Public Health Preparedness and Response Lesson Plans
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Public preparedness and emergency response relies on planning to assist in assessing an emergency situation, communicating with key health personnel, establishing objectives and an action plan, organizing personnel and resources, and responding to assistance requests (Source: CDC’s Emergency Response Guide [PDF – 65 pages]).
These lesson plans explore public health as a multidimensional system for solving complex problems and providing health security.
Learning objectives:
- Develop and use a model illustrating the organization of systems (e.g., scientific, social, economic, environmental, cultural, political) and patterns of performance, such as how ongoing changes in one system may have variable effects on individual and societal health-related decisions, to improve health and prevent disease under emergency conditions
- Design, evaluate, and refine preparedness and action plan based on scientific knowledge, health promotion and communication strategies, prioritized criteria, and trade-off considerations
- Evaluate the effectiveness of competing preparedness and action plan strategies based on response efforts to re-engineer or improve strategies and policies
Lesson Plans
Cholera
High School Lesson Plans – Cholera
Masters of Disaster [PDF – 35 pages]
Students learn how to coordinate a basic response to a public health disaster by exploring of the cholera outbreak in Haiti after an earthquake. Students use patterns in public health surveillance data to characterize a public health emergency. Then, students tailor strategies inconsideration of social, economic, ethical, environmental, cultural, and political needs to develop an action plan.
Unaccompanied Minors
High School Lesson Plans – Unaccompanied Minors
Students will learn about a public health response to a manmade public health problem and its implications. By law, unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. borders are retained in U.S. custody while immigration processing occurs. Students will identify the services the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (e.g., medical checks, vaccination, and shelter) provides to unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. borders. By identifying the needs of this population, students will discover the various professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses, biologists, epidemiologists, social workers, financial officers, border security personnel, engineers, law enforcement personnel, international agency staff, lawmakers, lawyers) needed for an effective public health response.
Ethics
High school lesson plan topics – Ethics
RAGE Outbreak: Making Grueling Public Health Decisions [PDF – 41 pages]
This lesson plan is based on a fictional outbreak scenario. It is designed to address choices made by different stakeholders in the context of public health ethics. The introductory Four Corners questions activity and presentation provides students with the background knowledge necessary to successfully complete the jigsaw activity. The activity has students examine and analyze scientific literature to develop a statement on the basis of their stakeholder’s viewpoint. During this process, students develop research skills, debate strategies, and practice their public speaking skills. By evaluating different stakeholder’s statements, each student will complete a summative writing assessment that outlines a strategy for vaccination, in response to the outbreak.
Meningitis
High School Lesson Plans – Meningitis
What’s in the Syringe? A Fungal Meningitis Outbreak Investigation [PDF – 48 pages]
Students will investigate a multistate fungal meningitis outbreak and explore some of the roles of a public health outbreak response team. A jigsaw activity is used to help students organize findings of the investigation, according to essential elements of information (EEI). The jigsaw technique is a teaching method in which groups work on small problems that the class collates into a final outcome. EEI is situational information about people, systems, and services that is critical for an effective outbreak response. Students use findings to create a case definition. Then, students develop a communication tool to alert and inform the public about the outbreak. This lesson is intended for high school students in grades 9–12.
- Page last reviewed: May 25, 2017
- Page last updated: May 25, 2017
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