Exercises - PH 461: What Is Public Health Preparedness?

In addition to a variety of learning activities, there are 3 instructor-evaluated activities associated with PH 461: (1) complete the individual exercise; (2) participate in a multi-learner conferencing exercise; and (3) complete and submit the assessment quiz. Each of these is explained below.


Learning Activities (Note: these ARE NOT to be submitted!)

A series of individual learning exercises for this module are provided below. Completing these exercises will familiarize you with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that relate to the competency expectation for this module that is described above. Note that learners are not required to submit written response for these learning exercises. Completing these exercises, however, will prepare you for components of this module that are assessed and scored.

  1. Read Chapter 8, Public Health: What It Is and How It Works, 3rd Edition or review the content of the following online sources:
  2. What are the different health impacts of natural disasters; in which time period do they occur; and how could they be mitigated through appropriate preparedness?
  3. What constitutes vulnerability in populations who live in disaster prone areas? Give a concrete example from a disaster that has drawn media attention in recent years (several media web sites are provided in the Course Resources catalog).
  4. What contributions can public health make to the field of emergency and disaster preparedness?
  5. Choose a public health discipline or occupational group (either your own or one that you are somewhat familiar with) and describe the range of tasks which that group of public health practitioners may be asked to perform in disaster preparedness and response. Why is public health participation important?
  6. Review the archived webcast, Disasters, People and Public Health and then identify specific elements of the public health infrastructure that contribute to emergency preparedness and response. (Note: we will use the Building Infrastructure to Protect the Public's Health webcast if becomes available again.)
  7. Examine each of the web sites listed below and become familiar with their components that relate to public health preparedness and response. Which ones did you find to be the most useful for providing information and insights related to the central topic of this part of the course? Why? Are there other web sites you would suggest adding to this list?

Evaluated Activities (Note: these ARE to be submitted!)

(1) Individual Exercise

Each learner will submit a brief response to the following exercise. Produce your response on a separate document to be uploaded at the "Submit Assignments" link. Please use "PH 461 Individual Exercises" as the title of your submission.

Review the Bioterrorism and Emergency Readiness Competencies for All Public Health Workers, with a special emphasis on the nine Core Emergency Preparedness Competencies for All Pubic Health Workers. Then complete the online course Basic Emergency Preparedness for Public Health Workers. After completing the online portion of this brief training course, briefly (no more than 300 words) identify one or more emergency preparedness competencies that feel need to be enhanced and how you plan to go about enhancing those competencies.

(2) Conferencing Exercise

Add your contributions to this multi-learner conferencing exercise. Produce your response on a separate document to be uploaded at the "Submit Assignments" link. Please use "PH 461 Conferencing Exercises" as the title of your submission.

Review the the case study, A Haze over Hickernoodle City: Biodefense Readiness in a Community. Then, briefly identify evidence from this case study that indicates the local disaster plan needs to be revised. What improvements are most needed? Submit a brief (100-200 words) response to this question after reviewing the responses of other learners. Your submission should include arguments, evidence and rationale to support your input.

(3) Assessment Quiz

Follow the LearningSpace link to the Assessment Quiz. You may be asked for your login ID and password to access the quiz through your Preparedness Center Personal Page. Complete the quiz and submit your responses. You make take the quiz several times.

Course Evaluation: All learners are asked to electronically complete a Course Evaluation Questionnaire; this is available to you as an electronic form and will be transmitted to a data base without your identity being known, and your instructor will have no way to link your identity to your comments. Before participating in these course evaluation activities, students should review the specific learning objectives established for this course (and others you may have taken as part of this series); these are available in the Syllabus. Evaluation of the course should focus on the extent to which these objectives were achieved.


PH 461 Exercises last revised July 06, 2006 (csong)