Community readiness for disaster and emergency management

Participants from three selected communities in the Eastern Region are the first to test and evaluate the effectiveness of the Community Readiness Checklist developed for global health emergency response by the W.H.O. They were taken through simulation exercises to identify the gaps in public health emergency response. The Tabletop Exercise was in partnership with the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team.

It is often said that public health emergencies begin and end with communities. This is because the communities are the first to detect, respond and contain such emergencies when they occur, before a national level response is elicited. The millions of lives lost to public health emergencies like Ebola and Covid- 19 could have been avoided if community members had been empowered to prevent, prepare and be ready to respond to health emergencies, regardless of the hazards. For this reason, the need to boost the capacities and resources of communities to detect, respond and contain health emergencies is critical.

The Tabletop Exercise, spearheaded by the W.H.O. Africa region, is in line with the UN agency’s proposed measures for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience to strengthen global efforts, with support from the UK Public Health Rapid Support team. Throughout the world, Ghana is the first country to test the check-list developed for emergency response.

With its focus on outbreak management, the UK Health Rapid Support team has expertise in the prevention, preparedness, detection and response to public health emergencies. Its work hinges on three pillars: deployment, research and capacity strengthening – along with partners; and it renders its services in poorly-resourced settings.

Even though Ghana has made notable progress in public health emergency control, gaps still remain in its surveillance systems, response planning and workforce adequacies and competences, response times and challenges with stockpiling. The Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe said the Tabletop Exercises are critical to mitigating the risk impacts of emergencies.

The Community Readiness Checklist is pivoted around the one-health approach, and when reviewed, it would be adopted by the W.H.O. as a guide to public health emergency response within communities.