Missouri
- State Population: 6,126,452
- Local Health Departments: 114
- Frequent Public Health Emergencies: Tornadoes, Flooding, Fires
- Key Emergency Operations Center Activations: 2020: COVID-19 Pandemic; 2019: Winter Weather, Flooding; 2018: Kansas City Foodborne Illness, February: Malden Tornado
- CDC PHEP Funding:
FY 2020: $10,691,802
FY 2019: $10,987,397
FY 2018: $10,703,511
- Epidemiologists: 8
- Laboratorians: 7
- Health Professionals: 3
- Other*: 8
*Includes IT specialists, administrative staff, statisticians, and other positions
- Public Health Laboratory Testing
- Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiologic Investigation
- Emergency Operations Coordination
- Community Preparedness
- Medical Materiel Management and Distribution
In Missouri, the PHEP program developed the Missouri Mortuary Operations Response Team (MOMORT), a disaster fatality response team for incidents involving fatalities. After a boat with 31 people on a recreational lake capsized in July 2018 killing 17 passengers, three MOMORT members responded with supplies to provide to the local coroner’s office for use and helped identify and process the fatalities. Behavioral health teams—also supported through PHEP— counseled survivors, victims’ families, and members of the public who witnessed the incident immediately following the incident and for weeks following.
Local health departments in Missouri use PHEP funds to establish dedicated medication dispensing sites within each jurisdiction and train partners on how to provide life-saving medication to employees, family members, and customers during a public health emergency. There are 916 dispensing sites in Missouri as of October, 2017. In a statewide emergency, this dispensing operation could reduce the burden on local health departments by as much as 25%, while helping ensure that people have fast access to lifesaving medicine.
