The Fall installment of season 4 of Public Health+ was focused on preparedness. Regardless of sector or topic, there are many threats and complications that have been foreseen by experts, but adequately preparing for them is challenging. From changing needs in the classroom to rapid vaccine manufacturing capabilities against novel outbreaks or ethical considerations with the advancement of AI and genetic engineering, the issue of preparing for the uncertain future while managing the present affects us all. Gaining a greater understanding of how front liners across different fields think about and approach this problem was the goal of this season.
Speakers
Gail Nolan
Michaela Bonnett, MPH
Sean Martin McDonald
Katie Kirsch
Michael Roy
Robert Bednarczyk, PhD
PANEL discussion
This panel was facilitated by Michaela Bonnett, MPH and featured Sean Martin McDonald, Michael Roy, Katie Kirsch, and Robert A. Bednarczyk, PhD. The group discussed their various careers from social justice work in schools, HPV research, entrepreneurship, to digital governance (and beyond). They shared their thoughts on how preparedness touches each of those topics and were able to share learnings.
WORKSHOP
The workshop was a small, hands-on 90-minute workshop on exploring different ways to approach preparedness when it comes to different sectors and issues. We worked through different examples and used new tools to think about preparedness.
We were lucky enough to get to start the session by speaking to Gail Nolan about her work in disaster preparedness in Wisconsin and now Puerto Rico. She shared her experiences and recommended a handbook her team made in Wisconsin that can help any community as it thinks about preparedness and disasters.
ACTION
A simple tool was developed for the breakout rooms in the workshop. Please feel free to download it and use it to help frame applying preparedness in your approach to real or hypothetical scenarios.
Written by Sophie Becker, Design Innovation Strategist, and Michaela Bonnett, Innovation Strategist
