Recommendation on Community Preparedness: Public Health Concerns

This report provides recommendations on community preparedness, focusing on emergency actions during events like blackouts or power grid failures. Based on the FEMA's five-factor preparedness framework, the report emphasizes communication strategies, recognizing that diverse methods are needed to reach all community members. It suggests local authorities like SAMHD and BCCHC should continually disseminate information through various channels, including the internet, TV, radio, and partnerships with schools and places of worship. The report highlights the efficiency of schools in disseminating preparedness messages to families and the importance of encouraging the continued use of corded telephones for communication during power outages. The recommendations aim to enhance public awareness and preparedness for disaster management, ensuring that all community members are well-informed and equipped to handle emergencies effectively.

Running head: COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
Recommendation on Community Preparedness
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
The purpose of this recommendation memo is to provide recommendation on emergency actions
that can be taken during emergencies like blackouts or power grid failure and this
recommendation memo is based on the ‘Community Preparedness, Public Health, and Public
Policy Implications and Recommendations’. As mentioned in the ‘Community Preparedness,
Public Health, and Public Policy Implications and Recommendations’, this recommendation
memo deliver the recommendation based on the five factor preparedness mentioned by The
Federal Emergency Management Agency. This recommendation memo will focus on the
communication during the disaster and notify the public about the information regarding the
disaster management. The recommendations are mentioned below.
CP Recommendation #1:
One of the primary goals during the disaster management is to reach to the every member to the
community. But not every time it is feasible to reach to the every household by a single
communication method. In this context, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has
stated that there are individual differences in presentation mode between different presentation
method and one is more effective in context to other for some communication method.
Therefore, local authorities like San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (SAMHD) or Bexar
County Community Health Collaborative (BCCHC) should not assume that all the community
members has been provided information related to the disaster and continuing the process of
spreading information about the disaster and what to do during the whole disaster management.
Sources:

2COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
Skinner, Chris, and Renitha Rampersad. "A revision of communication strategies for effective
disaster risk reduction: A case study of the South Durban basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa." Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 6.1 (2014): 1-10.
https://journals.co.za/content/jemba/6/1/EJC163447
Ma, Ruofei, et al. "Smart grid communication: Its challenges and opportunities." IEEE
transactions on Smart Grid 4.1 (2013): 36-46.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6451177
CP Recommendation #2:
During the emergency management, the goal for the authorities should to be preparing to deliver
emergency communication through various modes and not depended on a single source. Various
modes that can be utilized are Internet, TV, radio, newspaper, and school /business /places of
worship partnerships like churches and mosques. Radio should be in particular focus as it is
reachable to everyone, convenient and can be used for long duration even in the long black outs.
Source:
Romo-Murphy, Eila. "Developing disaster preparedness education via broadcast media and
community involvement." Jyväskylä studies in humanities 236 (2014): 12 - 115.
https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/44637/1/978-951-39-5949-
4_vaitos29112014_korjattu.pdf
CP Recommendation #3:

3COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
Schools are really an efficient channel, with emergency response messages, for young and
their families. Families with school students who bring home preparedness equipment were far
more inclined than those who did not get equipment for disaster preparation. These families
are75 per cent more susceptible to having a household plan they talked about as a family, and
twice as likely to have taken a home drill. Bexar County Community Health Collaborative
(BCCHC) must work along with the Texas Youth Preparedness Council to involve the Texas
Education Association to put the public education program in the community and family
preparedness curriculum.
Source:
Mutch, Carol. "The role of schools in disaster preparedness, response and recovery: what can we
learn from the literature?." Pastoral Care in Education 32.1 (2014): 5-22.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2014.880123
CP Recommendation #4:
Many of the Texas households still use corded telephones and have connection to those corded
telephones in their households. However, most of them are being ignored and people are
removing them from their households due to the rise of smart phones and inconvenience of using
corded telephone. But corded telephone is very useful during the blackouts and people can be
reached through corded phone even if the battery of Smartphone dies. Hence, Texas government
and authorities like San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (SAMHD) or Bexar County
Community Health Collaborative (BCCHC) should encourage people to continue using corded
phones in their household as disaster preparedness.

4COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
Sources:
Reuter, Christian. "Power outage communications: Survey of needs, infrastructures and
concepts." ISCRAM. (2013): 884- 889.
http://ww.w.iscram.org/legacy/ISCRAM2013/files/104.pdf
Miles, Scott B., Hannah Gallagher, and Charles J. Huxford. "Restoration and impacts from the
September 8, 2011, San Diego power outage." Journal of Infrastructure Systems 20.2 (2013):
05014002 – 9.
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000176