Public Health is for Everyone An inclusive planning toolkit for public health professionals

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Health and Disability program offers technical assistance to local health departments to improve their capacity to develop emergency preparedness plans that are inclusive of people with disabilities. The program provides health departments with practical strategies and recommendations for successfully including people with disabilities in emergency planning and response efforts.

Based on NACCHO’s experience in providing this technical assistance to health departments, NACCHO developed five key recommendations that health departments should consider when planning to accommodate and address the needs of people with disabilities in emergencies or disasters.

Federal law requires covered entities—like COVID-19 testing centers and other medical facilities—to ensure their staff communicate effectively with people with disabilities. There are many types of disabilities—some visible, some invisible—and each individual person has their own unique needs and preferences. The best thing to do is ask a person how you can support them during the testing process. Use this resource for tips and guidelines to help you communicate effectively.

This documnet provides guidlines on how to effectively write about people with disabilities.

Everyday Words for Public Health Communication offers expert recommendations from CDC's Health Literacy Council and other agency communicators on how to reduce jargon and improve reader understanding. You can search for public health jargon or plain language words and find alternatives and example sentences.

The CDC Clear Communication Index (Index) is a research-based tool to help you develop and assess public communication materials.

• The Index has 4 introductory questions and 20 scored items drawn from scientific literature in communication and related disciplines.
• The items represent the most important characteristics that enhance and aid people’s understanding of information.

JFK Partners is a program of the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Colorado School of Medicine located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. Designated as Colorado's University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) Program, JFK Partners has collaborative relationships with numerous organizations that are a part of Colorado's developmental disability and special health care needs communities.

The purpose of JFK Partners is to provide:

• Interdisciplinary Pre-service Training that is family and person-centered, culturally competent, and community-based that addresses the critical values, knowledge, and skills necessary to build inclusive communities for people with developmental disabilities and their families;
• Continuing Education focused on evidence-based practice and research for a range of levels from awareness to expert content, and to interdisciplinary and discipline-based audiences which include family members and consumers;
• Clinical Services including diagnosis, treatment, and consultative services to persons with developmental disabilities and their families;
• Community Collaboration through consultation and technical assistance to and in conjunction with a range of community partners to include state and local agencies, providers, advocacy groups, and ad hoc issue-oriented collaborative groups;
• Research in the areas of descriptive, epidemiological, clinical and health services research which contribute to the knowledge base regarding the health, and well-being and education of persons with developmental disabilities and their families; and
• Dissemination of high-quality products written by JFK Partners faculty through a variety of methods, including electronic, and in adapted formats as appropriate.

This toolkit assists public health and emergency planners and nongovernmental organization (NGO) stakeholders in determining the capacity and capability of particular NGOs for disaster response and recovery. In addition, the toolkit fills an important gap in knowledge and understanding about the key elements that drive NGO participation. Revisiting the toolkit routinely can help an NGO monitor its progress in achieving goals for engagement in disaster response and recovery and for working with other NGOs in a community or region.

This online training provides foundational knowledge about people with disabilities, the health disparities that they experience, and how local health department staff can include people with disabilities in their public health programs and services. 

This research-based guide will help you develop intuitive health websites and digital tools that can be easily accessed and understood by all users — including the millions of Americans who struggle to find, process, and use online health information.