Based on feedback from local health departments, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is standing up a Rural Public Health Preparedness Collaborative workgroup. Sixty-two percent of local health departments serve communities with populations of less than 50,000 people. We have identified the need to address the unique challenges of rural public health preparedness so rural communities can better mitigate, respond to, and recover from emergencies.

If you are a interested in working with other rural health departments to share best practices and lessons learned, develop recommendations and tools to strengthen the public health preparedness capacity of your department, email NACCHO’s Preparedness Team with a description of your jurisdiction and why you want to join the workgroup.