Preparedness activities for the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine largely center on local efforts within two units within the school.

Tulane’s Center for Gulf Coast Environmental Health Research, Leadership and Strategic Initiatives informs and educates people about environmental health issues, including natural hazards. Recently, the center distributed 60 emergency preparedness binders to first-time low-income mothers participating in the Building Community Resilience through Disaster Mobile Health research project funded through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The binders contain information on how families can prepare for any kind of emergency, with an emphasis on preparing for hurricanes. The information includes the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Guide, the New Orleans City-Assisted Evacuation Guide, several brochures from FEMA, and labeled plastic pouches to store important documents.

The South Central Preparedness & Emergency Response Learning Center, which is a partnership between Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, has created a series of preparedness trainings developed specifically for Louisiana’s Office of Public Health.