Monday, April 28, 2025
4/28/2025
Public Health Emergency Preparedness - The approach for this proposed project is to sustain and expand the public health workforce, improve organizational and systems capacity and capability to address and support public health priorities and strengthen public health systems. This approach will be integrated into capabilities, allowing American Samoa to address and absorb the continued impact of an incident or disaster on the economy and community. Culturally, partnerships will and can drive the work plan. Synergy is an essential piece of emergency management that requires constant maintenance. Maintenance includes redundant communications, integrated emergency planning, workforce sustainability, multi-agency collaboration, transparency of plans, information sharing, resource sharing, etc. The islands are unique and particular groups of individuals with a built-in cultural mechanism that allows them to be resilient during hardships. The people of American Samoa have learned that the best approach is to hone in on that and align emergency response efforts with it. We will promote partnerships and collaboration among our cultural leaders, communities, government, and federal counterparts. It’s essential to recognize that federal guidelines will be respected and adhered to but to apply them to what fits the islands. To build partnerships, the focus will continue supporting healthcare coalition activities, integrating volunteerism into community activities, participating in emergency management advisory groups, and collaborating with local partners in emergency management training. Including Special Needs, Vulnerable, and At-Risk populations in preparedness plans is critical to response efforts because, realistically, they are the most impacted during any incident, whether natural, man-made or a public health outbreak. American Samoa community has high numbers of individuals who suffer from non-communicable diseases, more specifically, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, high blood pressure, etc. Their health limitations, medical dependencies, and restrictive status give them precarious characteristics. Expanding the public health workforce to accommodate and serve these populations is critical in any emergency, disaster, or public health outbreak. This funding will help address the lack of public health support staff in logistics, administration, and data collection/monitoring to sustain the pandemic. Includes medical staff such as nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals for specialty care. One of the challenges identified during past response operations is the ability to have an effective and efficient Resource Management system (receive, organize, distribute, store, and account for emergency resources). The lack of staff (and trained staff) and resources makes it difficult to sustain operational responsibilities. For the American Samoa Department of Health to advance public health goals, it needs to engage in learning opportunities to build capacity, improve performance, and enhance the quality of working environments. Strengthening the public health infrastructure and performance relies on strong and consistent funding levels to respond to everyday health needs, sustain hard-fought health gains, and prepare for unexpected health emergencies. Recent emergency incidents, disasters, and outbreaks have emphasized the importance of information sharing, public warning, and messaging. The prevention of the spread of infectious diseases depends on the community’s adherence to medical advisories and following precautionary measures. Past responses revealed a lack of data collection, storage, and sharing support. The Disease Surveillance Division needs assistance in proper data maintenance to provide information for decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacts this area of healthcare. As the operations continued to progress and manifest rapidly, the disease surveillance and epidemiological investigations struggled with sustainability
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).