Public Health Emergencies

This textbook provides a unique case study approach to public health emergencies through the combined perspective of both the 2020 10 Essential Public Health Services and the 2021 Master of Public Health Foundational Competencies. For the ease of the reader to approach learning about the roles that they may be called upon to play in addressing public health emergencies, this book is logically arranged into three parts. In the first part, “Fundamentals of Public Health Emergency Preparedness”, the reader gains an overall perspective of public health emergencies. The second part, “Lessons Learned from Actual Incidents”, is the “heart” of the book in the sense that it provides case studies that clearly demonstrate the application of the Essential Public Health Services using Foundational Competencies through activities undertaken by public health workers at different levels; namely, frontline staff, program managers and supervisors, and executive directors and leaders. By the articulation of specific activities to address disasters using the competencies needed to prepare and respond to actual public health emergencies in the case studies, the reader can gain knowledge and insights and then incorporate the lessons learned into their own learning. In the future, when they are working in public health settings and confronted with public health disasters, readers will be able to better respond knowing the vocabulary, incident command structure, and approaches best suited to the public health emergency. The third part of the book, “Special Considerations”, provides the reader with some of the cross-cutting issues confronting public health workers in disaster settings. Public health law, for example, serves as the basis for public health action and supports public health officers in issuing health officer orders for quarantine, isolation, travel restrictions, curtailment or limitation of business and restaurant operations, and vaccination prioritization all of which have been used in the COVID-19 pandemic.