The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) surveyed local health departments (LHDs) nationwide twice between September 2010 and January 2011 to measure the impact of the economic recession on LHD budgets, staff, and programs. Those surveys, the fourth and fifth of a series, show that LHDs have experienced deep job losses and cuts to core funding that erode or eliminate essential public health services.
Included in this document are three separate and distinct reports that are intended to provide insight into the coordinated use of California fairgrounds during a catastrophic event. With a rich history of support of firefighters and animal & human evacuations on a localized or regional level, the fairgrounds of California are well versed in assisting response agencies and providing the resources required to meet such challenges.
The limitations of current public safety communications systems became tragically apparent on 9/11 and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In those critical moments, law enforcement, firefighters, and other public safety officers could not talk to one another, putting the lives and mission of on-scene responders at risk. To facilitate the development and deployment of a nationwide high speed wireless network for public safety, the President's Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative will enable public safety agencies to transition away from the traditional fragmented world of public safety communications to a next-generation system.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed 15 capabilities to serve as national public health preparedness standards to assist state and local public health departments in their strategic planning. One of the nation's key preparedness challenges has been determining appropriate state and local public health preparedness priorities. CDC's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning now provides a guide that state and local jurisdictions can use to better organize their work, plan their priorities, and decide which capabilities they have the resources to build and/or sustain.
To assist the nation's public safety community and government officials in meeting the narrowband mandate, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) has released a "best practices & recommendations" guide for overcoming the most common challenges agencies may experience when transitioning to narrowband.
This directive is aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of the United States through systematic preparation for the threats that pose the greatest risk to the security of the nation, including acts of terrorism, cyber attacks, pandemics, and catastrophic natural disasters. National preparedness is the shared responsibility of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and individual citizens.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has released the Emergency Responder Field Operations Guide (ER FOG), which was drafted to assist emergency response personnel in the use of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) Incident Command System during incident operations.
The principal challenges of securing the U.S.-Canadian border involve the coordination of multiple partners. The results of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) efforts to integrate border security among its components and across federal, state, local, tribal, and Canadian partners are unclear. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was tasked to address the extent to which DHS has improved current conditions while also reporting on past conditions and the progress made in securing the northern border.
Positive train control (PTC) is a communications-based train control system designed to prevent some serious train accidents. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) completed this report, which discusses railroads' progress in developing PTC and the remaining steps needed to implement it, the benefits of and challenges in implementing other safety technologies, and the extent of the Federal Railroad Administration's efforts to fulfill the PTC mandate and encourage the implementation of other technologies.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), in partnership with the Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC), has released this guide to help chief executives navigate the complicated world of vetting and personnel management in the social media age. The purpose of this document is to present policies and practices to consider when using the Internet to search for information on law enforcement applicants, candidates, and incumbents, and when developing social media policies to limit inappropriate online behaviors.
