Cooperative partnership and conference give NEHA's counterterrorism efforts a national profile. (NEHA News).

NEHA is collaborating on bioterrorism preparedness with the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NAC-CHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

This cooperative partnership will combine NEHA's Bioterrorism Preparedness Workshop and a new Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR) Workshop, which will focus on the role of public-health agencies in Incident Command Systems (ICS).

The Bioterrorism Preparedness Workshop covers the range of terrorism response topics:

* chemical, biological, and nuclear agents and devices (an overview);

* risks, threats, and vulnerabilities;

* identification, detection, and surveillance; and

* mitigation, preparedness, and recovery planning.

ICS training will provide an important framework for the collaboration of all agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. Participants will discuss the principles of the ICS, and they will learn how local and state public health fit into the ICS approach, as used by practitioners of public health and nontraditional health partners, including law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency-management agencies. A tabletop-style will illustrate key concepts discussed during the session.

This cooperative partnership will enhance NEHA's image and role in national counterterrorism training and mark NEHA's Counterterrorism Preparedness Training Program as a key player in collaborative partnerships and sponsorships with highly visible federal and nationally recognized public-health agencies and associations.

Our goal in the partnership is to improve the quality of overall career core training and education, as well as to develop needed learning opportunities and competencies among the public-health and environmental health leaders, administrators, technicians, clinicians, and clerical staff who will be emergency responders in any terrorist event.

Future national cooperative training partnerships and sponsorships are being planned for a training conference in Denver, Colorado, in the second quarter of 2003. In addition, the ICS training will be added as a new pre-conference or conference track at the Annual Educational Conference in Reno, Nevada, in June 2003.

For more information about the upcoming conferences, please contact Rich Richardson, NEHA's counterterrorism coordinator, at [phone], extension 337, or <[e-mail]>.