What to know
- Emergency response and recovery workers are a common denominator at any disaster or novel emergency event.
- It is critical to protect emergency response and recovery workers' safety and health throughout an emergency.
- Response leaders can use these recommendations to help prevent illnesses, injuries, and fatalities during an emergency.
Overview
Preparedness and response activities should address workers' safety and health during all emergency stages, including before, during, and after an event. This helps to ensure that only qualified, trained, and properly equipped personnel are deployed.
Recommendations
Safety managers, incident command leaders, employers, and other disaster site leaders
Information on potential hazards present or expected at a disaster scene helps to establish necessary safety measures. Safety measures are critical to prevent hazards and reduce potential harmful incidents that can occur at the worksite. Examples of safety measures are described below:
- Establish a system to manage personnel during an emergency
- Provide training to face a particular hazard
- Define the use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Install guidelines and mechanisms to be used in case of an emergency
The Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance (ERHMS) framework provides recommendations for protecting emergency response and recovery workers. Anyone involved in deploying and protecting emergency response and recovery workers can use the framework. ERHMS includes recommendations for all phases of a response, including:
Recommendations for people responding to disasters and large-scale incidents are described in a series of reports called Protecting Emergency Responders:
- Lessons Learned from Terrorist Attacks
- Community Views of Safety and Health Risks and Personal Protection Needs
- Safety Management in Disaster and Terrorism Response
- PPE Guidelines for Structural Collapse Events
Are you an emergency response and recovery worker?
What CDC is doing
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) can provide services to people involved in emergency response. Employees, unions, or employers can request an evaluation of possible health hazards associated with a job or workplace. Request an evaluation or email HHERequestHelp@cdc.gov to learn more.
Story from the field
In 2012, NIOSH surveyed emergency response and recovery workers following a vinyl chloride release from a train derailment in New Jersey. The survey was administered to assess:
- Experiences from the train derailment
- Responder health before and after the vinyl chloride release
- Details related to job training
Two resulting reports describe the survey findings and the implications of the release. The Technical Assistance Report and Assessment of Emergency Responders Following Vinyl Chloride Release from a Train Derailment describe:
- Health effects responders experienced during the incident
- Respiratory protection used
- Types of instruction and training responders received