Public Health

CRA’s Health Preparedness Group is staffed by qualified public health and emergency medical professionals with experience in planning, managing, and evaluating response efforts for public health and medical emergencies. The group works with health departments and healthcare facilities to provide a variety of consulting and exercise services for disaster preparedness and response.

CRA’s clients include State and local health departments, emergency medical response organizations, medical providers, and associated healthcare facilities. We assist these clients in achieving their Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) critical benchmarks and priority areas for homeland security preparedness.

Our services focus on enhancing all-hazards preparedness and response capabilities, developing and implementing mass treatment strategies (e.g., Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI), Pandemic Flu Plans, and Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), educating and training personnel for a bioterrorism response, and establishing mutual-aid agreements for prompt and effective medical response. Our specialized health-centric exercises and drills are designed to evaluate medical surge capacity and program management capabilities for disaster-related crises. Our Health Preparedness Group also has unique expertise in preparing for and responding to mass casualty events and medical emergencies associated with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons.

CRA has been involved with the following biodefense and public health projects:

• UTAH: Statewide Public Health Exercise Response
• West Virginia Pan Flu
• United States Marine Corps Pandemic Exercise
• Pandemic Flu Exercises in New Hampshire.
• Development of the Los Angeles County Department of Health SNS and CRI Plans, and associated tabletop exercises (TTXs) and full-scale exercises (FSEs).
• Completion of an SNS deployment and distribution FSE for the State of Hawaii Department of Health.
• Development of multidisciplinary exercises per HRSA grant requirements for the University of West Virginia and area health practitioners.
• Design and exercise of a State public health emergency operations center using the principles of the Incident Command System.
• Development of the CDC public health assessment tool.
• Completion of public health TTXs and FSEs addressing laboratory surge capacity, response, and SNS activation for the New York City Fire Department, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the National Capital Region (involving more than 40 agencies).