When communicable disease outbreaks occur, state and local public health, the public health laboratory and the broader medical community are called upon to prevent and control the spread of the disease. Such rapid and intensive response may strain local and state public health resources. The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) is forming partnerships to provide a volunteer Epidemiology Response Team (EpiRT) that can be mobilized on short notice to respond to disease emergencies.
Health professionals who have training and experience in public health, such as prevention specialists, nurses, physicians, community health professionals or epidemiologists should consider volunteering to become a part of the EpiRT. Other desirable skills include interviewing, data management, or data analysis.
Typical activities include the following:
All team members are expected to become trained in emergency response as well as case investigation and outbreak response.
New team members will be asked to complete Basic Epidemiology and Basic Incident Command online from the Learning Management System. In addition, all team members will be required to attend a basic orientation. At a minimum, the basic training will include:
To maintain competency, members will be required to attend ongoing trainings.
You may call The Center for Acute Disease Epidemiology (CADE) at (515) 242-5935 or 1-800-362-2736 or Contact Us.
