USA Health CHC To Lead Disaster Resilience Initiative

The USA Health Center for Healthy Communities (CHC) is helping lead a new effort to strengthen disaster preparedness, resilience and health outcomes across Mobile County, thanks to a grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program. The program has awarded more than $1.43 million through its Adaptive Capacities for Transformation Initiative to 15 Gulf Coast projects across Mobile, New Orleans and Houston. Among them, the Mobile County Disaster Health and Resilience Taskforce received a $99,949 planning grant. Led by Dr. Ashley Williams Hogue at the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities, the taskforce is intended to bring together healthcare, public health, emergency management and community partners to develop a countywide disaster health preparedness plan. In addition to convening the group, CHC will also lead data collection and analysis. The Gulf Research Program, created in 2013 after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, funds community-based projects aimed at improving resilience and health across the Gulf Coast.