Archive for August, 2009

Mapping H1N1

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

We seem to be on a roll here, with open-source publishing and web 2.0 technologies being co-opted by “authoritative” sources. This latest case connects Healthmap.org, with the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Working together, they have developed an interactive map charting H1N1 cases and deaths as reported by the media. Although they have stopped tracking reports from “official” sources such as the CDC and WHO, hovering over any incident shows the media link, even when the report is not in English, so you can check the authority of the report yourself.

One of the most interesting features is the ability to track the progression of the virus, on a date range and map level that you specify. There is also a listing of the most current H1N1 news.

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PLoS Influenza page

Monday, August 24th, 2009

It’s a conundrum of modern publishing – how to achieve the high standards of “peer-review” in a timely manner. This is a particularly important issue when it comes to public health topics.

Take H1N1, for instance. What is the best way to quickly disseminate authoritative information about the disease? PLoS (Public Library of Science), a leader in open-access, peer-reviewed publishing, to the rescue!

“PLoS Currents: Influenza, which we are launching today, is built on three key components: a small expert research community that PLoS is working with to run the website; Google Knol with new features that allow content to be gathered together in collections after being vetted by expert moderators; and a new, independent database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) called Rapid Research Notes, where research targeted for rapid communication, such as the content in PLoS Currents: Influenza will be freely and permanently accessible. To ensure that researchers are properly credited for their work, PLoS Currents content will also be given a unique identifier by the NCBI so that it is citable.”

While the postings are not subject to the same rigorous peer-review process as formally published scientific journals use, “inappropriate” submissions are being screened out by two experts in the fields of microbiology and infectious disease. While many of the articles listed are focused specifically on the biology of the virus, other topics can be found here as well, such as “Swine origin influenza A (H1N1) virus and ICU capacity in the US: Are we prepared?” and “Reducing influenza spreading over the airline network“, which uses different models to determine the most effective method for containing the spread of disease through air travel.

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Frontloading

Friday, August 14th, 2009

I’m away next week, so I won’t be blogging, but this week has been a banner one for interesting items.

The National Library of Medicine maintains a collection of more than 30 environmental health websites under the auspices of the Environmental Health and Toxicology SIS (Specialized Information Services). Topics covered range from the specific (Health effects from the collapse of the World Trade Center) to the general (Tornadoes).  The links contained within each page vary, but most begin with a set of ‘Overview’ links, all from US Government sites, and then may go on to include links to glossaries, data and research sites, and law and policy. Almost all include links to specialized research from the National Library of Medicine’s databases, such as Pubmed, Toxline, Hazardous Substances Data Bank, ChemID Plus, Household Products Database, Tox Town and Medline Plus.

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VA Hurricane Guide Published

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

This just in, courtesy of the VDEM:

hurricane-preparedness-banner1

New hurricane guides available
“The Hampton Roads Emergency Management Committee and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and VDEM have redesigned the Virginia Hurricane Guide. As part of the Ready Virginia public information campaign, the guide contains essential hurricane season information, such as evacuation routes, traffic reversal plans along Interstate 64, bridge/tunnel/ferry closure plans in the Hampton Roads area and family preparedness.

New sections of the guide explain staying in place versus evacuation, the importance of storm surge, and how public shelters are designed to help evacuees. The revised evacuation route section clarifies that I-64 is only one of many evacuation routes, and the guide gives detailed instruction about how to make a family emergency plan, get an emergency supply kit and stay informed during emergencies.

For the 2009 hurricane season, 250,000 copies of the guide were printed; most will be distributed by state and local agencies, private businesses and nonprofit organizations. Any organization interested in distributing the guides should contact the VDEM Public Affairs Office at (866) 782-3470. An interactive, Web-based version is also available at www.ReadyVirginia.gov. A federal homeland security grant paid for the printing costs.”

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ESM Job Market

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Here’s a bright spot in the increasingly depressing ‘jobs and payroll‘ numbers, from CNN and CareerBuilder.com:

“Seven Emerging Job Poised for Growth”

5. Emergency management

Since the September11 terrorist attacks, jobs in the anti-terrorism field have grown. The required skills for positions in the anti-terrorism field are demanding, but a more attainable (yet still in-demand) career option is in emergency planning.

