Nevada Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Program - The Nevada Public Health Preparedness Program (PHP) is organized within the Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH), Health, Protection, and Planning Bureau. The DPBH serves as the health authority for the 7 rural counties that are not covered under one of the state’s four health authorities and continues to provide some public health services in 8 of the remaining 10 counties in the state. Nevada PHP is the recipient of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Cooperative Agreement funding and supports, collaborates, and subawards with all four local health authorities (LHA), the division’s Community Health Services, the Nevada State Public Health Lab (NSPHL), and the Division of Emergency Management and the Nevada Tribal Emergency Coordination Committee to ensure the preparedness and operational readiness of Nevada to mitigate, respond, and recover from disasters and public health emergencies. The Nevada PHEP program and project in collaboration with many preparedness partners and stakeholders, including the subrecipients mentioned above, has successfully built, and continued to improve all 15 PHEP capabilities throughout the state’s urban, rural, tribal, and frontier areas. Nevada will continue to improve and sustain current capabilities as well as build new capabilities to significant capacity levels as identified in strategic planning meetings, exercises, and real-world events after action reviews and improvement plans. Areas of focus will include but not be limited to recovery, behavioral health, health equity, data modernization, infodemiology, and improving fiscal administrative processes before, during, and after a public health emergency. Through this project period Nevada will have improved and sustained current capabilities, built upon new capabilities especially in the identified focus areas, and maintained a significant ability to mitigate, respond, and recover from all likely hazards facing Nevadans. This will be evidenced by updated and current Threat and Hazard Identification Risk Assessment (THIRA) reports, ready and deployable resources and assets particularly in Nevada’s isolated and disparate jurisdictions and communities, and completion of data modernization projects allowing for accurate, real-time information-sharing and situational awareness resulting in early detection, protection, and expedient recovery across hazards and throughout Nevada regardless of geographic location and inherent barriers thereof.
