About the 2023 Conference Theme
The historic response effort to combat COVID-19 has consumed our attention since January of 2020. At the same time, other all-hazards threats continued, and the need to address them has remained ever present. This response also put into sharp focus the need to place health equity at the forefront of preparedness to truly build and strengthen the resilience of our communities.
As we recover from the prolonged pandemic response and begin to define the endemic phase of COVID-19, natural disasters, emerging infectious diseases, terrorist threats, climate issues, and maintenance of all-hazards plans can now be reexamined. The theme for the 2023 Preparedness Summit, Recover. Renew: Reprioritizing All-Hazards Preparedness, will provide an opportunity to revisit these pressing issues and share resources, shape policies, and build skills to mitigate a variety of threats.
By renewing our commitment to all-hazards preparedness, we can equip our communities to meet current and future threats, while building response plans and frameworks that are inclusive, responsive, flexible, and adaptable.
About the Preparedness Summit
The Preparedness Summit is the first and longest running national conference on public health preparedness. Since its beginning in 2007, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) has taken a leadership role in convening a wide array of partners to participate in the Summit; presenting new research findings, sharing tools and resources, and providing a variety of opportunities for attendees to learn how to implement model practices that enhance the nation’s capabilities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters and other emergencies.
Over the last decade, the nature of threats to our national health security have changed significantly. As professionals in the public health preparedness space, we can expect these threats to continue to evolve. It is imperative that we adapt our public health practices to meet the demands of an ever-evolving threat environment. But how do we, as preparedness leaders, help our communities become more prepared to respond to and recover from uncharted catastrophic events? We can start doing so by discovering new and creative solutions to address events like pandemic diseases, the opioid crisis, active shooter emergencies, and cybersecurity threats.
Each year, the Preparedness Summit will feature experts from the healthcare and emergency management fields in addition to public health preparedness professionals to address the gaps between these life-saving industries in an effort to work more collaboratively and efficiently in the face of emerging threats. Reaching across these sectors will leverage diversity of thought and advance the capacity of our communities to respond to and recover from emergency events. We hope that this conference will provide an opportunity to build stronger partnerships and encourage us to find innovative solutions with our allies.