Discussion Guide Components

Description of components

The Discussion Guide for Public Health Decision-making in a Nuclear/Radiological Response follows a facilitated process to help answer questions related to the role of public health agencies.

There are six major components to building your discussion-based activity or activities using this guide:

1. Complete checklist to determine role of a public health agency in a nuclear/radiological response
2. Define your activity scope
3. Choose your discussion scenario
4. Identify your discussion partners
5. Choose your discussion category(ies) and prompts
6. Put it all together

You can mix and match components to create activities that best suit your jurisdiction's time, needs, and available resources to discuss public health agencies' role.

Checklist

Use this checklist to help determine potential areas of coordination, support, or management responsibilities for public health agencies in your jurisdiction. At a minimum, the lead public health agency for the discussion-based activity should complete the checklist.

The checklist provides a framework for public health agencies to assess current capabilities, rethink assumptions, and dig a little deeper to determine roles and responsibilities. Ultimately, the checklist will help narrow roles, expectations, and response actions for public health agencies and other partner agencies. It will also help inform areas of focus for discussion-based activities.

Considerations when completing the checklist

• If you choose to create a planning team, involve them in completing the checklist.
• Do not disregard checklist areas based on specific answers. If you select "No" to developing health messages, consider why this is not part of your agency's responsibilities. Double check any assumptions by considering scenarios where this could be necessary.
• Consider getting partner input (e.g., emergency management, radiation control, healthcare coalition) and refine checklist answers to be more inclusive of partner perspectives.
• Use the checklist as a starting point for more in-depth discussion.

Define your scope

Consider whether you will focus discussions within your public health agency, toward partner agencies, or include both. For example, you may choose to focus on one activity within the capacity and limitations of your local public health department, healthcare coalition, or state health department. You may also choose to conduct a second activity with an expanded scope to include partner agencies.

As stated in the Considerations section, the usefulness of the information gathered depends on the partners involved in the discussion and how you structure your activity. For a more robust discussion, invite decision makers or key personnel from partner agencies (e.g., emergency management, radiation control) with a role in supporting decision-making.

Choose your discussion scenario

This discussion guide provides five scenarios from which to choose:

1. Small-scale Transportation Incident
2. Nuclear Power Plant Incident
3. Nuclear/Radiological Emergency
4. Healthcare Facility Incident
5. Overexposed Patients Incident

Table 1. Types of radiation emergencies

Please see CDC's Radiation Emergencies: Infographics website for descriptions of these types of emergencies in infographic format. Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) Accident Reports website provides examples of real-life nuclear/radiological incidents that the jurisdiction can adapt into a usable scenario.

Identify your discussion partners

There are a wide range of potential partner agencies that may be called upon during response to a nuclear/radiological emergency. A list of potential partners is provided in the table below. Please note that not all these partners need to be represented in every discussion-based activity.

For each activity, choose only those that are pertinent to the nuclear/radiological scenario and activity scope you have chosen. Additional partner agencies may be needed depending on the specifics for your jurisdiction and scenario.

Choose your discussion category

Select the areas of involvement and discussion prompts that best fit your discussion needs and activity objectives. Consider your planning priorities, findings from your checklist, and discussions with your planning team and other partners. We encourage planners to customize the prompts based on their jurisdiction's needs and the goal of the planned discussion.

Discussion categories

The discussion categories align with CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Capabilities^[2].

1. Community Preparedness
2. Community Recovery
3. Emergency Operations Coordination
4. Emergency Public Information and Warning
5. Fatality Management
6. Information Sharing
7. Mass Care
8. Medical Countermeasures Dispensing and Administration
9. Medical Materiel Management and Distribution
10. Medical Surge
11. Non-pharmaceutical Interventions
12. Public Health Laboratory Testing
13. Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation
14. Responder Health and Safety
15. Volunteer Management

Prompts

Discussion prompts can be focused on one specific category or sub-topic, or they can be mixed and matched based on your priorities.

^[2] Implementing Public Health Preparedness Capabilities

Put it all together

Customize a discussion-based activity based on the five components below. The activity will look different for each jurisdiction.

1. Complete checklist to determine role of a public health agency in a nuclear/radiological response
2. Define your activity scope
3. Choose your discussion scenario
4. Identify your discussion partners
5. Choose your discussion category and prompts

The activity combinations available to create compelling discussions are endless. Below are just a few examples of the types of activities you could put together using this discussion guide.