We are working on updating, and further developing, our long-term follow-up plan that is an annex within the All Hazards Response and Recovery Plan (below is a description of our plan). Our long-term follow-up plan can apply to any event with long-term health effects including, but not limited to, radiation and chemical events.

While there are many disaster epidemiology tools out there, I haven’t run across best practices, guidance, or protocols for long-term follow-up. We plan on utilizing the Rapid Response Registry to collect information on those exposed and ASTHO’s legal tools for preparing for legal obstacles. Does anybody know of tools, protocols, or examples of best practices for long-term follow-up? Please leave a link or let me know where I could locate this information, thank you!

The Long -Term Surveillance Protocol Development function plans and initiates ongoing, systematic collection of data necessary for tracking health-related outcomes that may be attributed to an emergency event but which occur months or years following the response and recovery period. Long-term health-related outcomes include chronic health effects or diseases such as cancer, respiratory disease, disabling injuries, and reproductive outcomes for which a latency period (the time between the exposure to a hazard and the onset of clinical disease) of several months to years is likely.

In addition to planning and initiating data collection in response to an event, this function also plans for ongoing data management, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of findings by integrating newly collected event-related data into the department's routine public health surveillance programs. Routine chronic disease surveillance programs currently consist of respiratory disease, cancer, heart disease, stroke, injuries, diabetes, birth outcomes, and mortality. As needed, this function may recommend and plan for new surveillance activities for anticipated outcomes that are not routinely tracked by existing programs.