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Bridging the Gap: Utilization of Data Trends to Understand Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management Training Enrollment Among Health Care Professionals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2025

Kayla Marie Keenan Open the ORCID record for Kayla Marie Keenan [Opens in a new window] ,
Rashmeet Gujral ,
Matthew Isaac Harris ,
Corey Martinez  and
Mary Mahoney
Kayla Marie Keenan*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA Crisis Management, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, NY, USA
Rashmeet Gujral
Affiliation:
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Department of Emergency Medicine Hempstead, NY, USA
Matthew Isaac Harris
Affiliation:
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Department of Emergency Management and Clinical Preparedness Hempstead, NY, USA
Corey Martinez
Affiliation:
Crisis Management, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, NY, USA
Mary Mahoney
Affiliation:
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Department of Emergency Management and Clinical Preparedness Hempstead, NY, USA
*
Corresponding author: Kayla M. Keenan; Emails: kkeenan@pennstatehealth.psu.edu; kkeenan3@northwell.edu
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Abstract

Objective

The frequency of disaster and emergency events continues to rise. Despite this, healthcare staff report a lack of emergency preparedness knowledge and training. Therefore, this study aims to understand the professional backgrounds of students enrolled in healthcare emergency management training, with the goal of highlighting enrollment trends to better utilize resources and expand training opportunities.

Methods

Over two thousand data points were retrospectively collected from emergency management course registrations. Occupational backgrounds were categorized for ease of analysis. Test of associations between occupation and course enrollment were based on the chi-square test.

Results

Non-clinical professionals were significantly more likely to be enrolled in emergency management courses than clinical professionals. Of the clinical professionals, nurses represented the highest rates of enrollment, while physicians had the lowest enrollment rates, representing less than 2% of the data set.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that occupation is correlated to variances in emergency management course enrollment. Additionally, there is a lack of clinical professionals adequately trained in disaster response, especially physicians. Thoughtfully designed emergency management courses tailored to different professional roles could be a key strategy for improving enrollment.

Keywords

CBRNE: ChemicalBiologicalRadiologicalNuclearExplosiveCMIRT: Crisis Management Incident Response TeamHERT: Hospital Emergency Response TrainingeFINDS: Evacuation of Facilities in Disasters System
Type
Research Letters
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 19 , 2025 , e29
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc

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