if it comes into contact with thewater supply. donata nilsen: and these are some of the
issue that is we bring about in these modulesso people can be cognizant of these. not just doingtheir three-hour drill or four-hour drill. but thenafter the drill is over, real situation, these are thingsyou really need to deal with and you have littleexposure to them in the basic 20 hours of cert training.so it's really good information. any other ideas? >>>: oh wait, that's not infectious. never mind.
donata nilsen: okay. well, these are some of the ones we came up with and thereare probably more. so, contaminated food and water. thatwas mentioned. poor or no water quality maintenance, especially if water lines are broken. inadequatetoilet facilities. poor or no solid waste management.poor personal hygiene. poor respiratory etiquette. crowding. poor or no shelter. sometimes if,you know, if the freeways or the roads are blocked andthe
american red cross can't come in and set uptheir shelter there might be a problem there, tryingto make a shelter in an environment that's not reallyset up for masses of people. inadequate control of rodents and other animals.insect problems. and there's more. i mean, there'splenty more. this is just, you know, a basic list. so -- >>>: this seems like a very thorough, more
or less a thorough curriculum for cert training. >>>: and the training i went to saturday morning, i think it's run by the americanred cross or shelter. and he started off by saying thatit's typically like an eight-hour training, 6 or8 hours and they're going to teach it to us in three hours. donata nilsen: wow. >>>: is there, you guys make an effort to compress certain things knowing that peopleare
volunteering their time and -- donata nilsen: right. >>>: you know, it's on their days off and they don't want to spend the whole day sometimes. donata nilsen: right. so i've been talking to california volunteers who overseeskind of the cert coordinators in the state, and there'scertain modules they're really interested in. i wouldlike to make all these modules available. but i thinkthe
infectious disease threats after disastersand environmental health threats are really importantand i think they should be part of the standardcert training. so i would love to hear your feedback likewhich of these modules do you really think you shouldknow in responding to a disaster. because i'm goingto be meeting with them again in probably in thenext month or so. and i'd like at least make the infectiousdisease threats part of the standard cert trainingin california
at least to start that way. so, any thoughtsof how much more time you would want to commit tothe 20 hours? >>>: one thing i was thinking about after the course, it seemed like it's all stuffeverybody should know. you know. and then the earthquakestuff in particular living out here in california.i mean, i just moved out here last year so all the earthquake stuff freaks me out. >>>: and, um, my thought was that it could
be something, i don't know if this could ever -- something that could actually occur in theunited states, but it's something that would be taughtas either a requirement in high school or college.there you have everybody, everybody is there totake the classes already. you're there for a givenamount of time. and you're at the age where you're [inaudible] most helpful. i mean you're physically, youknow, just everything for the most part set.
donata nilsen: yeah. >>>: in my training i was the only young person there. everybody was over 65. wow,these are the people that are going to be saving everybodyelse. people are thinking about that. a lot of retiredpeople are also like to participate in the community,but to not see any young folks there. tomas aragon: so, that's a really great idea. alameda county is asking us to try toorganize
graduate students to go out and teach whackthe flu curriculum in schools. one of the ideas is that we actually wantto get diverse students to go out and teach a diverse studentbody. and this is actually a really good idea becausethat would be the time to do it. when people areyoung and strong. so, maybe this is something we can donata nilsen: i'm actually going to go over a lot of opportunities and i have fliersfor you.
