Focus Group One-Page Factsheet

Attachment L – Focus Group One-Page Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet

Who: The Institute for Public Research at CNA and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) are conducting a series of focus groups through a project in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These focus groups will gather input on training, exercises and related professional development best practices and gaps among public health practitioners who have served—or may serve—as public health emergency response leaders.

For the purpose of the focus groups, public health emergency response leaders and leadership are defined as follows:

• Public health emergency response leader: an official working at a public health department or agency with designated oversight duties and responsibilities to direct, manage, and/or supervise activities in response to a public health emergency or emergencies

• Leadership: specific competencies, skills, attributes, qualities, and actions pertaining to making decisions or directing, managing, or influencing others in the interest of achieving tactical or strategic goals

How and What: The purpose of the focus groups is to obtain input on successful public health emergency response leadership training, exercises and related professional development practices, as well as barriers in accessing professional development opportunities. The information gathered will be important to understand ideas on optimal opportunities and those that exist today across state and local health departments. In addition, the information resulting from the discussions will complement a web-based assessment examining the organizational perspectives of public health emergency response leadership development and readiness. In contrast to the web-based assessment through which information is collected through structured questions and pre-defined response choices, the focus groups provide a platform for organic, dynamic, and interactive discussions such that key themes identified through the focus groups contain additional context. The information collected will help CDC ascertain how to better support public health emergency response leadership training in your jurisdiction.

Where and When: You can register for the appropriate focus group session (i.e., state/territorial or local) by completing the Enrollment and Waiver Form (URL to electronic form). After completing this form, you will receive an email that confirms your chosen date, time, and instructions for joining a particular focus group session. Additionally, two business days before the focus group discussion, you will receive a reminder email.

All focus group discussions will be held during two days (March 27 – 28, 2019) of the 2019 NACCHO Preparedness Summit (March 26 – 29, 2019, St. Louis, MO).

Audio recordings, transcripts, and notes derived from focus groups will be stored on a password-protected system; findings will be reported in aggregate to ensure confidentiality.

Why: The CDC is NOT interested in evaluating state and local public health emergency response training programs or the performance of public health practitioners. Through the focus groups, the CDC seeks to gain different perspectives on accepted best practices and the training needs among state and local public health practitioners. Following the focus group discussions, the CDC aims to share the results and potential adaptable recommendations among state and local health departments to address organization-specific training and/or exercise gaps.

The CDC will not have access to any individually identifiable information collected by CNA/JHU as the project’s contractor team.

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