National Health Security Public-Private Partnership Series
Partnerships among public health professionals and agencies and private entities like non-profits, businesses, or community organizations, are not only a key strategy in advancing national health security, they are also a way to increase the visibility and viability of public health projects, reducing development risk, mobilizing underused resources, and increasing overall cost effectiveness in the process.
Severe weather has the potential to cause significant loss of life, burden health systems, and increase health care costs, and the United States is experiencing an increasing number of natural disasters caused by severe weather – from floods to hurricanes. World-wide, severe weather such as droughts and floods, can lead over time to malnutrition and to the spread of respiratory and vector-borne illnesses.
To improve their resilience to the impacts of severe weather and other disasters, 80 communities in the United States are tapping into a two-year pilot program called Resilience AmeriCorps, a public-private partnership in itself.
Resilience AmeriCorps relies on AmeriCorps VISTA members. These volunteers don’t usually provide direct services, such as teaching, but instead focus on building the organizational, administrative, and financial capacity of organizations that combat illiteracy, improve health services, or foster economic development in low-income communities. An AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer could help develop programs to meet a specific community need, write grants, or recruit and train volunteers in low-income communities.
For this pilot project, Resilience AmeriCorps volunteers are helping communities develop resilience strategies to “better manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.” These strategies address specific health security challenges the community faces.
In Pittsburgh for example, AmeriCorps volunteers are developing communications materials, content, tools and resources that support the city’s resilience initiatives. The materials they are developing will help the city track resilience indicators and keep stakeholders informed.
In El Paso, Texas, AmeriCorps members are working with community groups, neighborhood organizations, businesses, and residents to train leaders, create emergency response processes and toolkits, and establish information distribution protocols and programs for engaging residents.
AmeriCorps VISTA members are working with the Chief Resilience Officer in Norfolk, Virginia, to expand asset mapping for vulnerable populations, and are implementing recommendations from the Mayor’s Poverty Commission to improve health security for low-income residents.
The Resilience AmeriCorps pilot program partners include the Rockefeller Foundation, Cities of Service, Catholic Charities USA, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This post is the second part of our series on public health partnerships. To learn more, check out The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in National Health Security.
For more information on national health security, visit www.PHE.gov/NHSS.
(Source: The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), nationalservice.gov)
