University creates disaster preparedness website and outreach for diverse and minority communities | 06.11.2008 | 10:28:35 | Views: 7728 | ID: June 11 '08: A new website for minority community disaster preparedness and outreach has launched. The National Resource Center on Advancing Emergency Preparedness for Culturally Diverse Communities' DiversityPreparedness.org is the product of a partnership between Drexel University's School of Public Health's Center for Health Equality and the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. In a press release Dennis Andrulis, the director for Drexel's Center for Health Equality said, "If you strengthen the precontext of a community before a disaster you make sure the effects are less severe after the storm." "By identifying minority communities and getting to know their needs and challenges, creating partnerships with community reps and public health officials," the press release said, "utilizing community reps to disseminate emergency messages and having drills," officials working in the partnership hope to engage and build resilient and sustainable preparedness solutions for the first 72 hours. The partnership between the federal agency and Drexel also worked on a report looking at minority populations' preparedness and the ways in which those communities can become more involved in their larger regional, state and national preparedness programs. The new website will serve as a clearing house "that also allows users to post successful strategies," and best practices which "help reduce dispartiy rates for emergency preparedness." Officials have said that now it will be up to the communities to put the information available to use. "The proof will be in our actions," Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association said in the press release. "Whether we are true to our words and do right by minority communities, recognizing that all individuals, no just some, are entitled to basic safety and protection when the unimaginable strikes." National Blueprint Tags: Communications & Public Information, Citizen & Community.
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