by Marilyn Teolis, Medical Librarian Coordinator, Baptist Hospital, Nashville, TN

SOLINET Disaster Assistance provides comprehensive information on disaster response including referrals to recovery companies in your area, and specific disaster advice on how to handle your collection materials.

Kara McClurken from SOLINET Disaster Assistance said any member could get disaster assistance 24/7 by dialing their number (800) 999-8558. After hours, you will be directed to an answering service. Please tell the operator you need to speak with someone from Preservation Field Services. The answering service will contact Ms. McClurken or one of the other two people that work with her.

If you have a major disaster, SOLINET may be able to match you with people from their volunteers’ database. Some of the volunteers have previous experience with a disaster. However, this is no guarantee, as individuals may not be able to get off of work, etc.

The web site www.solinet.net/disaster has an emergency checklist, recovery resources, and additional disaster planning and prevention information. The web site contains forms where you can request help or volunteer to help others in the event of a disaster.

by Colette Hochstein, DMD, MLS, Division of Specialized Information Services, NLM

A new Web page that addresses emergency and disaster preparedness and special populations has been added to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Enviro-Health Links.

“Special Populations: Emergency and Disaster Preparedness” http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/outreach/specialpopulationsanddisasters.html provides links to selected Web sites featuring emergency preparedness for special populations. This includes people with disabilities, people with visual or hearing impairments, senior citizens, children, and women. Links to information in languages other than English are also provided.

NLM also offers other Enviro-Health Links on topics such as:

Arsenic: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/arsenicandhumanhealth.html
Biological Warfare: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/biologicalwarfare.html
Chemical Warfare: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/chemicalwarfare.html
Children’s Environmental Health: http://phpartners.org/cehir/sampler.html
Indoor Air Pollution: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/indoorairpollution.html
Lead: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/lead.html
Outdoor Air Pollution: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/outdoorairpollution.html
Pesticide Exposure: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/pesticides.html
NLM Enviro-Health Links: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/envirohealthlinks.html

A new, electronic newsletter focusing on emergency preparedness and response is now available for health educators. Produced biweekly by the Society for Public Health Education, “Emergency Preparedness and Response News U Can Use,” highlights the latest information on both natural and man-made disasters.
Whether you are working directly on an emergency response team or not, this newsletter will be relevant to all health educators, helping them to be ready to respond to their constituents in an emergency.

This FREE resource includes:

• Latest alerts and news items of interest,
• New resources on risk communication and emergency response,
• Calendar of upcoming training opportunities, events, and
• Job opportunities,
• Latest funding opportunities.

Topic areas highlighted include: Influenza, Bioterrorism, Natural Disasters, and more.

The e-newsletter is available to both SOPHE members and non-members alike at: http://www.apha.org/NR/rdonlyres/D922BD00-69C4-449E-BE11-1428F0840084/3603/SOPHEEmergencyHealthNews.pdf

If you are interested in being added to the newsletter list – or learn more about what SOPHE is doing related to emergency preparedness and response — contact Tanya Maslak, MPH, Director, Environmental Health Promotion, Society for Public Health Education at: tmaslak@sophe.org

FDA has developed an integrated strategy for protecting the nation’s food supply at:http://www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/advance/food/plan.html

FDA’s Integrated Plan Provides Three Elements of Protection:

PREVENT Foodborne Contamination

Promote Increased Corporate Responsibility to Prevent Foodborne Illnesses
Identify Food Vulnerabilities and Assess Risks
Expand the Understanding and Use of Effective Mitigation Measures

INTERVENE at Critical Points in the Food Supply Chain

Focus Inspections and Sampling Based on Risk
Enhance Risk-Based Surveillance
Improve the Detection of Food System “Signals” that Indicate Contamination

RESPOND Rapidly to Minimize Harm

Improve Immediate Response
Improve Risk Communications to the Public, Industry and Other Stakeholders

by Sandy Oelschlegel, Director, Preston Medical Library, University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine

We at Preston Medical Library had a taste of what it would be like if we had a disaster that resulted in loss of power. Of course, we did not have our “emergency preparedness plan” finished!

One morning our power was out upon our arrival at 8:30 am and remained out until around 12 pm; long enough to experience the discomfort of not being “connected”.

In random order, here are ten things we learned:

1. Wireless, battery powered laptops are great to have on hand, especially if they are charged.
2. Everyone on campus figures out that wireless might be available and suddenly the wireless system gets overloaded, resulting in slow or no signal.
3. IT departments shut down servers, even if they are on battery backups “to preserve the batteries”.
4. All our e journals are “run through” the proxy server, so we had no access to any of our e-journals through our open url linking software.
5. Off campus access was unavailable because the server was down.
6. Printers require electricity, at least those that we had. See link below to a battery operated printer we ordered thereafter.
7. Our faculty still expected us to continue to be able to provide information services, including lit searches and copies of articles.
8. There was no communication system in place for the administrators to communicate with us about what was happening.
9. We did not know each other’s home and cell phone numbers.
10. The ILL staff can work at home.

