Kentucky's Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement - Kentucky’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Program will utilize funding that aims to strengthen the capacity and capability of state and local public health systems to prepare for, respond to, and recover from public health threats and emergencies. Our goal is to enhance readiness to save lives and prevent morbidity and mortality during emergencies that exceed the day-to-day capacity of public health agencies. This funding opportunity provides a roadmap for PHEP recipients to design, develop, and implement strategies and activities that will improve their readiness to execute plans, respond to public health threats and emergencies, and recover from them. To do this, we use CDC’s Response Readiness Framework (RRF), which describes 10 program priorities. These program priorities, along with the Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Capabilities: National Standards for State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Public Health, provide the framework to support advancement of preparedness, response, and recovery operations. 1. Prioritize a risk-based approach to all-hazards planning that address evolving threats and supports medical countermeasure logistics; 2. Enhance partnerships (federal and nongovernmental organizations) to effectively support community preparedness efforts; 3. Expand local support to improve jurisdictional readiness to effectively manage public health emergencies; 4. Improve administrative and budget preparedness systems to ensure timely access to resources for supporting jurisdictional responses; 5. Build workforce capacity to meet jurisdictional surge management needs and support staff recruitment, retention, resilience, and mental health; 6. Modernize data collection and systems to improve situational awareness and information sharing with healthcare systems and other partners; 7. Strengthen risk communications activities to improve proficiency in disseminating critical public health information and warnings and address mis/disinformation; 8. Incorporate health equity practices to enhance preparedness and response support for communities experiencing differences in health status due to structural barriers; 9. Advance capacity and capability of public health laboratories to characterize emerging public health threats through testing and surveillance; 10. Prioritize community recovery efforts to support health department reconstitution and incorporate lessons learned from public health emergency responses. Throughout the 5-year performance period of July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2029, KDPH will coordinate with Kentucky’s local, state and federal agencies to maintain public health and healthcare systems preparedness. KDPH will utilize the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Logic Model and the CDC’s Response Readiness Framework (RRF), to prioritize strategies and activities to achieve expected outcomes and outputs. Through these efforts, Kentucky’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Program will maintain the capabilities to prepare for, respond to and recover from evolving threats or any all-hazards event that may occur.
