Training for Disaster Response Personnel: The Development of Proposed Core Competencies in Disaster Mental Health

In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) established the Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) to educate and train the public health workforce to prepare and respond to acts of domestic terrorism, as well as other disasters that might threaten the public health and welfare of the United States. To facilitate this developmental process, CDC and ASPH established content-specific inter-CPHP committees referred to as “exemplar groups.” In 2004, CDC and ASPH directed CPHP network members to create the CPHP Mental Health and Psychosocial Preparedness Exemplar Group to address the mental health aspects of terrorism and mass disasters.