Here is a link to a battery-powered printer. We will let you know how it works after we test it. http://www.tiny.cc/C032K

The National Library of Medicine has released a new resource focused on the health effects from wildfires http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/californiafires.html. The California Wildfires web page includes information on the health effects from fires and exposure to smoke; links to air quality resources, environmental clean-up following fires, and animals in disasters.

In addition, resources for emergency responders and information in Spanish are also included. Searches of NLM databases, such as MedlinePlus, PubMed,TOXLINE, Tox Town, and Haz-Map (occupational health) are provided for additional health information. It also provides the locations of facilities reporting to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory and Superfund sites in and around San Diego (TOXMAP).

This web page is designed to help emergency responders, health care providers, public health workers, and the general public find authoritative and timely information about key health concerns from wildfires. Links to other federal government web sites, including USA.gov, FEMA, and the Department of Health and Human Services are included.

by Cynthia Kahn, MILS, MPH, AHIP, Reference and Instruction staff of the George Washington University’s Himmelfarb Library

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (Emeritus) addressed the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of the Medical Library Association (MLA) at the MAC/MLA 2007 Annual Meeting on October 10, 2007. Dr. Benjamin has been the Executive Director of the American Public Health Association (APHA) since December 2002. Prior to his position at the APHA, he was secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he played a key role developing Maryland’s bioterrorism plan. His talk “Building Community Resilience: Ensuring Emergency Preparedness” built upon his years of experience in bioterrorism planning and public health.

Did you know?

• Most people are unprepared for a public health crisis & they know it
• Many people believe they are more prepared than they actually are (i.e. having a 3-day supply of food, water & medication)
• The term ‘public health crisis’ does not resonate with people. Yet they are concerned about events that could lead to one.
• Vulnerable populations are especially at risk for emergencies

Dr. Benjamin’s noted that you have to know what to be prepared for. While it seems like common sense, it is easier to say than to do. Public health leaders imagine what can go wrong, they try to anticipate events. How you train people, even highly trained, skilled workers, such as those in public health, for events that are unanticipated is the real question. Another way to think of it is that a disaster does not have to be disastrous.

“In a disaster, a resilient community should be able to mitigate the risks to individuals, families, and the community as a whole from preventable, serious health threats.”

There are five capacities of a resilient community, or needed to build a resilient community. They are planning, education, family/individual preparedness, public health response, and recovery. Planning, Benjamin related, is a process, not a point in time. He illustrated this point by showing that planning, i.e. writing a planning document, is fine, but typically no one knows what it says, or worse, what their role is. Therefore, community participation, drills and media engagement are essential.

Individuals and families have a responsibility. At present, only half have a three day supply of food, water & medication. Some aspects of individual and family involvement include having health insurance, learning how to get care and keeping medical records and immunizations up to date. Another facet is creating a family plan or a family emergency communication plan.

In addition to individual and family preparation, it is essential to build a resilient community. The community takes many forms from the individuals and family to businesses, schools and healthcare. Community response would include first responders, a core public health response, managing social disruption and continuing human services. For example, trash and sanitation are important. If the disaster was the flu, yet trash pick-up was disrupted, the community might develop plague in addition to the flu.

To address this issue, APHA is creating a national health movement to prepare individuals from preventable, serious health threats, called “Get Ready”. The first campaign is to ‘get ready’ for the flu. To learn more, take a look at the website http://www.getreadyforflu.org/newsite.htm and the blog http://www.getreadyforflu.blogspot.com/

NOVAD’s website lists America organizations, faith-based and otherwise, which provide disaster relief and many support services. Membership includes Lutheran Disaster Response, United Way, Adventist Community Services, the American Red Cross, County Emergency Management Agencies, FEMA, Pharmacy Associations, Associations of Food Banks, Humane Associations, and the Salvation Army, to name just a few.

You can find contact information and links to the web pages for each organization at the NOVAD site. Check your state’s listings to see whether there’s a group you can contact as a resource, or perhaps you would like to volunteer to help out in your area.

There are also valuable resources listed from their “Member Tools” link and their “Links” directory. You may wish to contact some of their members to link to them from your local preparedness page.

SoliNET is offering a variety of classes on disaster planning and preservation techniques over the next couple of months. For those of you not in SoliNET, you may pay a somewhat higher non-member registration fee.

10/19/07 Developing a Disaster Plan (Live Online) http://www.solinet.net/workshops/ws_details.cfm?doc_id=3004&WKSHPID=12DDP

11/01/07 Risk Management: Knowing Your Responsibilities (Self-Paced)
http://www.solinet.net/workshops/ws_details.cfm?mode=preview&doc_id=4587&WKSHPID=12RMK

11/29/07 Care and Handling of Library Materials (Live Online)
http://www.solinet.net/workshops/ws_details.cfm?mode=preview&doc_id=4060&WKSHPID=12CHM

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/podcast/transcript072307.html

It’s the dreaded season when hurricanes form in the Gulf of Mexico (and the Atlantic Ocean) and smash the U.S. coastline and surrounding states with driving winds, water and occasional floods. Hurricane Katrina taught millions of Americans (the hard way) never to be complacent and always be prepared for natural disasters.

So, let’s talk about some emergency preparedness information and resources — so when time is short, you will be ready.

To listen to Dr. Lindberg’s comments, click here.