This month, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) released the newest versions of the Project Public Health Ready (PPHR) criteria. The first-time application criteria are now version 10.0 (previously version 9.1) and the re-recognition application is now version 5.0 (previously version 4.1). Significant updates were made to both the first-time and re-recognition applications, as a result of updates made in the Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (PHEP) Capabilities released in October 2018.

The PPHR criteria is overseen by the Preparedness Planning, Outcomes and Measures (PPOM) advisory workgroup, whose members include preparedness planners from local health department from across the country. These workgroup members, along with NACCHO, update the PPHR criteria annually by reviewing each criterion for competency, clarity and relevancy to ensure that it meets the high standards of readiness planning.

Noticeable changes in the first-time application include:

• Version 10.0 adds 10 new criteria to goal I, with most criteria addressing healthcare coalitions and volunteer management.
• Eighteen current criteria and/or sub-measures and eight criteria and/or sub-measures’ hyperlinked guidance were revised.
• The criteria requiring applicants to submit evidence “quantities of the medicines and other needed items available in local inventories” was removed.

Noticeable changes in the re-recognition application (compared to the 2014 version 2.1, which is the version eligible applicants would have last used):

• Version 5.0 adds 38 new criteria elements to goal I and 10 new criteria elements to goal II, while 10 criteria elements were removed in goal I and 6 criteria elements were removed in goal II.
• Instead of requiring an After-Action Report (AAR)/Improvement Plan (IP) and Incident Action Plan (IAP) in Goal II, measure 4, we now require just an AAR and IP.
• The narrative section has been completely revamped and updated.

NACCHO has developed a criteria comparison document that further details the changes between the current version (10.0) and the most recent version (9.1), as well as a criteria comparison document for the current re-recognition version (5.0) and the version applicants would have last used to apply for PPHR in 2014 (version 2.1). These documents can be found by visiting the NACCHO’s Virtual Communities site, and joining the “Project Public Health Ready (PPHR) Applicant” group. Once joined, members can access the many available resource documents available for download. Note: users will need to have a free mynaccho.org account to access the site.

In collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PPHR is a criteria-based training and recognition program that assesses local health department capacity and capability to plan for, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies. To learn more information about PPHR, visit the webpage or contact the PPHR team at [email protected].