but when i took the cert training three yearsago or two and a half years ago, an a lot of the peoplewere from the retirement community in my neighborhoodand they were all very old. but the thing is that,i think they felt like they weren't able to do anythingin the disaster, but now they have some skills. sothey are able to help in their community at least orhelp their spouse or their, you know, immediate neighbors. and, um we have over 700 trained cert peoplein walnut
creek. and every time there's an activity,like very few numbers show up. although 700 people aregoing to make a difference in the overall response.so you have to think of it that way too. but in new jerseywhen i showed a picture of the new jersey collegecampus, they actually received credit for doing the certtraining. and any extra, you know, disaster responsetype of trained received they get credit. so, i thinkit's really important that maybe we could starthere at uc
berkeley and especially now that they're tryingto start up the cert program, that maybe we could providesome kind of credit, whether it's in the schoolof public health or throughout the campus. i think it'sreally important. >>>: i mean it could be something that's included in physical, i don't know if there'sphysical education type of classes. but at a lot ofcommunity colleges you're required to take a certainamount of --
donata nilsen: yeah. >>>: physical education. >>>: credit. donata nilsen: yeah. actually in the high schools, pe is required at least for1 or 2 years. even at a younger age it would be importantjust to know some of these basic skills. so, i'm not -- i have only two more slides.so basically covers a little bit about basicsanitation,
you know keeping wounds clean, washing handsor using hand sanitizers. practicing safe food consumption using cleanwater. practicing respiratory etiquette. some ofthese basic things that people really need to know andjust feel comfortable with. and then people don't think about this, but,you know, you need to wash your hand all the time. especiallynow in flu season. these are some of the thingsthat, you
know, washing your hands is important foralmost any time you handle food or take care of someoneor make contact with someone. so, so -- how many ofyou have a disaster kit? well, california volunteers sent a whole bunchof personal disaster kits. so i'm going to handthose out to you. tomas aragon: you guys are so lucky. donata nilsen: so this basically has food
and water for three days. there's a flashlightand you have to get your own batteries. but you canpass those out for me. there's a whistle in there, alight stick. so they've been really supportive. and thoselittle cards i gave you, you can put those in thereso you can start your kit that way. one more. tomas aragon: there's no other class in the school of public health that you get towalk away with some good material.
donata nilsen: there you go. tomas aragon: very cool. >>>: is this fema water? donata nilsen: i don't know where they get the water. >>>: i've heard that fema water is just the most hideous thing in the entire world.that it's basically like liquid aluminum, like it tasteslike metal.
donata nilsen: well it's meant to last for five years. i haven't tried one. but youcould probably, you know, substitute with some otherwater. but this has a really large shelf life. butmost water that you buy over-the-counter, you know, justat the store is good for about six months and thenyou need to rotate it. at least if you're caught somewhere whereyou can't get out, this will, you know, you'll be able tosurvive for
at least a few days. tomas aragon: there was a mom recently, i think if nevada. she was just driving herkid to a birthday party and took the wrong road andshe was using a gps navigator, and basically it got messedup. she went where the gps navigator was going andshe ended up in the desert and just died. actually herkid died and she survived i think. but it was very sad because something as simpleas just
actually having hydration would have let herstay long enough until they found her. donata nilsen: so, as i mentioned earlier, there's a lot of opportunities toget involved and whether you want to get involved or youwant to just be able to help yourself and your family,it's fine. but here are the classes that are being offeredby the berkeley fire department office of emergencyservices. a lot of their classes are full already. buttake one
of these if you're interested in berkeleyclasses. then here's, i don't know if anyone livesin albany, here's the albany alert program. take oneof those if you're interested. here is the richmond program.this year all the classes are scheduled for thisfall. and the last thing about berkeley is they don'tnecessarily do all the training in order. so, if you missone, you can take it at some other time. so you cankind of jump in whenever you want. and this is the oaklandcore
training schedule, so if you're interestedin that you might get to meet harriet. so, berkeley public health also has a student opportunity for their vaccinal, their seasonalflu vaccine clinic on october 6th. they're goingto have i think breakfast and some different opportunities.so take one of these if you're interested inthat. and then this is an opportunity that tomasmentioned. this is the whack the flu program throughalameda
county. so if you're interested in that, there'sa stipend connected with that. and i think berkeley public health is also looking for some whackthe flu trainers. so, if you're interested in thatyou can contact us at cider or i'll pass around mycard. and for the cert public health curriculum, we'rehoping to get a lot of student support and people goingout into the community working with public health trainingon some of these issues whether it's basic homecare if you
have some medical background if you're interestedin teaching or if you're really interested ininfectious diseases. we have training manuals alreadymade for a couple of these modules. so we're going tobe holding in the spring, a train the trainer sessionfor graduate students and for undergraduate students dependingon what the module is. so if you're interestinned that, please feel free to contact me. and if you'reinterest inned, you know, developing activities forsome of the
modules i would definitely appreciate yourhelp and your unique perspective would be very useful. so, unless there's any other questions, that'sall i have, um, you're welcome to come and lookat any of the items out here and let me hand out my card tomas aragon: the school of public health does have an emergency preparedness groupthat just focus on just general issues around the schoolof public health preparedness that you might be interestedin
being involved in. >>>: like a student group? tomas aragon: um, i guess student faculty, administration, they put group togetherthat meets periodically to just talk about theschool of public health, what kinds of things can wedo to make sure we're prepared. and i guess they're sponsoringa talk on influenza that art reingold is goingto give. >>>: it's tomorrow i think.
