Assessing Community Needs After a Disaster

After a disaster, all resources, including time, are in short supply, and community needs often skyrocket. It’s important to assess needs—for specific items, health care, emotional support, and referral to professional mental health services—to manage limited resources effectively. But it’s also hard to find high-quality assessments in a disaster’s aftermath, especially assessments that include mental health and substance use-related needs. This SAMHSA DTAC Bulletin highlights tools you can use to assess post-disaster community needs—and even the readiness of health facilities for an emergency.

CASPER Toolkit, Third Edition This toolkit is designed to help public health professionals and emergency managers use the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response, or CASPER, technique to determine the health status, including mental health status, and basic needs of a community in a quick, affordable way. The toolkit contains guidelines that can be used for effective data collection, sample selection, analysis, and reporting on findings to inform decision making after a disaster.

Damage Assessment Operations Manual This manual from the Federal Emergency Management Agency was created for emergency managers and other disaster responders to help them understand the most immediate needs of a community rapidly and speed up decision making and provision of aid after a disaster. This guide covers the roles and responsibilities of various teams, assessing disaster damages, and information about requesting federal assistance.

Comprehensive Disaster Assessment and Readiness Tools (CDART) This web page describes the CDART, which can be used to assess the readiness of public health and healthcare facilities for disasters and other emergencies. A readiness check tool, Rapid Disaster Assessment tool, and the Comprehensive Disaster Assessment tool are included in the CDART, which can be adapted for state, territorial, and local public health agencies to use for gathering and sharing information before, during, and after a disaster. The web page has fact sheets available for download and an email to contact for technical assistance.

Guidelines for Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment in Disasters This guide describes and explains how to use the Rapid Environmental Assessment Tool (REA), a methodology from the United Nations Environmental Emergencies Centre designed to help public health professionals and organizations to analyze environmental issues caused by a disaster and plan to mitigate environmental damage. This guide includes information on each of the three modules in the REA and assessment forms to help guide the collection of information.

Help Improve SAMHSA’s Disaster Services and Products As a subscriber to this newsletter, you are invited to participate in a short, web-based survey to provide the SAMHSA Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC) with feedback about your experiences with our products and services. The survey should take no more than 15 minutes. Complete the survey by clicking on this link, or copy and paste the URL https://iqsolutions.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bjYCSJDUQAGi1h3 into your web browser.

Subscribe to The Dialogue The Dialogue is a quarterly e-newsletter that provides practical and down-to-earth information for disaster behavioral health coordinators, local service providers, federal agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. You can subscribe to the newsletter or contact the SAMHSA Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC) by email at dtac@samhsa.hhs.gov to contribute an article to an upcoming issue.

Questions About the SAMHSA DTAC Bulletin? The SAMHSA DTAC Bulletin is a monthly newsletter used to share updates in the field, post upcoming activities, and highlight new resources. For more information, please contact: Captain Erik Hierholzer 240-276-0408 erik.hierholzer@samhsa.hhs.gov Nikki D. Bellamy, Ph.D. 240-276-2418 nikki.bellamy@samhsa.hhs.gov The views, opinions, and content expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).