NCDMPH Launches Free Online Disaster Health Core Curriculum

Courses are designed to empower health professionals who may play a role in disasters

By Elaine Myada

Uniformed Services University’s (USU) National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (NCDMPH) recently launched a free online Disaster Health Core Curriculum intended for a wide range of health care professionals. The Disaster Health Core Curriculum consists of eleven, 30-minute to one-hour training lessons covering a variety of disaster health topics such as personal or family preparedness, communication, ethical and legal issues encountered in disasters, and much more.

“We are proud to launch the Disaster Health Core Curriculum for health professionals,” said Dr. Thomas Kirsch, director of NCDMPH. “This is an important training resource to help prepare health professionals to understand the issues surrounding a disaster.”

These free courses were designed for health professionals who could play a role in a disaster. The foundation of the Disaster Health Core Curriculum is the Core Competencies for Disaster Medicine and Public Health. This curriculum is flexible and designed to be taken in pieces or as a whole.

‘In creating these courses, we wanted to provide busy healthcare professionals with short courses that provide key information,” said Kelly Gulley. “We understand the need for continuing education, but also the limited time that they have available to devote to these activities.”

Co-authors for the courses include Ed Hsu, MD, MPH; Daniel Barnett, MD, MPH; Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, FACP; and Lainie Rutkow, JD.

“I’m grateful to have been involved in the development of the Core Curriculum,” said Dr. Daniel Barnett, MPH, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “As a doctor, I understand the importance of training and preparation to respond to disasters and being able to share this knowledge with other health professionals is very rewarding.”

For healthcare professionals looking to continue their medical education, continuing medical education (CME) and continuing nursing education (CNE) credit are pending and will be added at a future date.

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