Emergency And Disaster Preparedness Education For The Latino Community

In the article “For Houston’s Homeless, a Terrifying Night Under Siege by Hurricane Harvey” by Julie Turkewitz, the main focus is the harsh reality of a hurricane this string for those who are homeless in Houston. First, Turkewitz sets the harsh reality by telling the readers about Roy Joe Cox- a homeless man in Houston- who is preparing to cope for the Hurricane with what little he has. She then builds her claim by writing about what the effects of Hurricane Harvey are, and what officials are expecting to happen. Next, Turkewitz suggests that any homeless person who is in Houston at this time should seek shelter at the available locations. Finally, she brings the harsh and sad reality for the homeless men and women in Houston by quoting Roy Joe Cox as he asks, “I’ve never experienced a hurricane. Is it going to rain out that bad? Is it going to flood me out? I mean, I don’t want to die over a hurricane . . . I’d rather not die.” (Turkewitz, 2017).

As a community health nurse, I would be most interested in a focus group to assist elderly residents in developing emergency and disaster preparedness plans. I choose this population because elderly citizens face great health and safety risks when emergencies and disasters strike (Clark et al., 2003). It is important for health care practitioners to understand the needs of the elderly in the communities they serve (Barratt, 2007). There may be a need to quickly evacuate the local area and elderly residents may lack proper transportation. Some seniors may become confined to their homes in a disaster. Others may not know what to do if they lose services such as water, heat, electricity and basic communication. Proper advance planning can mean the difference between survival and suffering or death.

Question One: What populations are vulnerable and what resources are available for vulnerable citizens? The vulnerable populations in Houston are the low income communities (including homeless people), the elderly, people with disabilities, immigrants, and the "linguistically isolated communities…Chinese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese speaking groups" (Nepal, et al, 2009). The St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities prepared a report on disaster preparedness for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services (Peranteau, et al, 2009). The report explains that vulnerable populations tend to be more impacted by hurricanes and other disasters than the middle class and upper middle class communities in Houston. The report state that "…Failure to address the needs of low income communities and individuals, who are disproportionately affected by natural disasters," hampers the recovery from a hurricane for all communities. "Low income communities" (i.e., vulnerable communities) are "disproportionately affected by natural disasters, and are disadvantaged again when the recovery process does not take their unique needs into account" (Peranteau, p. 3). The point of the research was to determine how best to serve this population during hurricanes and tropical storms, which are very common in Houston.

Located in the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Eastern Indiana, Scott County has suffered from decades of generational poverty with its associated problems like drug abuse. As of 2016, the population of the county was estimated to be 23,730, with about 97.9% of the residents being whites. The county ranks last among Indiana’s 92 counties on several fronts. It has the lowest life expectancy, 9% of the population is unemployed, 19% live below the poverty line, and 21% have not finished high school (Conrad et al, 2015). With such low economic and health indicators, it is not difficult for one to predict that Scott County was sitting on a time bomb for something bad to happen.

Listos was started in the fall of 2010 with generous support from the Orfalea Foundation and the Aware and Prepare Initiative: A Community Partnership to strengthen Emergency & Disaster Readiness in Santa Barbara, California (Listos, 2014). They aim to eliminate the language barrier that interferes with the relationships between first responders and the Latino community. In addition, the Listos curriculum is low to no cost and provides tips for the participants to use during disaster and throughout their everyday lives. The program is a four week discussion series taken from the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). The topics covered in these discussions are identifying vulnerabilities, fire extinguisher use, important document backup, disaster supply kits, utility shut off, creating reunification and communication plans, triage, disaster medicine, team organization, and disaster psychology (Listos, 2014). Moreover, the program can be adapted to teach diverse vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, children, differently abled people, etc. Listos has trained over 588 monolingual Spanish speakers in Santa Barbara County (Listos, 2014). In 2014, the Listos Program was led in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San

I would like to find out more about what makes Latinos different from other people of color. I am interested in whether or not the statistic for Latinos and African Americans being affected by the heat wave was found to be significant or not and if a heat wave today would have the same effect on minority populations. It was also interesting to me that neighborhoods with more churches helped to protect their elderly population from the heat wave. I would like to read more research about how the different organization levels of the churches relate to how the heatwave impacted their respective communities. I would like to learn more about the different neighborhoods today and how a heatwave would affect the different ethnic communities in a different manner. Our communities today are going through a lot of segregation and gentrification, so it would be intriguing to learn more about how that process would affect a hypothetical disaster such as this

