Project #1: "Applying the Extended Parallel Process Model to Willingness-to-Respond in the Public Health System"

The objective of Project #1 is to examine the influence of perceived threat and perceived efficacy on public health workers’ willingness to respond through evaluation, design, and implementation of an EPPM (Extended Parallel Process Paradigm) -based “intervention” at the local public health department level. Willingness to respond is evaluated through the administration of the Johns Hopkins Public Health Infrastructure Response Survey Tool™ (JH~PHIRST) in which baseline survey findings are used to design and implement a tailored intervention program to significantly increase willingness to respond and an individual’s effectiveness of response.

Public Health Significance:

• Understand why the public health workforce may be more or less predisposed to responding in emergencies
• Establish how a unifying paradigm (EPPM) might inform programmatic efforts to build response willingness
• Establish effective methods to increase individual public health workers' willingness to respond and efficacy of response to a public health emergency