Improving Emergency Preparedness Among 9/11 Exposed Population: Implementation and Evaluation of an Emergency Preparedness Intervention

A two-arm parallel randomized controlled trial will be conducted to compare the effectiveness of a phone-based household emergency preparedness intervention with a mailed informational brochure on household emergency preparedness amongst a sample of World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees residing within New York City.

An intervention to enhance household emergency preparedness was developed to include the following topics: (1) an introduction to why emergency preparedness is important; (2) definition of what a disaster is; (3) family communication and evacuation plan (including, what is a family communication plan, why you should have one, communication plan checklist, family communication card); (4) disaster supplies (including, what types of supplies are needed, how long supplies should last, supply checklist; assembling a go bag , and storing supplies); and (5) The brochure included several resources, including disaster contact numbers for emergency and non-emergency calls: 911 or 311,, NYC Emergency Management, as well as website for additional information of preparedness: NYC.gov/hazards, which includes information specific to New York City hurricane evacuation zones. The phone-based intervention consisted of a 15 - 20 minutes talk session completed over the phone following the format and topics noted above. The informational brochure intervention followed the format and topic above and was mailed to participants during the intervention period.