Cal PREPARE is a CDC Preparedness & Emergency Response Research Center (PERRC) based at the Center for Infectious Diseases & Emergency Readiness (CIDER), UC Berkeley School of Public Health. As a CDC Center for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP), CIDER is building upon its tradition of partnering with local and state health departments and its early emphasis on serving vulnerable populations. Cal PREPARE’s CDC research priority theme is “to create and maintain sustainable preparedness and response systems.

Mission

Our vision is “to be a national leader in public health emergency readiness research and training.” Our mission is “to conduct all-hazards research, training, and services that (1) improves the biosurveillance capabilities of public health systems; and (2) improves the capability of public health and local communities to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies.” Within biosurveillance, we will focus on early warning, detection, and monitoring; causal investigations and inference; information and data management, tactical and targeted communications; and situational awareness and decision support.    

Partners

To accomplish mission, we have assembled a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary all-hazards research effort involving the following partners:

• University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health: Center for Infectious Diseases & Emergency Readiness, Health Research for Action, Healthy Aging Research Network
• Monterey Institute of International Studies: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies

• State of California: Department of Public Health (CDPH), Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA), Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA), and Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS)
• State of Hawai`i Department of Health: Disease Outbreak Control Division

     

 

Research Projects

Based at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Cal PREPARE builds on CIDER’s expertise in surveillance, field investigations, epidemiologic methods, communicable disease control, and training innovations on preparing vulnerable populations for disasters. Because CIDER core and affiliated faculty were or are active public health professionals, we have established strong training, technical assistance, and research partnerships with the public health community. To become fully all-hazards and multi-disciplinary, we have added nationally and internationally recognized academic research faculty from public health and specialists in weapons of mass destruction. Although our primary focus will be the State of California (population 38 million), we will also conduct research in the state of Hawai'i. Click here for more information on the 4 Cal PREPARE Research Projects.
   

To implement our mission, we will conduct research projects in the following research project areas:
     

Project 1: All-hazards communication to improve the resilience of vulnerable populations;
Project 2: Early warning, investigation, surveillance: Epidemiology networks in action (EpiNet);
Project 3: Closing the chemical, radiological, nuclear gaps in public health all-hazards preparedness; and
Project 4: Cal PREPARE Exercise Laboratory (EXLAB): Systems research using statewide operations-based exercises.