Welcome to the
Public Health Emergency Preparedness

Public emergencies such as natural disasters, communicable disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, hazardous material contaminations or bioterrorism each have serious impacts for our health. The Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response team’s mission is to prevent health problems where possible and when health impacts are unavoidable, to contain them and limit their damage.

If an emergency occurred that affected the health of our community, the Health District would be responsible for such things as:

• Working with Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management and other community partners to identify the vaccinations or medications necessary to protect the public

• Monitoring for possible contamination to our air or water supply

• Investigating communicable diseases in order to stop their spread and possibly issuing quarantine, school closure or other social distancing orders to keep as many people well as possible.

• Delivering health alerts and treatment guidelines to health care providers who may need to treat unexpectedly large numbers of sick or injured people or address less common kinds of injury or illness.

• Communicating alerts and instructions to the general public through local media, this website and our Health Information Line (877-256-4859).

On an ongoing basis, this team ensures that we will be ready to protect public health by:

• Developing strong partnerships and coordinated plans with the Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management, local law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical services (EMS), hospitals, volunteer organizations such as the American Red Cross, the public health agencies of all surrounding counties, Tribal organizations and our state and federal government partners.

• Participating in region-wide exercises to test whether the current emergency response plans are practical, coordinated and effective. The plans are tested using a variety of scenarios, critiqued after-the-fact, and strengthened by implementing recommended changes.

• Maintaining a region-wide emergency health communication system. This system ensures that the Health District is kept up-to-date on emergency health issues and can communication important information on these issues to medical providers and the general public

• Maintaining a communication system that gives every resident with a public health concern phone access to a Public Health leader-on-call within 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.