Being prepared for a hurricane is not just the responsibility of first responders like firefighters, law enforcement, and EMS. An entire community from one individual or a family all the way up to state and federal government personnel need to work together and do their part and everybody has their own role to play. It is very important for communities to have strong collaborative planning teams. These teams are made up of governmental, nongovernmental, private, and public organizations and agencies that need to be integrated and share information and also trained together during the planning phase to increase the successfulness of the response to a disaster. Having educated and informed citizens is key for a prepared community, for example they can create evacuation and family reunification plans, compile disaster kits, and engage in trainings and neighborhood preparedness activities so that during an emergency they are able to help themselves, their families, neighbors, and friends. Another way to lessening the effects of a hurricane is to implement mitigation

Art is method of expressing a person creativity. Depending on the level of creativity and uniqueness makes the art valuable. The purpose of Chicago Art fair was to rejoice in the remembrance Christopher Columbus discovery of America, at that time 400 years ago. From modern time, 12 and half decades ago, Chicago was epic center of art. Millions of people came from all over the world just to be in attendance. Therefore, the fair needed additional time for preparation to accommodate those millions of people. Every major artist in America came to showcase their talent and unveil their exhibits. Each state had a monument of art that represented their state. In 1893, the culture was different, a lot of events was acceptable that should have not

To my concern, this topic is extremely sensitive as the Hispanic group is the largest growing ethnic group inside the U.S. In addition, a number of challenges contribute to the epidemic in Latino communities, including poverty,

Specifically, the grant seeks research expertise that concentrates on Hispanic’s access to health care by understanding potential disparities of the cultural barriers that may hinder access to preventative health services. As a grantee, the grantee could use the funding for the implementation of intervention studies that focus on education designed for the Hispanic community. An example may include developing an educational program to increase awareness, improve understanding of health prevention services, and share strategies for accessing the health care system. The education programs will initially occur by targeting urban housing areas with a high census of Hispanic population and then identify what venues such as recreation and resource centers are appropriate for various campaign efforts. During the outreach events, resources such as Spanish literature and interpreters are available that promote prevention health services and state and federal resources to enroll in healthcare

The disaster which hit the Maricopa County in the State of Arizona in September 2014 was a major disaster that necessitated the community preparedness for leading successful response and a prompt recovery. Besides emergency managers, many officials and the private are involved in the processes. Some of these stakeholders are public health, public safety, and municipal officials. Collaboration is needed for getting all those involved in the processes to interact accordingly. This paper addresses the major collaboration strengths between emergency responders, public health, public safety, and municipal officials to deliver accurate response and recovery during the event, the main weaknesses of the collaboration among all those that were involved in the efforts, and recommendations for improving the collaboration between the stakeholders.

Some activities that I have been involved are the Community-Based Learning Courses. In my first semester, I had taken a FRO 100 The Latino Experience in the US and for the CBL session I had to go to the Futuro Latino Learning Center on the weekends. There I would help people who were not fluent in English to improve their language skills. Most of the people were Spanish speakers and we build relationships and some came from different countries like Guatemala and El Salvador. It gave me a better understanding of other people’s cultures and perspectives. I was like a tutor/helper to these people, which made me feel good about myself. Lastly this activity it gave me a better understanding on how to explain more clearly instructions or the material

By understanding the steps to prepare for countering and responding to a terrorist, the well-being of US national security interests can be promoted and the exposure to risk and susceptibility to experiencing harm can be efficiently managed for communities, families and individuals in the event of a terrorist incident. The welfare of US national security, citizens and property can be effectively safeguarded through the understanding of protection strategies administered collectively by local communities, families and individuals. Local emergency operations planning, family disaster planning, as well as self-protection planning each represent important protective measures, which serve to educate the nation and its citizens how to

Tragic events that cause damage to property and life may destroy the social, cultural and economic life of a community. Communities must be engaged in the various phases from prevention to recovery to build disaster resilient communities. In order to do this, there must be a disaster preparedness plan in place that involves multiple people in various roles.

Katz, R. (2018). Essentials of public health preparedness and emergency management (1st ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning