Projects

HHS Region 1 Center for Public Health Preparedness and Response

The EPREP Program was awarded funding to support the HHS Region 1 (New England) Center for Public Health Preparedness and Response by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Readiness and Response (ORR), Division of Readiness and Response Science (DRRS). This project focuses on advancing the uptake of evidence-based strategies enhancing the region’s ability to prepare for and respond to public health threats covering six states and a population of 15 million people.

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IRIS Academic Research Group

The EPREP Program at Harvard Chan School is a co-founder of the IRIS Coalition, a collaborative network of faculty from seven universities, including the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Cambridge, Sapienza University of Rome, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the City University of London, and Kings College London, working together to understand infodemics and promote healthy information ecosystems.

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Evidence Synthesis in Preparedness

The EPREP Program has vast experience in developing literature reviews in emergency preparedness. Such reviews have been used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to support the creation of the Guidance on Communicating Risk in Public Health Emergencies in 2018 and by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) in 2020 to facilitate discussion regarding the development of a research agenda in public health emergency preparedness and response.

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Regional Disaster Health Response System (RDHRS)

The EPREP Program is collaborating with Regions 1, 7, and 8 in the Regional Disaster Health Response System (RDHRS) demonstration project. The RDHRS exists to develop innovative mechanisms that link experts in health care disaster response with other key health care, governmental, and community partners and stakeholders to improve coordination of planning and response activities and support optimal patient care during disasters.

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Community Safety & Security Evaluation Lab (CSSE-Lab)

Any act of violence is an assault on the health of the public regardless of the reasons and ways the violence is perpetrated. Violence is of public health concern, and disciplines such as social science, law, epidemiology, behavioral science and risk-communication, commonly used to tackle public health problems, can successfully contribute to addressing violence and improve community safety and security.

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Local Knowledge in Preparedness

The EPREP Program has gathered data from community leaders across the United States and Puerto Rico to develop methods to utilize their local knowledge to improve emergency preparedness capabilities. Local knowledge is a community’s system of concepts, values, attitudes and beliefs generated by community members over time. Local knowledge is rarely formally recorded or recognized by outsiders, and consequently may not be familiar to public health or emergency management planners. However, leveraging…

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

The EPREP Program has conducted research to assess health care workers’ access to personal protective equipment (PPE), understanding of PPE use, strategies to cope with shortages, and risk perception of contracting COVID-19 in the work setting.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239024

COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance

The EPREP Program collaborated with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Center for University Excellence at American University to understand essential workers’ opinions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine. Opinions on vaccine safety, need for the vaccination, risk perceptions and distribution were the focus of this study._{CONTINUE READING>}