tomas aragon: yeah, it's on a wednesday. >>>: i have a comment. your thing about training the trainer. >>>: so, i did americorps a couple years ago and we got a lot of these types of trainings.and some of them were really good. some of themwere horrible because it's just like the trainerwas horrible. and so like i remember one trainingwe had two people out there and they were bickeringand so it
was like okay, we don't know what the takehome message is because they couldn't agree. and so i thinkthat that's -- i mean it may be that was an isolated experience, but, um, training the traineris at least from my experience would have been important. donata nilsen: yeah. tomas and i went out to napa county public health last yearand we did a train the trainer with some of their certgroups. and basically our emphasis was to identify youraudience.
so who you're going to be teaching, whetherit's older adults, whether you are teaching about handhygiene, whether you're going to do the full infectiousdisease module. and basically just some of the basicthings you need to know to do a training session. sowe don't go over the whole entire module. it's basicallyset up so that you can pick and choose what you needto do the training. so, it's really flexible that way.and hopefully public health will come in and alsoprovide
some input. tomas aragon: so, this is an area that public health is not very involved in. right?public health tends to be more involved in more traditional medical -- vaccine clinics. but what you'llknow is that when you think about it, in a disasteror in the developing world, a lot of these basic thingsare really critical for public health. right? um, andi think that's one area that even as a clinician ifeel weak in
is just basic public health practices. becausei got trained in high tech medicine where i havex-rays and all this technology to help me out, but notin some of the real basic stuff. so, it's -- anyway, it's good to have a groupof people that are interested in this because it is -- when you don't have the basics you realize how importantit is. >>>: another thing i was thinking about this course that i haven't been to the oaklandone. i
actually live in oakland. >>>: where minorities. there was people of color in the course saturday morning. andi was talking to a woman there about that and wewere kind of discussing the fact that it's saturday morning,it's on your time, and how much of this is broughtto the community. particularly communities whereyou know people aren't going to be coming out to trainings. donata nilsen: uh-huh. yeah.
>>>: a lot of it maybe as a public health practitioner it's our job to kind of bringit to people and that's where it would be useful to bringit into schools and whatnot rather than expectingpeople to come to trainings. donata nilsen: yeah. yeah, one of the things in working with berkeley public healthon the curriculum is and just cert overall is northberkeley has much more cert participants than southberkeley.
and i think that's a really good point youmade is just trying to maybe go out into the communityrather than expecting them to come and maybe in the vulnerable populations module, that's something identifyingwhich groups are not being reached and going outto them. so that's a really good idea. thank you. all right. well that's all i have. so, feelfree to contact me if you're interested in any ofthe opportunities and, um, i'd love to get oneof you at
least involved in some aspect of it if you're interested. so, thank you. [applause]