HHS invests in strategies to predict, prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies, disasters, and threats. HHS leverages opportunities to improve collaboration and coordination, to build capacity and foster readiness for effective emergency and disaster response. HHS advances comprehensive planning for mitigation and response. HHS also applies knowledge gained from the effective and efficient use and application of technology, data, and research to improve preparedness and health and human services outcomes during emergencies and disasters. Below is a selection of strategies HHS is implementing.
In the context of HHS, this Strategic Plan adopts the definition of underserved populations listed in Executive Order 13985: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government to refer to “populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life”; this definition includes individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality. Individuals may belong to more than one underserved community and face intersecting barriers.
Contributing OpDivs and StaffDivs
ACF, ACL, ASPR, ATSDR, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS, NIH, OASH, OGA, and ONC work to achieve this objective.
Strategies
Leverage opportunities for improved collaboration and coordination to strengthen capacity for effective emergency and disaster readiness, response, and recovery
- Expand and build HHS support and assistance to state, tribal, local, and territorial partners, and communities to strengthen the capacity and resilience of public health departments and laboratory operations and facilities to meet needs and demand during response and recovery efforts.
- Strengthen the coordination between domestic and international stakeholders and modernization of programs, policies, guidance, and funding mechanisms to support robust emergency and disaster response planning, infrastructure, and capabilities, including disaster human services capabilities.
- Foster collaboration between key partners and stakeholders at the federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial levels, including partner organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, private sector organizations, and global partners like the World Health Organization to increase awareness of opportunities to develop integrated guidance and plans as well as fill gaps in service and critical functions necessary to better anticipate, identify, and promptly respond to threats, emergencies, and disasters.
- Address health disparities and promote trust, and community resilience, especially for underserved communities disproportionately affected by emergencies, by improving engagement and collaboration across federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial stakeholders and community organizations, and with relevant international partners, ensuring response efforts are informed by health and human services equity principles.
- Focus resources on developing the capacity of the HHS emergency response workforce through effective training and technical assistance to improve the Department’s readiness to meet the needs and demand of the communities they support during emergency response and recovery efforts.
Plan for mitigation and response, including the communication and dissemination of information, the development and availability of medical countermeasures, and the use of regulatory flexibilities
- Advance the development and availability of safe effective medical countermeasures to support preparedness and response efforts, and maximize their effective use by providing comprehensive and accessible guidance and public health communications to critical partners, including distribution and response networks, academic partners, hospital systems, clinical organizations, and the public.
- Build a diverse, agile U.S. public health supply chain while sustaining long-term domestic manufacturing capability for medical countermeasures and medical products to reduce and prevent shortages and ensure continuous supply during times of need.
- Ensure that HHS is prepared to make effective use of available waiver options and systems in place to expand and maximize flexibilities when a public health emergency is declared, ensuring response efforts can scale to readily support communities.
- Facilitate communication and coordination with public and private partners to leverage existing flexibilities and make new flexibilities available for the benefit of response efforts during a public health emergencies and disasters.
- Leverage and expand partnerships with state, tribal, local, and territorial partners and community-based, faith-based, and non-profit organizations as well as international partners to generate and disseminate risk communication and outreach materials that are evidence-based and culturally appropriate to improve awareness, knowledge, and uptake of mitigation measures during emergencies and disasters.
- Disseminate consistent and plain language communications to ensure affected individuals and communities, including those living or working in high-risk areas, are notified in a timely, culturally-tailored manner to minimize risk and ensure their safety.
- Ensure the resilience of the public health industrial base (PHIB) supply chain with improvements in the robustness, visibility and agility of the supply chain in coordination with interagency and private sector partners; wherein robustness includes broadening domestic manufacturing capacity and diversification of sources, visibility includes increased transparency and mapping of PHIB supply chains, and agility is an improved flexibility and responsiveness of actors in the system.
Apply lessons learned from the use and application of technology, data, and research to improve preparedness and health and human services outcomes during emergencies and disasters
- Enhance research, analytic, and learning capabilities through more efficient, accurate, and trusted collection, application, and integration of data from new and existing data streams across a series of disciplines, including demographic, environmental, genetic or genomic, biomedical, economic, geospatial, and ecological data, to better understand health impacts of emergencies and disasters.
- Improve coordination and collaboration efforts with federal, state, tribal, local, territorial, and international partners to enhance integrated surveillance and monitoring capacity to ensure equity in emergency response planning, coordination, and delivery and sustaining global health security.
- Invest in modernizing information technology infrastructure to foster data sharing and interoperability across systems in coordination with partners to ensure data insights are representative, actionable, and readily available to decisionmakers and researchers before, during, and after an emergency or disaster to inform preparedness, response, and forecasting.
- Leverage data collection, monitoring, and reporting systems, including critical demographic data, to improve the production, availability, and equitable supply of necessary countermeasures and medical equipment, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), when they are needed during emergencies and disasters.
- Provide training, education, and technical assistance to foster a multidisciplinary cadre of culturally-competent public health and research professionals to conduct studies to better understand the human health impacts, including mental health, of public health emergencies and disasters, especially among especially among groups that are disproportionately affected.
- Support innovative research and development for medical countermeasures, including clinical trials, and data integration capabilities to better prepare for and support safe and healthy outcomes during emergencies and disasters.
