Wednesday, March 12, 2025
3/12/2025
The Colorado Public Health Preparedness Program is developed and implemented by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response (OEPR). The office clearly has the capability to grow the PHEP throughout Colorado with the Public Health Operations and Response Branch leading the effort, supported through collaboration with the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) and the Strategic Planning, Training and Exercise Branch. The purpose of the PHEP is to strengthen state, local and tribal public health preparedness and response capability through a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, evaluating and taking corrective action. OEPR will accomplish this through continued funding for, guidance to, training and exercising of 54 local public health agencies and two tribal nations within the 64 counties in Colorado. Colorado is unique within the United States with a rapidly growing population, Colorado faces the challenges of geographic variety, temperature extremes and travel distances which make public health response challenging. Hazards and vulnerabilities affecting the public health system range from highly destructive floods and wildfires to active shooter events, infectious diseases, as well as vulnerabilities to the power and water infrastructure. In the FY 19-24 Project Period OEPR will intentionally improve state and local public health’s abilities, through targeted activities and strategies in all six PHEP Domains. This will be accomplished by directing resources to address capability areas identified as “build” in the Capability Planning Guide (CPG) and Colorado Public Health Response Capacity Assessment (CO-PHRCA) data. OEPR will strengthen planning, HVA and resource assessing and the integration of data to guide system development. OEPR will implement a systemic and standardized process for information sharing and situational awareness dissemination. OEPR will build public health surge management capacity by increasing efforts in fatality management and engaging public health partners to more actively support health care needs and will further work to integrate planning for at-risk individuals in our communities. OEPR will actively improve training and exercises for LPHAs. And OEPR will sustain what has come before, including volunteer management, behavioral health response capacity, CICOMaps and robust medical countermeasure distribution and dispensing. We will focus on operational readiness strategies to align with CDC’s risk-based planning approach to build cross-cutting preparedness, response and recovery components of an infectious disease outbreak. OEPR’s program evaluation, strategic planning and training and exercise programs are all designed to drive further capability maturation. Colorado will utilize the $9,279,295 plus its 10% match in the following ways. For program administration, contract implementation and monitoring, resource development, system assessment, training and exercise development, and evaluation, OEPR will utilize 15% plus indirect. OEPR distributes 81% of the total PHEP funding to its 54 local public health agencies, which includes 39 “Regional” Staff (including 13 epidemiologists). OEPR provides 5.8% funding to the State Laboratory Services Division and 1.7% to the State Disease Control and Environmental Epidemiology Division. OEPR distributes 94% of CRI funds to LPHAs in the CRI MSA. OPER will utilize 1.6% of the PHEP funding for CO HELP, a “live” public health expert call center resource for the general public during public health events/incidents; and finally OEPR utilizes 0.4% of the funds for centrally procured EMSystems to support information sharing and the ESAR-VHP compliant Colorado Volunteer Mobilizer for uniform, efficient volunteer management and integration into medical surge response.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).