Utah Department of Health and Human Services - Hantavirus Response - The goal of the Utah Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program is to assure a well-coordinated, equipped, trained, and tiered system of response to public health emergencies and disasters in Utah. The Utah PHEP is designed to address all PHEP capabilities by working in partnership with the Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Utah Public Health Laboratory (UPHL), DHHS Office of Communicable Disease, Utah’s Local Health Departments (LHDs), Utah’s Tribal Nations, and with other states, Region 8, and Federal partners. Thirteen LHDs serve as hosting sites for PHEP subawardee Emergency Response Coordination (ERC) teams. ERC’s bring together multiple partners within LHD geographic areas to conduct assessment, preparedness planning, response coordination, development of regional equipment caching, and training and exercise activity. Utah consists of dense urban areas separated by great distances of sparsely populated rural and frontier communities. The Counties of Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah, collectively known as the Wasatch Front, include 9 of the 10 most populous cities in the state, and make up 75% of the total state population (in 4% of the state land area). In total, the State of Utah has 3,551,150 residents. This Crisis NOFO will improve response by the Utah DHHS, Utah’s LHDs, and Tribal Nations in Utah. Successful award of an Approved but Unfunded (ABU) project will enhance the state’s ability to rapidly mobilize, surge, and respond to an identified public health emergency. Although supplemental and emergency appropriations have proven valuable to our response capacity and capability, rapid access to funding will allow us to scale responses in sync with needs, rather than leveraging award funding after the peak of event cycles. In addition, a dedicated funding source for response would eliminate many of the challenges and questions that arise when mobilizing staff and assets. The Crisis NOFO planning assumptions provide an appropriate vehicle to develop a standardized response format and timeline. DHHS and its partners have developed strengths in incident management and incident command system through prior infectious disease outbreaks, as well as other response elements. We feel that leveraging best practices established during past events add strength to our application, and our confidence to respond in the future.
