Building Capacity for Community Disaster Preparedness: A Call for Collaboration Between Public Environmental Health and Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs. (Cover story)
Partnerships among local public environmental health (EH), emergency preparedness and response (EPR) programs, and the communities they serve have great potential to build community environmental health emergency preparedness (EHEP) capacity. In the study described in this article, the beliefs and organizational practices pertaining to community EHEP outreach and capacity were explored through key informant (KI) interviews (N = 14) with a sample of governmental EH and EPR administrators and top-level managers from Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California. The results indicate that KIs were highly confident in their workforces' efficacy, ability, willingness, and motivation to directly engage local communities in EHEP. Best practices to combat organizational and systematic barriers to community EHEP outreach were identified. Based on the authors' results, training in participatory methods is needed to bridge technical knowledge in emergency management to daily practice. The lessons learned will form the basis of future interventions aimed to prepare EH and EPR professions to implement community-focused emergency preparedness strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]/nCopyright of Journal of Environmental Health is the property of National Environmental Health Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Each interview was transcribed verbatim and analyzed with field notes using grounded theory methods of emerging line-by-line coding to first develop and apply a resulting codebook to all text using NVivo 8, a qualitative data analysis software, to categorize, query, and examine the data. The transcripts were analyzed for emergent themes and supported by critical quotes.
Community-based participatory research, Key Informant Interviews (n=14) with a sample of governmental EH and EPR administrators and top-level managers from Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California
4 identified themes: Community Outreach – Yes, we do that!Barriers to Direct Community EngagementBest PracticesHigh Motivation for Community-Centered Outreach
The semistructured key informant guide created and used to guide the interviews was based on constructs of social cognitive theory, social cohesion, health belief model, social capital, and community resilience.
In the qualitative study, in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with top-level EH (n = 8) and EPR (n = 6) administrators and managers. Participants were selected by nonprobability purposive sampling methods.The key informant interviews were conducted by trained interviewers at EH or EPR administrative offices in June to August 2010. Prior to being interviewed, participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent approved by the Loma Linda University institutional review board. Each interviewer was accompanied by one or two note takers and the interview was audiotaped.
The goal is to explore the capacity of EH (environmental health) and EPR (emergency preparedness and response) programs to facilitate participatory relationships between themselves and with the community members they serve and to assess past levels of community emergency preparedness outreach
The EH and EPR administrators recognize many barriers to direct community engagement in general.EH professionals feel disconnected from preparedness planning and see themselves as too busy conducting feefor-service activities
The results indicate that key informants were highly confident in their workforces’ efficacy, ability, willingness, and motivation to directly engage local communities in Environmental Health Emergency Preparedness.
Confidentiality was protected by deidentifying transcripts, notes, and audio recordings. Each participant was assigned a code that was used as the sole identification of each participant. The files are stored in a locked file cabinet located in a locked room.
The interviews explored six main topics: existing community EHEP outreach and activitiesreadiness to engage communities in EHEP outreachbenefits, barriers, and risks to engaging communities in EHEP outreachperceived community emergency and disaster resiliencethe role of social capital and social cohesion in disaster preparedness and response personal emergency preparedness
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