The Harvard Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center (H-PERLC) will strive to improve the nation's public health and medical preparedness and response capabilities for emergencies through the development and delivery of competency-based training and education that responds to the regional needs of state and local health authorities in the DHHS Region I (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine). H-PERLC will reside administratively in the Center for Public Health Preparedness, Division of Policy Translation and Leadership Development, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) where it will bring together a multi-disciplinary faculty team of experts in the core competency areas of risk communication and assessment;population-based interventions and the National Response Framework;leadership, law and policy;planning and improvement;surveillance and epidemiology;and worker health safety and resilience. The H-PERLC will use HSPH's comprehensive educational, instructional and technological infrastructure as the foundation to provide the highest quality competency-based continuing education, training and workforce development certificate programs. H-PERLC unites resources from the HSPH's Center for Public Health Preparedness, Center for Continuing Professional Education, Department of Instructional Technology, National Preparedness Leadership Initiative and its very strong academic departments. It will include faculty and experts from the Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital;Cambridge Health Alliance;Simmons College of Health Sciences (Nursing), and the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, In collaboration with national associations and regional chapters of NACCHO, NALBOH and ASTHO the learning center will target public health practice professionals within the state, county, district and local health departments in New England's diverse and generally decentralized local public health infrastructure. Based on a systematic assessment of the needs of these partners, and in collaboration with CDC, other university-affiliated PERLCs, and national public health organizations, H-PERLC will develop and deliver a multifaceted continuing professional education program that supports the mastery and performance of the public health preparedness and response core competencies and involves multiple instructional modalities, including on-campus courses, on-site training sessions, and distance learning. Using an experiential learning model, the H-PERLC will build upon the extensive experience of the currently CDC-funded, HSPH Center for Public Health Preparedness and HSPH Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (H-PERRC). Educational activities will be organized in three major domains: a) core competency based training for the public health workforce;b) partner-requested education and training activities that accommodate the independent needs and diversity among the partner states and local authorities;and c) program core and network activities. H-PERLC will also coordinate the award of continuing professional education credits applicable to medicine, nursing, environmental health and public health. It will disseminate training products and materials nationally to states, localities, territories and tribal public health authorities, and other partners and stakeholders. Program and education evaluation will use data to set target values and measures of inputs, outputs and outcomes performance to determine gaps in training, gauge effectiveness, and initiate revision and changes. H-PERLC will collaborate with members of the PERLC national network to validate and develop national standards and guidelines for the core competencies in practice and academic settings and with the PERRCs to apply their research findings to improve the quality of public health education.
