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Emergency Preparedness & Response

The Emergency Preparedness & Response (EP) unit provides exercises, plans, trainings, and emergency response services to address all public health emergencies having a direct impact on the health and welfare of Wayne County citizens.

EP builds plans enhancing the resiliency of our community through a Whole Community approach. Enhancing resilience to all threats and hazards requires the community to transform the way we think about, plan for, and respond to public health crises in such a way to build community resilience and enhance mitigation efforts. It takes cooperation from all members of our community to effectively prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards

The EP unit is available for training activities such as Stop the Bleed, Extreme Event tabletop exercises, and other preparedness education should you desire subject matter experts in preparedness training. Please contact us at number below if you would like to know more.

Public Health Emergency Coordination Center


When an adverse event strikes a community within Wayne County, the EP unit activates the Public Health Emergency Coordination Center (PHECC) to address the public health concerns of our citizens. The PHECC is a workspace designed with incident management in mind and is managed by the EP unit. When the PHECC is activated, personnel trained in National Incident Management Systems will form the response team to respond to the needs of people of Wayne County.

National Incident Management System (NIMS)


Any response to a public health threat follows the Incident Command System as guided by NIMS. NIMS guides all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to work together to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to and recover from incidents. All EP staff must undergo extensive certification training in this system.

Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Capabilities

In 2011, CDC established 15 capabilities that serve as national standards for public health preparedness planning. Since then, these capability standards have served as a vital framework for EP. All of the planning and operations EP engages in fits into one of these 15 capabilities:

  1. Community Preparedness
  2. Community Recovery
  3. Emergency Operations Coordination
  4. Emergency Public Information Warning
  5. Fatality Management
  6. Information Sharing
  7. Mass Care
  8. Medical Countermeasure Dispensing and Administration
  9. Medical Materiel Management and Distribution
  10. Medical Surge
  11. Nonpharmaceutical Interventions
  12. Public Laboratory Testing
  13. Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation
  14. Responder Safety Health
  15. Volunteer Management

Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement

The Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) cooperative agreement is a critical source of funding for state, local, and territorial public health departments. Since 2002, the PHEP cooperative agreement has provided assistance to public health departments across the nation. This helps health departments build and strengthen their abilities to effectively respond to a range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological events. Preparedness activities funded by the PHEP cooperative agreement specifically target the development of emergency-ready public health departments that are flexible and adaptable

Cities Readiness Initiative

Since 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided funding for CRI through the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement to enhance the counter measure dispensing capabilities of the CRI cities.

CRI is needed to enhance preparedness at all levels of government and to provide a consistent nationwide approach to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a large-scale public health emergency. Past events have taught us that the risk of terrorism, including bioterrorism, being perpetrated against Americans, is real. The ability to quickly deliver countermeasures to a large population is a central component of public health preparedness

Contact Us

Public Health Emergency Preparedness & Response
Health Administration Building - South Wing
33030 Van Born Rd.
Wayne, MI 48184

PHONE: (734) 727-7030
FAX: (734) 727-7296