Not only do emergency planners prepare and plan for terrorist attacks, they also train and prepare for responses and procedures for other disasters such as fires, floods, hostage situations or pandemics.

Industry umbrella: Management, business and financial operations
Job growth: 7 – 13 percent
Salary: $48,386

(Strangely enough, no library jobs make the list – is Google Books to blame?)

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Two Worlds Collided*

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Two of my ‘worlds’, that is: libraries and emergency management. Louisville Free Public Library has sustained terrible damage in a sudden flood, and this Library Journal article does a nice job of highlighting how, even with emergency plans in place, unexpected things can happen. The good news is that the management did an excellent job of keeping people safe, even at the cost of losing the bookmobiles (and the director’s car).

Here’s my favorite quote from the story:

“To what extent did you have a disaster plan to follow?

We would never have anticipated this disaster. This particular water occurrence was unprecedented. My belief, and it’s probably going to catch me a lot of flak in library circles: you have really good people assigned to high level of responsibility, coordinate well, and that you buy insurance.

You have a phone tree, right?

Yes, but any kind of disaster planning we would’ve had would’ve told us what to do with different materials and the vehicles as water was rising and, in reality, what we had was 15 minutes to save everybody’s life. That doesn’t give you time to reflect on and refer to your disaster plan. We’re not in hurricane territory, we’re not in tornado territory, and this site has not been under water since 1937. The thing I’d do going forward is to make sure evacuation is up to date, for human safety, and it was and it is. getting people out was Job Number 1.”

Basically, his “lessons learned”: Hire good people. Thankfully, it seems they have good insurance coverage; they are “confident” they will be back in the space by the end of the year. New computers are already en route!

Flickr has a good set of images here.

(*Sorry – I couldn’t resist the INXS reference opportunity – I also was/am a huge Proclaimers and Runrig fan. I went to high school in Scotland, what can I say?)

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Virginia Dept. of Emergency Management Radiological Exercise

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

I’ll just put it out there – I’m a huge fan of nuclear power, and Dominion (our local power company) runs two reactor sites in our region, which generate 30% of their power output. This announcement came through a VA Dept of Emergency Management press release, and I thought it was a great example of public/private partnership in a readiness exercise:

Surry Radiological Emergency Preparedness Exercise Set for Aug. 4

RICHMOND, VA – Response personnel from state and local government and Dominion will demonstrate their ability to protect the public’s health and safety in a full-scale exercise Aug. 4 for the utility’s Surry Power Station. The exercise will involve localities within 10 miles of the power station.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management will lead the Virginia Operations Plan Exercise, or VOPEX, a simulated radiological emergency, to help state and local governments test their response procedures in the unlikely event of a radiological emergency. These annual exercises rotate between the Surry and North Anna nuclear power stations.

Response agencies and local government representatives will role-play their emergency operations functions from the state and local government emergency operations centers. Participating localities include the counties of Charles City, Isle of Wight, James City, New Kent, Surry and York and the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson and Williamsburg.

Law enforcement personnel will practice traffic control measures in the field. Local and state radiological monitoring teams will take simulated field readings and communicate via radio.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will monitor the progress of the drill and conduct an in-depth analysis of the results, detailing areas needing improvement. FEMA will review the success of the exercise at a public meeting on Aug. 7 at 11 a.m. at the Omni Hotel in Newport News.

In addition, information about emergency plans at Surry and North Anna are available online. (You can also take a cute little animated tour here - anything to get the word out!)

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Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

While we’re on the topic of open-source public health items, this special supplement to the AMA’s journal “Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness” (June 2009, Vol. 3) is freely available online. Article topics range from public policy (“National Strategy for Health Care System Preparedness”) to  Business Continuity (“Importance of Business Continuity in Health Care”) to NIMS (“Review of Hospital Preparedness Incidents to National Incident Management System Compliance”).

If you are interested in this topic and are a member of the University of Richmond community, you might want to check out our other Disaster Medicine journals, including the International Journal of Disaster Medicine, the Internet Journal of Rescue and Disaster Medicine, and Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. As always, let me know if you have any troubles viewing the links, or want to do a more refined search for a topic in this area.

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