Chair: Meredith Li-Vollmer; Staff: Frances Bevington and Sara Rubin

The Risk Communications and Information Sharing workgroup held its monthly conference call on Thursday, November 7, 2013. Prior to the call, the group had gathered risk communications resources for possible inclusion in a NACCHO toolkit. The group discussed the resources that were collected and identified a priority for finding additional resources about live training events and legal considerations for risk communicators. The group also reviewed workplan deliverables and split these deliverables among the members based on volunteer interest. One of the workplan deliverables, a NACCHO policy statement, required a consensus among the members regarding a topic. The group chose to focus on the use of social media for emergency management for the policy statement. The group provided feedback on local health department communications needs during crises and emergencies that will contribute to NACCHO’s Crisis Emergency Risk Communications (CERC) Plan. Workgroup member, Denise Bingham, contributed to NACCHO’s Preparedness Brief blog through an interview highlighting preparedness issues faced by rural health departments in honor of National Rural Health Day.