Amongst the tasks we have set for ourselves is a deliverable way of teaching and explaining why you, the reader, should take pandemic planning seriously. As some of the social marketers advising and evaluating HHS' blog effort have put it, we need to address "Why me?" "Why now?" "What can I do to make a difference?" This new and original manual, Influenza Pandemic Preparation and Response - A Citizen's Guide version 1.2a, addresses all three questions (now easier printing!)
A wonderful tool for this task, it has been developed by a team led by Peter Carpenter, located primarily in California. This manual can be used for CERT traing or for general information. A message from Peter follows:
When an international team of experts ( Pandefense 1.0) met in California in the Spring of 2006 to explore the implications of an Avian Flu Pandemic one of the glaring needs that was identified was making sure that individual citizens had better information so that they could be prepared for such an event. The myriad Federal, State and local pandemic plans all focus on what those units of government need to do but none of those plans addresses the critical question of what individual citizens can and should do in anticipation of a possible pandemic which will far exceed the capacity of government and the health care system. That need has now been translated into a Citizens Guide created by a small group of concerned and well informed San Francisco Peninsula citizens which is being posted today on Flu Wiki.
The Foreword, written by one of the world's leading experts on this subject, Dr. David Heymann from the World Health Organization, does an excellent job of explaining why individual citizen preparation for such an event is so important.
You are encouraged to share this with others, post it where more and more people can see it, to encourage your company or organization to print copies for all of its employees or members, to send it to your local elected officials and newspapers, to translate it into other languages and to adopt it to other cultures. And we welcome your corrections and proposed additions to this version ? which will be an ever changing and improving document.
Peter Carpenter
Mid-Peninsula (San Francisco Bay area) Citizen?s Preparedness Committee
We are grateful for the opportunity to host this important document, and equally grateful for the team that has put it together.
We will be creating a wiki page for it, and suggested revisions can be posted there or here. Please download it, host it as described by Peter, and use it to spread the word about pandemic preparedness. This is a serious piece of work, and kudos to the team that put it together.
crossposted at Flu Wiki Forum