The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck at 2:46 PM local time on Mar. 11 near the city of Sendai. The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at an 8.9-magnitude, and has been followed by dozens and dozens of aftershocks. Friends located in Tokyo, 200 miles from the epicenter, reported long, eerie shaking and multiple evacuations.

In his blog post about the 2011 MARCE Conference on Legal, Ethical, and Policy Challenges of Vaccination, Earl Stoddard outlined recent milestones and controversies in the vaccination field.

In December, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) began a program of randomly inspecting rider bags.

Emergency response providers constitute an occupational group that is particularly vulnerable to the effects of sleepiness and fatigue. Considering the work they do, such a vulnerability poses significant risks to the health and safety of the responders themselves and of the general public.

A college campus is run much like a small city: governed by its own leaders with its own rules and regulations. And much like a city, enforcing those rules and regulations is the responsibility of a police department, sometimes made up of dozens of officers at larger schools.

By Meaghan McCann
CHHS Research Assistant, summer 2010

There is a surprising addition to list of lessons learned from the U.S. response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak: sometimes being over-prepared has its own risks.

Nearly two months into the devastating British Petroleum oil spill, the incident has released a public and political flood of anger and pointed questions regarding the responsibility of private entities to take on effective disaster preparedness, particularly when the consequences of a disaster have widespread public ramifications.

FEMA’s Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (RCPG), not surprisingly, provides grant funding to selected urban areas across the country to improve catastrophic preparedness capabilities.

On January 16, 2010, CHHS Senior Law & Policy Analysts Robin Clark and Mike Vesely offered their expertise on terrorism and counter-terrorism for students participating in the Lancaster County Virginia Education Foundation academic forum.

The Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (MARCE) represents a consortium of 45 scientists from 15 research institutions located in the Northeast United States who collaborate to research and develop new or improved therapeutic, vaccine, or diagnostic products that can be used by the public h

The novel H1N1 (swine) influenza presents a new threat to public health and safety that provides excellent opportunities for CHHS to work in both health and homeland security simultaneously with old and new clients. 

CHHS has gained a valuable partner in Towson University (my alma mater) for its work on Maryland’s two resource management projects for the FY08 Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program. Towson’s Center for GIS (CGIS) will be working with us on what we call Project 6: Key Resources.

It’s a simple equation: Bring the right people together, get them talking, and you end up with tangible results.