Summary of Tribal Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications (CERC)Training, December 8-9, Atlanta, GA

January 22, 2010, 11:30 AM ET

In December 2009, 55 tribal communicators from 29 unique tribes across the United States participated in this training course. The CERC/Pandemic Influenza course is a 1½ day training that offers a combination of influenza communication tabletop exercises and informative group discussions. CERC is an approach used by scientists and public health professionals to provide information that allows an individual, stakeholders or an entire community, to make the best possible decisions about their well-being, under nearly impossible time constraints, while accepting the imperfect nature of their choices. The CERC training program draws from lessons learned during public health emergencies, and incorporates best practices from the fields of risk and crisis communication. With this comprehensive training program, CDC has moved forward in meeting the needs of partners and stakeholders in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the threat of bioterrorism, emergent diseases, and other hazards.

This training session was the third to be offered specifically to tribal communicators. The first CERC training course for communicators to tribal nations was held April 10-11, 2007 in Phoenix, Arizona and the second was held in San Antonio over October 29-21, 2007. During the December 2009 training session, tribal attendees took part in the CERC "Basic" and "Pandemic Flu" training modules. In addition, all attendees participated in a tabletop exercise based on the current H1N1 pandemic. Because this training session took place in Atlanta, a number of participants took advantage of an opportunity to tour the CDC Global Health Odyssey Museum and the CDC Emergency Operations Center.

CDC's CERC program and access to on-line training modules is available.